*** Warning below is a very long birth story - not sure how it got so long ***
So sorry this has taken me so long to update. I thought I’d write whilst Everett has his first go in his sling, meaning he’s nice and snuggled up but my hands are free.
I went in for monitoring on Monday 23rd, the machine was picking up my tightenings but I thought nothing of it as they were the same intensity and frequency etc as what I’d been having for the previous 3 weeks. Of course once I got on the monitor baby also started wriggling around more (though it did take almost the whole hour for the monitor to be happy). Whilst I was waiting for the doctor to come round I suddenly felt really wet, I thought it was just lots of discharge so stood up to go to the toilet, before I realised it wasn’t going to happen and maybe it was my waters. I alerted the midwife on the unit and she didn’t even need to do a swab etc she could tell instantly it was my waters. I told her that if possible I was still planning on my homebirth etc, she said as far as she was aware they were still postponed, to which I said okay then, well I’ve got a personalised plan set up with the hospital. They said the doctor still needed to come and see me etc, before they could do anything. Nothing had happened to the contractions so I waited around a bit, and messaged my friend to let her know what was happened.
Once the doctor arrived, things didn’t go very well she was so so rude, and said because I’d had reduced movement I shouldn’t follow my personalised plan (that had involved the head of the hospital to approve) and should go to labour ward for them to induce the labour, as my contractions weren’t very strong. I told her that no way was that happening, and I knew the risks and benefits of induction and that unless I was over the 24hrs I definitely wouldn’t be considering induction. She must have used the word still birth around 10 times, by which point I was getting really angry at her. I told her politely to stop talking, and said “I have told you what I want if you are not going to follow that I’ll happily go home and freebirth, yes you have to tell me your perceived risks but that I also knew the risks of induction and because I was already contracting etc I wanted my wishes to be followed, and I didn’t appreciate her being so awful. She said she needed to speak to the registrar, when she left, I told the midwife I wanted her to be around when the registrar came back as I wasn’t willing to be spoken to in the same way the doctor has spoken to me. Well the registrar came back and said as I’d been told the “risks” and also knew about the risks of induction she was happy for me to go ahead with my personalised plan.
The midwife rang through to the MLU and I was gutted to learn the birthing pool room was in use, but they did manage to reserve me the pool room in the normal labour ward, and as per the plan, if I hadn’t birthed by the time the MLU pool was free I was to be taken straight around to it. Now this is where things were very special as the head of midwifery and the head of the hospital had agreed that due to them letting me down by not offering homebirths and due to my hospital trauma surround birth of DD1, they had agreed that my girls could be present at the hospital (this was arranged a few days after I learnt home births were suspended and all the midwives knew the plan, and the girls had already been to visit the unit). So I rang my friend and she brought the children into the hospital – they both had their own little hospital bags, with food, activities etc in to keep them busy. Once they arrived they were so excited to know baby was coming. By this point it was about 7pm, but the contractions hadn’t really changed, but I just trusted my body etc. The girls played on their tablets, and enjoyed the birthing balls that were in the room.
Around 9pm they came to tell me the MLU pool room was free, and they were just cleaning it. This room was so much better as there was no medical equipment on show, and they didn’t even have a proper bed so didn’t feel at all like a hospital, hence making it even easier to deal with my previous trauma as it didn’t feel like a hospital. We got into the room about 10.30pm and both the girls laid down on bed which is like foam or something, I’ve added a picture of DD2 on it and they went to sleep. I was still contracting as the same rate around 7 minutes apart, I bounced on the ball etc, nothing had really changed by midnight so I decided to try and have a nap, the contractions were still 7 minutes apart and just at the point where they were close enough to stop me really sleeping as each time I was almost asleep I had one, but they weren’t very painful and I could easily talk through them. I did manage to nap on and off until about 6am, when the girls also woke up.
