Birth story - Becky and baby Rae

Things started for me on Monday 25th February as I’d started to lose my plug, however I wasn’t aware that it was that until I discussed it that day in work 🙈 as it was clear, I’d only ever heard about it being bloody or brown! All that day I was having period like cramps and random contractions. On Tuesday 26th I had a routine monitoring appt at the hospital as baby had had a few bouts of reduced movement and I had been diagnosed with polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid) after not meeting the criteria for movement on the monitors a consultant was sent to see me. Plus they were picking up my contractions on the monitors too. The consultant talked about induction with a pessary etc, I’d explained I wasn’t really wanting to go down this route as I wanted everything natural, plus I was scared about it ending in a section (with my heart condition I was told in labour I wasn’t allowed a birthing pool, any pain relief and if I needed a section it would be done under general) however I did say it was all about the safety of baby and if that had to happen then so be it! He asked if he could examine me and see what was happening before we discussed things any further. Luckily I was 2cms and my cervix was forward and soft, meaning no pessary needed they could just break my waters!

I was booked in for my waters to be broken on Thursday 28th unless things obviously started naturally before that. My contractions continued to be all over the show, and I was told I was in slow labour! Thursday arrived so we headed to the hospital, however, due to them being very busy on delivery suite I wasn’t actually taken down till the following day on Friday 1st March. My waters were broke at 11am, then I was put on the oxytocin drip an hour later at 12pm. My contractions continued to be random until I was in established labour at 4:30pm, I was 4cms at this point!

At 5:45 the midwife had to attach a spring clip to baby’s head as her heart rate kept dropping so they wanted to properly monitor this (still only 4cms by this point) I continued with my breathing techniques which I felt really helped and stayed bouncing on my ball as I had been since 12pm. At around 6:30pm the contractions changed, and felt way stronger and more intense so I put on my tens machine. By 7pm I was feeling pressure and the urge to push but the midwives changed shifts and no one was taking me on 🙈 At the point I was losing my focus slightly as I couldn’t understand what was happening but I knew something was different, so I got onto the gas and air, which did nothing other than throw me off focus even more so I gave up on it, my husband helped me to get back on track with my breathing.

Finally at 7:30pm shift change happened, and my new midwife (reluctantly) checked me to find I was 10cms and ready to push! I started to push at 7:45pm, 45-50mins later the doctor came in to say I had 10mins to get baby out or they had to intervene due to her heart rate dropping! Knowing I didn’t want this and I’d come so far I used all my strength to get her out! She was finally delivered at 8:53pm 💕

We were team yellow so it was even more amazing to find out we had had a girl! I am so happy I did this hypnobirthing course! It really did work and I was amazed at how true it is that your body will literally birth your baby, I loved every minute of labour especially when it came to pushing! Here’s a pic of our gorgeous girl, luckily my sister in law was also one of my birthing partners so we have everything filmed too 🙌🏻