Birth story - Amber and baby Louis

I got the digital pack when I was only 12 weeks. I read about it when we were planning and was super keen to get started.

Since around 35 weeks I started having a lot of false starts. Surges starting, growing more intense for hours and hours before stopping suddenly. They’d usually stop just as we started to get excited. After a few weeks, my mood really started to drop as the false starts took their toll emotionally.

Because of all the false starts, everyone was sure baby would be early so it was disheartening when it was the night before his due date and still no sign. I tried reminding myself that he’d come when he’s ready, which got me back into the right mindset.

On Sunday (our due date) I had the bloody show. I was so happy, I cried tears of joy in the shower. Our town had a large Christmas market on, so we walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere. I was going to get the turkey bap, but surges had started by then so I decided on the veggie chilli with quinoa for energy!

However, when we got home I went to the toilet. I had put a pad on incase my waters broke but the pad looked like it had a heavy period on it. We phoned the hospital who asked me to come straight in. We were totally unprepared and both started panicking. In the car I was trying to breath and calm down, I knew we were going to the best place and although I didn’t want a ‘medical’ birth I wanted my baby healthy.

When we got to the hospital I was examined and told I was contracting, 1cm and the cervix was very soft. But there was still more blood so I was told to lay on the bed and be monitored for a couple of hours while the doctors made a plan. The doctors came in at 8pm to examine me. They found I was 3cm so they offered to break my waters. I agreed as I knew it would speed things up. It was lucky I had agreed as the waters were thick with meconium. This made everyone panic and I was told I’d have to lay down for an hour and then they’d make a new plan, probably to start the induction.

After about 30 mins I needed to get up, the midwife had changed shifts and the new one was all for letting me do what I wanted. So I was up and swaying over the bath. At 9.30 I was in the zone, but it was getting very intense very fast. I was starting to doubt that I could do it. I thought I’d need pain relief soon even though I really didn’t want that. (I had gas and air with my first and it made me feel very sick, I also had pethidine without knowing anything about it and hated it). I knew this probably meant I was in the transition, so I stuck to it and breathed my way through.

The midwife was keen to examine me at this point. But I kept refusing. I knew I could feel a new pressure and I couldn’t bare the pain of them examining me again. I refused but agreed to get onto the bed. I was on my knees, leaning over the top of the bed. The senior midwife came in to try and persuade me to let them examine me. Explaining that they needed to see if I was progressing, if I wasn’t it could cause the baby distress. I used BRAIN and listened to my body. I knew it was doing what it should do.

Only a few moments later I suddenly needed to push. It took me totally by surprise and I started screaming with the pain. I knew I needed to get back into the zone and my wonderful fiancé helped me breath until I’d calmed down. Then I could really push properly and started mooing! I pushed his head out and let the surges do the rest. My perfect boy was born at 10:15pm, only two hours after they’d broken my waters at 3cm!

Despite all the things that happened, the fear and stress we felt. I had a wonderful birth and I fully think that’s because of the digital pack. I remembered to breath and stay calm so I didn’t let the fear/pain take over. Overall, I had pretty much the birth I wanted. Plus the immediate skin to skin made everything better!