Birth story - Chloe and baby Emmeline

On the evening of Saturday 4 April (a week before my due date) I went in to hospital having noticed, once again, that my baby girl had gone quiet. I was really just expecting to be checked over, reassured and sent home (like all the other times), but as this was now the 8th episode of reduced foetal movement, the doctor strongly advised me to stay in to have my labour induced. By this point it was about 1am and I was feeling pretty knackered so I asked to go home that night and come in for an induction the following day.

As my ‘plan’ up until now was to give birth in a candle lit birthing pool in the Midwife Led Unit, I found the idea of being induced and giving birth in a clinical environment quite scary. Especially as (thanks COVID19) my husband would only be allowed to join me for established labour. Having heard that inductions often take days to take effect, I imagined facing a long stint of early labour alone in hospital, both me and my husband deprived of the plans we’d made to get me through the latent stage, staying at home as long as possible. Not to mention the package I was sure would come along with it - syntocinin drip, epidural, the dreaded forceps and maybe an emergency caesarean to top things off. But having chatted things over with the doctor and understanding the link between repeated reduced movements and still birth, I decided that this was the route I’d take. 

By the time we got back home it was about 1.30am and I was completely exhausted, so I tried to get some sleep and then woke the next day to have a nice relaxing bath, delicious brunch cooked by my husband and packed up my lovingly prepared hospital bag ready to go! It felt so surreal leaving the house knowing the next time I walked through the door we’d have a baby in tow.

On Sunday my husband dropped me off at hospital at midday and we said our goodbyes at the hospital doors before I was settled into my room on the induction ward. At 2pm I had the 24hr pessary inserted. Although my husband wasn’t allowed into the hospital, I was pleased to be allowed to meet him for a walk at 4pm in the park opposite the hospital. 

Overnight I was disappointed to have nothing more than a few period pains, easily solved by paracetamol. I didn’t sleep much as I was so full of excitement and nerves so spent most of the night putting my LED candles and hypnobirthing MP3 tracks to use to relax my mind and body as much as possible, knowing that my body would be more likely to go into labour if I could. 

The following morning I met my husband for another walk and lunch picnic. Then at 2pm the midwife came to check my progress and take the next step of applying some stronger gel to the cervix (designed to take effect within 6 hours) this was served with a side of stretch and sweep. Afterwards I had to stay put in the bed for half an hour with monitoring while the gel took effect. Afterwards I FaceTimed my sister and got myself some dinner at 5.15pm. By now I had started to have some regular cramping, so I asked for a hot water bottle - 2 hot water bottles later I thought it would be a good idea to just get in bed and hopefully catch up on some sleep so I headed for the shower.

During the 15 minute shower I had about 6 contractions and started to wonder why they were so close together so soon! 

Feeling slightly concerned that I seemed to be hurtling towards established labour alone in a hospital shower I headed back to my room, put my nightie on, got my hypnobirthing tracks on and buzzed for the midwife. 

The midwife stayed with me for a while and when she soon saw I was having 4 contractions every 10 minutes she decided to examine me.  It was nearly 7.30pm and the midwife announced that I was 3cm - time to call My husband to come! By this point I could barely croak out ‘you can come now, it’s happening’.

I could hear my husband coming down the corridor asking the midwives which room I was in and I called out to him - I was fully in the zone - hypnobirthing sound track on, vomiting into a bowl when he arrived! I have never been so relieved to see him and breathed a huge sigh of relief as he immediately slipped into the role we’d been prepping for in our hypnobirthing practise- rubbing my back and coaching me through the breathing exercises with each contraction. The midwife came back and helped me put on the tens machine we’d brought with us - I cannot begin to say how brilliant the tens was for pain relief! 

At 8pm it was time to go down to the delivery suite - I got into a wheelchair (resplendent in pink dressing gown, eye mask and PPE). As ridiculous as it sounds that eye mask didn’t come off until my baby was in the world, but I think a large part of my quick labour was down to this small silky scrap of fabric keeping me in the dark and in the zone - during my brightly strip lit journey through the hospital and transfer between wards and rooms.

When we arrived at the Central Delivery Suite I was hooked up to a trace machine in order to monitor baby girls heart rate - I then stood and leant against the bed and knelt on the floor for the next few contractions. 

My waters were broken and afterwards I spent a couple of trance like hours bouncing on the birthing ball and ritually hypnobirthing using the gas and air in tandem with my breathing exercises and sipping water in between. At 10.30pm it was time to be examined again and I was shocked and elated to hear I was already at 9cm! 

Once on the bed I stayed there - kneeling and leaning against the headboard. The trace machine and bands were limiting my mobility and kept slipping off, so the midwife suggested clipping a monitor to the babies head to get more mobility for me and more consistent monitoring of the babies heart rate etc. Lying on my back to have the clip attached was difficult as I found contractions significantly more painful in this position.

At around 11pm I started spontaneously pushing - the strangest and most unpleasant feeling so far. To me it felt like an uncontrollable driving downwards sensation through my spine towards my anus - not at all what I expected and the intensity and lack of control I had over it caused me to panic a little (what I later recognised as ‘transition’).

The midwife encouraged me not to lose my cool now and so I started to go with it and push along with the urge (realistically I couldn’t fight it anyway!) The midwives also advised me to put my energy into a downwards push rather than into the noises I was making (I’d been almost silent till this point) but it made a huge difference and my pushes immediately felt more effective.

After about an hour the midwife told me that the babies heart rate was dropping in the kneeling up position I was in and asked me to move onto my back, but I couldn’t bear to go back into that position again so she suggested I lie on my side with my husband holding my leg. This was much more comfortable but I found it difficult to push effectively as I couldn’t properly brace against anything. The midwife suggested I try putting my leg in a stirrup instead and this made an enormous difference allowing me to properly brace and push. After another half an hour of pushing the midwife told me she could see the babies head and that she had lots of dark hair (something I will never forget and that spurred me on knowing I was so close to meeting my baby) on my next contraction the midwife guided me to feel my babies head which was a truly amazing experience.

After another nearly 20 mins of pushing the midwife told me the babies heart rate was dropping and that it was time to get the baby out - I started pushing with an effort like never before and eventually she said on my next contraction she would like to give me an episiotomy (something I’d previously feared) but in the moment I welcomed, as I was so desperate to just get her out. One almighty push and a snip later (that I didn’t even feel) my baby came out in one big slippery rush and was bundled straight into my stomach for skin to skin - a sweet podgy little girl with black fluffy hair, ours to keep. A flood of intense relief, tears, amazement and awe followed as we soaked up the new tiny person we’d made - our daughter, Emmeline Rose.