Birth story - Hannah and baby girl

With my eldest I had a 30 hour labour, she was back to back, facing sideways, I coach pushed for 4 hours and then had an episiotomy, forceps and 3b tear requiring stitching in theatre. Immediately after having her I still said I’d do it again however I’ve carried some guilt that I couldn’t push her out myself and felt a little like I’d failed 😏

Anyhow, fast forward to 20 something weeks pregnant with my second and I decided to do the online birthing course. Watching the videos made me feel mainly relaxed but also a little scared and nervous as it made it very real what I had to do 😬 I’ve regularly enjoyed listening to the MP3s and found them very relaxing to get to sleep.

So the day before DD, 18/9 I had finally finished my massive to do list of jobs and decided to treat myself to a bath, just before this I had a significant amount of bloody show. This continued to come away all evening and I had some regular tightenings for a couple of hours. I managed to get to sleep and woke the next morning with more plug coming away and an upset tummy - I was pretty much convinced labour was imminent as it started the same with my daughter - also on due date.

I had a nice relaxing day, having a nap, getting a few jobs done, a little walk etc. I felt sure things were going to start and as much as I’d like to say that I felt relaxed and excited, ill be honest and say I felt quite nervous! At 5pm I went to collect my daughter from her childminders and as I was stood in the hall about to leave, I felt my waters go (With a fairly small trickle). After the initial ‘holy moly this is really happening’ thought process I suddenly had a huge wave of calm come over me, it was lovely. I knew baby would be here soon and I could do it!!

We rang MLU who asked us to go straight in for monitoring which we did and all fine so got back home at 8 just as my surges were starting. We called for a Chinese on the way home, I had a shower, bounced on my ball and then went to bed at 10. I used my up breathing to fairly easily manage these surges and actually quite enjoyed how well I was getting through them but felt I had a long way to go after the very long birth with my daughter!! After an hour of snoozing between surges I had a very intense one at 11.15 and I felt the rest of my waters go with a pop!! From here things really ramped up but I can honestly say that I felt better during the surges than between them in some respects because the breathing helped me feel so calm and I knew I’d be meeting the baby soon!! Between the surges I did feel pretty much ‘fine’ except for shaking uncontrollably which I couldn’t seem to stop!!

At about 1.30 the surges had been every 3/4 minutes for over an hour and so we went in. They were reluctant to let me in because they said I sounded too calm but I was quite sure I wanted to. I was nervous about the car journey and found the surges very intense but still manageable so we parked in the car park and walked over to maternity rather than the drop off point.

On arrival the lady on reception showed us to a room (about 2.05) and said we’d have a bit of a wait to be seen because I seemed fine and they were busy. I did a quick wee sample and then suddenly freaked out and said I can’t do this it’s too much I need some help. Two seconds later and my body was pushing uncontrollably and I knew baby was coming. For the first two contractions I felt so scared and like I couldn’t go with it but as soon as I accepted it was happening and I’d almost done it I got right in the zone and started gently pushing her out.

At 2.17am our daughter was born peacefully and calmly - I couldn’t believe I had done it all by myself with no pain relief and only 10 minutes in hospital!!

I had a physiological 3rd stage and the placenta came away really easily after 10 mins, during this time we just had skin to skin and both recovered from the shock!

I literally cannot thank the PBC and Siobhan enough for giving me the skills to handle the labour and birth so differently to the first time. I feel I really allowed my body to do what it needed by being so relaxed.