birth story - Kimberly and baby Libby

Sharing my birth story, as although it ended up the furthest from my preferred possible, it was still positive and I would do it a hundred times over!

I luckily had an amazing pregnancy with very little symptoms. In my first trimester, I had some nausea (not actually sick), headaches and struggled with my appetite. My second trimester was as hoped for, I was full of energy and most days forgot I was pregnant. In the third trimester I had heartburn and a lot of pelvic girdle pain, nothing that couldn’t be managed with exercises and painkillers when required.

I was however quite fed up towards the end of my pregnancy and initially had a sweep completed at 39 weeks, this caused me to lose my mucous plug and I did have a couple of days of cramps however, nothing further progressed. At my 40 week appointment I accepted a further sweep however nothing emerged from this. I was advised to book an induction which was planned for the day I turned 41 weeks, I accepted as like I say, I was fed up.

I went into hospital on the Saturday and was examined to begin the induction process. I was advised I was almost completely effaced and 3cm. The plan was to insert a balloon however I was told this would fall out therefore was given another sweep and sent home. I was told to ring Sunday morning to have my waters broken although I couldn’t get into the hospital due to the amount of ladies who were in labour. I was asked to go into hospital on Monday morning for monitoring due to being 9 days over and everything was fine.

Around 12pm on Monday I was asked if I was happy to transfer hospitals to another with space. This was fine with me so my husband and I travelled, via McDonald’s, to the hospital. I again was examined and was still 3cm. Around 4.30pm I had my waters broken and went for an hour long walk. I started having contractions, however these were very sporadic.

At 8.15pm I was started on the hormonal drip and by midnight I was having very intense contractions. Around 7/8 in 10 minutes, as it turns out I am very hyper stimulant to the drip and advised to not have again due to this. I started with the tens machine and breathing, but due to the amount of contractions and lack of break I was getting I began the gas & air. Around 3am I had a dose of pethidine.

At 7am on Tuesday morning I was examined and was 5cm, so I opted for the epidural as I didn’t know how much longer I could cope and I was exhausted. Come 11am I was 9cm.

However, my base line heart rate began to rise and sat at 135bpm. My midwife suspected I had an infection and so bloods were taken and it was confirmed. I was put onto an antibiotic drip and continued to be very closely monitored. For the remainder of my labour I remained at 9cm and due to the infection was told at 5pm by the doctor that an emergency C-section was required for babies safety. It was all very daunting as I’d never actually been into hospital before this labour but all the staff in theatre were absolutely amazing.

At this point my epidural was only numbing my legs and I therefore had to have a full spinal block. I was told I would be examined again and if I had made 10cm I would have an instrumental delivery however, I refused this and stated I wanted the C-section instead. The C-section was completed and it was amazing. My baby girl was 9lb 15oz and was put into my chest before being held by my husband. After around 30 minutes she was taken to be examined by paediatric doctors and required a canula (due to potential for sepsis from my infection), due to the time she was there I was asked whether I was happy for her first feed to be formula. I was still being stitched and was told due to her size she wouldn’t be able to wait until I was in recovery for a feed therefore I agreed as the thought of her being distressed and hungry without me broke my heart.

We both had to stay in hospital for a further 4 days for antibiotics every 4 hours, and as difficult as that was, it was absolutely amazing for the knowledge I got from the midwives and support staff in terms of breastfeeding.

All in all, it was a very unpredictable and wildly different labour and delivery than what I had dreamed of or expected. But doing the course helped me mentally to cope with that, and use the skills learnt to help make decisions best for me and baby girl.