At 6am still nothing had changed and I was starting to worry that maybe I would need induction, but tried to remind myself I knew the pros and cons and even at 24hrs I didn’t have to agree to anything. My friend had agreed to go into work, and the girls weren’t allowed to be with me on my own. As everything was so slow, we decided my friend would go back to mine with the girls to sort out my dog, and then take my girls to my mum’s house so she could swap places. As things were so slow my mum decided to stay at home with the girls and give them breakfast etc. The midwives swapped over at 7.30 and brought me some breakfast and also asked if I was okay with a student (which I was ). At around 8.30 my mum messaged saying her friend would come up later to bring them all to the hospital so that after baby was born she could drive my car and us back home without leaving her car at the hospital. At 8.30 the contractions were still the same, and I decided to ask for my first internal (it was in my birth plan not to offer them routinely and only give on If I asked.) Well at 8.30am when she told me I was only 4cm I could have cried! I honestly thought I had no hope or that it was going to be hours more. Well around 5 minutes after the internal I was suddenly really struggling to cope with the contractions, they’d gone for not being a bother at all to me needing to really remind myself about breathing (very loudly through each contraction). The midwife said she was going to run the pool, I told her it was too early especially as I was only 4cm a few minutes ago, but she insisted that they could just add more hot water when it was needed, I let her get on with it, though was a little amazed when the water ran from the ceiling. Around 10 mins after the midwife ran the pool I ended up asking for gas and air, (I hadn’t planned on using it but there had been no real build up in the contractions and they'd gone from even 7 mins about 45 seconds and basically no pain to every 2 minutes lasting at least 1 minute often more and being extremely painful. I remember ringing my mum to ask how long she was going to be and she must have know too it was happening fast as she ordered a taxi to bring her and the girls to the hospital.
Within a few minutes of my ringing her I started to transition (I know it was transitioning, as I always have 1 or 2 minutes of believing I can’t do it and saying so). I also remember telling the midwife that it was too fast, because I was 4cm not long ago. She was like no this it really it. And then out if the blue my body wanted to start pushing, I wasn’t even in the pool yet. I told the midwife I felt like I was getting ready to push and she helped me get into the pool around 9am. I remember one midwife offered to take come pictures and the other one stayed holding my hand through the contractions. I refused to push and just let my body do what It needed to do, especially as the children weren’t their. I managed to get the midwife to type in my phone passcode and ring my mum on loud speaker, don’t remember much about the call except her telling me the taxi driver was driving as fast as he could! I kept letting my body do what I needed during each contraction but didn’t push, as I really wanted the girls to be there, my body was naturally pushing a bit each time, but I knew I was safe to just let it do what I needed and not fight it. The midwife then told me my mum had text to say they were just pulling up (I learnt later that this text was at 9.08 am) and then all of a sudden, they were in the room. I remember crying at this bit as they’d made it in time. Both the girls came and stood round the front holding my hands and my mum was happy to take pictures. With the next few contractions I pushed with my body as I knew it was okay for baby to be born any time. I pushed until midwife said baby was crowning at which point I just let my body take over again. In end baby crowned and was born in the same motion, with tiny little coached pushed as per midwife’s instructions. I reached down and caught baby myself and lifted baby to the surface he was born at 9.17am, literally 9 minutes after my girls arrived at the hospital, if I’d have pushed with my body any earlier they probably would have missed it. I positioned baby so the girls and I could both see what sex baby was, no one told them they got to look themselves. By this point they were super emotional in the best was possible.
After he was born I had wanted delayed cord clamping and they did this for as long as possible, in the end though apart from a gasp when he first came up from the surface baby was being a little too lazy to breathe on his own. They left him as long as possible, from inside my little bubble I remember the midwife telling the student they could leave the baby until the cord stopped pulsing as until then it was still providing him with enough oxygen. Only when it stopped and he still wasn’t breathing did they take him, after literally one minute of was screaming away and he was brought back to the pool, and the girls got to touch him for the first time. My eldest asked if they could know what name I’d chosen as I hadn’t told anyone and they loved it instantly I asked for a physiological third stage, which id never had with my other two (I had two injections with each of them and they’d made me so poorly). I held Everett the whole time whilst waiting for the placenta to deliver. Once the placenta had delivered, I transferred to the bed/not bed, and at no point did anyone try and take my (which is exactly how I wanted it in my birth plan) then the midwives left us alone to have a full golden hour or skin to skin. Once I’d had my golden hour each of the girls also had skin to skin time whilst the midwives checked I didn’t have any tears, I just had a little graze. I had a shower to clean up as part of my plan was that I also went basically straight home after he was born. Once I was cleaned up, they weighed baby and the girls and I dressed him together just like was in my birth plan. The midwives brought us more food, went and registered him to get him and NHS number and we were discharged and home within 3 hours of him being born. (with agreement for his hearing check to be as an out patient and his 6 hour check to be done within 72 hours of birth by a community midwife)
I am so sorry it’s so long. I’ve added some family friendly pics too!
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