Birth story - Anna and baby Flora

*Trigger warning* - mention of contractions (not negative for me)

My first son’s birth story is also here, it was a straightforward delivery, however, I really struggled to be in the zone during active labour and the pushing stage, which I found the hardest part.

Fast forward to this second pregnancy, everything was fine, had mild nausea in the first trimester and horrible indigestion and heartburn the rest of the time. I definitely felt much more exhausted this time around having a toddler, plus insomnia in the last trimester didn’t help!!

My due date came and went, I was quite surprised since I thought she was coming earlier. She was extremely low and had constantly Braxton Hicks and pressure in my pelvis area! However, she was probably waiting for my mother to come over from Italy on Tuesday 20/09. On that day, I started to have more painful Braxton Hicks but they were very irregular and didn’t feel like they were contractions because I didn’t remember them that way, so I believed it was just my body starting to warm up. The following day at 5am I woke up with contractions coming every 15 min, but they were so mild that I kept dozing on and off until 7am.

I woke up, had breakfast and got my son ready for nursery. I then had a bath and washed my hair thinking this might be the day but wasn’t still overly confident! Around 9am wanted to go for a walk with my partner to the local coffee shop and enjoy the sunshine (and also wanted to move baby from back to back as she was, I was feeling my contractions on my lower back like with my son so I knew she was back to back, I was adamant to be as upright and mobile as possible), but after 5 min of walking I felt contractions were getting a bit stronger so decided it was better to head back and bounce on my ball.

Once home I put the tens machine on (highly recommend!!), headphones on with Zen Jungle with Jayli (someone recommended it here, it’s amazing really helped me stay in the zone) and switched between bouncing on my ball and staying on all four on the bed. I was also snacking and drinking lots of water and lucozade in between (my first labour was during the evening and night so I just stayed in bed the whole time without having anything to drink or eat and was a big mistake as ended up exhausted!). It was all very manageable using up breathing and tens machine, there was 5-6 min gap in between contractions as well so I could rest.

Around 12pm I started to watch an episode of the office to get some oxytocin going and really laughed, I think this helped speed up things as well. Contractions were now every 3-4 min and getting longer, my breathing was starting to change and I was making some OM noises, so I thought things were ramping up! However because there was still 3-4 min gap in between and kept thinking in my previous labour they were more painful I still wasn’t sure if it was time to go to the hospital. My partner decided for me and after one last minute trip to the loo (for the 10th time that morning) decided to call my father in law to give us a lift to the hospital. I told my father in law to not go too far in case we had to go back home (little did I know!). We arrived at 1.10pm, went straight to get examined but I don’t think the midwife believed I was far along (and neither did I, again it was all so much different than my first labour!) because I made some jokes in between contractions. I was 7-8cm!!! The examination was really uncomfortable and I was having strong contractions now and stared to think I couldn’t cope for other 2-3 hours (again little did I know I was about to push!), so we decided to head to the pool room on the floor above.

She insisted I walked the stairs though and not take the lift just in case. I did the first step and went on all 4’s as I thought I needed to throw up, had a big contraction and whilst making a true animal noise my waters broke! As soon as my waters broke I felt baby’s head was crowning. My midwife told me not to have a baby there but there was no way I could stop my body from pushing! I removed the leggings as fast as I can, with 1 push the head was out (didn’t even feel the ring of fire!) and the second push the whole body slipped out at 1.40pm. I couldn’t believe I gave birth on the stairs whilst other doctors were passing by!

I felt so empowered! It was so much different than my first and honestly not that painful! We went up to the delivery room, I had the injection to get the placenta out and found I didn’t need any stitches (same with my first as well), yay!

We were discharged at 6pm the same day and went home to introduce my son to his little sister (he didn’t want to touch her, he claimed her hair was dirty, toddlers hey)

Tips I think helped this time around: having a good night sleep before going into labour, being in UFO position, keep yourself hydrated and get some snacks in, tens machine, a good playlist to be “in the zone” and focus on your breathing.

I had such a lovely experience this time around that I told my partner I could do it again easily!