Birth story - Catherine and baby Eve

*Trigger warning* - Hyperemesis gravidarum, mental health in pregnancy, use of word contractions, switch from low risk to high risk pregnancy, reduced movements, intervention, epidural. Previous pregnancy involved retained placenta and infection.

Previous Pregnancy/Birth Summary:

Quite straight forward pregnancy. Morning sickness until 17 weeks with acupuncture sessions to help ease sickness which worked. Practiced hypnobirthing from around 8 weeks pregnant and loved it. Experienced latent labour for around a week pre birth. Beautiful Home birth in a birthing pool followed by a hospital admission for retained placenta. My son had an infection which was thankfully discovered whilst I was treated for RP. He had a few days on NICU and a few days on the ward with me, and is perfectly fit and healthy 3.5 years on. It's amazing how you can apply many of the techniques of PBC after birth. The tracks would help sooth my son because I believe he associated them with calm.

This pregnancy:

HG sickness. Hospital admissions. Increased anxiety. First trimester depression. Self employed stresses. Started to enjoy pregnancy from around 20 weeks. Hypnobirthing helped with mindset. Daily affirmations. Preparing my son to become a big brother. Loving feeling movements. Felt very slow and tired towards the end. Amazing support from our hospital, peri mental health team and midwives.

Birth:

We had converted my teaching studio into a birthing room. Had hired a pool from the hospital and had the most amazing homebirth team from Leighton Hospital (oak team). The support has been unreal.

Reduced movements towards the end moved us to high risk and by using BRAIN we decided to go ahead with an induction.

My son went to stay with his grandparents for a few days.

Thursday induction started at 9.30 via pessary. I asked for a birthing pool and was lucky enough to get the only birthing pool on Labour Ward. But first - establishing Labour! It took around 17 hours. Paracetamol and codeine, tens machine, breathing exercises, good movies and music helped us through the most challenging aspects of this. Eventually the midwife suggested a bath and then said our labour room would be ready (and so would the gas and air!!!!!! ). Tried the bath, but was focused on the gas and air so only lasted maybe 25 minutes in there.

Gas and Air was LIFE. Immediately light headed and care free breathing through contractions and making light conversation. I was continually monitored and found the sound of my daughters heartbeat very soothing. I hopped in the pool and was in there maybe an hour when there was a slight concern over heartbeat.

From here, it turned medicalised. I was able to apply my BRAIN, and upon reflection they were acting in the best interest of me and my baby. Each step of the way was done with my explicit consent, no decision was made for us. I became stressed and needed help getting back into a slower breath on the gas and air. My waters were manually broken, last time they didn't break until right before giving birth. The amount of fluid blew my mind! My partner had to jump out the way to avoid it going all over him!! I made the decision to have an epidural at this point.

Delightfully, once the epidural kicked in, I went to sleep for a couple of hours and woke up fully dilated! We put our favourite music on, and waited an hour before being guided to push. I could feel the pressure of contractions just not the sensation.

It was euphoric. Two pushes before my daughter was born I was crying out of pure euphoria. It felt amazing, I could feel her coming through the birth canal, I felt her being born and as soon as she landed on my chest I felt the kind of instant love I thought only happened in the movies (this didn't happen with my first born). It was amazing. Whilst the midwives "sorted me out" down below, my partner and I basked over our daughter. In that moment we named her Eve and could not believe how much she looked like her big brother .

We had two polar opposite births. Our sons birth was perfect followed by some slight drama. Our daughters birth preference flew out the window and we ended up with the most beautiful newborn baby bubble. My second pregnancy was not easy but worth every second. Our son loves his little sister and we are gently easing ourselves into being a family of four x