Birth story - Claire and baby Willow

*Trigger warning* - Contractions (not negative for me), High placental pressure, Risk of still birth, Induction, second degree tear, decreased fetal heart rate.

It’s took me a while to figure out whether I was going to write this as my birth was completely different to what I had ‘planned’ and imagined and was actually quite stressful. It’s took me a while to get over it, but looking back it was actually really positive in comparison to how it could have turned out and all the things we were initially worried about were forgotten. I also read lots of these stories which really helped my and my partner.

So, starting with my pregnancy, we were incredibly lucky as we fell pregnant three weeks after making the decision to ‘start trying’. Throughout my pregnancy I had mild sickness and really bad food aversion, but this settled down towards my final trimester. I had heard of the PBC so I downloaded it and read everything I could about birthing techniques, positive affirmations and even got my partner involved

Everything seemed normal until around my 30week midwife appointment when my belly was measuring way above the recommended size (even though my tummy wasn’t actually that big). Due to this I ended up going in for a growth scan. The scanned showed that I was right on track (not big or small) but that my PI (impaired placentation) was high. This meant that my placenta was having to work a lot harder to push blood through the cord to baby. It carried an increased risk of still birth (which was mentioned quite a lot).

This is where the worry started, I was told that I really needed to monitor baby’s movements and any changes to go straight to hospital to be monitored. I was also booked in to have twice weekly scans and monitoring sessions to make sure the pressure didn’t become too dangerous. The last month of my pregnancy I was probably at the hospital 5 out of 7 days a week for various scans.

After lots of consideration, using what I had learnt in the course and discussion with my partner and consultant around c-sections, inductions or letting my pregnancy progress, it was decided that I would be induced at 37weeks, to minimise the risk to baby, and to honestly relieve me of the stress of being constantly monitored and obsessing over baby’s movement. This was not what I had planned and honestly I was quite scared to be induced at 37 weeks. There were questions around baby’s lung development, so I had the steroid injection to help them develop quicker.

Even though I was being induced, and with all the stress that was attached to my pregnancy, I still wanted to be in control of my birth. With that, I packed my lights for the hospital room, my pillow and room mist which reminded me of a spa and made my Spotify playlist.

On the day of my induction I had a nice shower in the morning, played some relaxing music and did some breathing, I was then asked to go to the hospital. My partner and I turned up and I had my first VE. In short I was told my body wasn’t showing any signs of being ready but never-the-less the first pessary was put in at 11am. I was then put on the monitor and the waiting commenced.

A couple of hours later I had my second VE and was given another dose, again placed on the monitor. I was okay so far, having small contractions, but breathing through them, watching some series and eating snacks. When I had my first major contraction baby’s heart rate dipped and took quite a while to recover, so I was kept on the monitor and there were talks of going onto the active labour ward, where I would have one to one care. We waited a few more hours and had continual monitoring but again baby’s heart rate dipped so I was taken to the labour ward. I tried to think positively so I saw this as a bonus as it meant my partner didn’t have to leave me.

At this point it was about 9pm, they were finally happy with baby that I was allowed off the monitor and had a shower! I was breathing through my contractions and didn’t need any pain relief at this point.

I decided to try and get some sleep, so we turned all the lights off, sprayed the pillow and bed with my lavender mist and put on my spa playlist and closed our eyes🙌🏻.

Around 3am my contractions started to really ramp up and became unbearable. My partner was reminding me to breathe and I was trying to stay in the UFO position. I also used the shower to try and aid the process. By 7am I was exhausted and in quite a bit of pain. I was given a VE and told I was only 2cm but they were able to pop my waters.

I was then transferred to the birthing room and given an epidural, I was asked if they could place a heart monitor on baby’s head as the monitor across my tummy wasn’t giving an accurate enough read. When this was done I was told I was 10cm and ready to push (took around 40 minutes to go from 2-10cm)

Due to having the epidural late I could still feel all my contractions which allowed me to be in control of my pushing. When I felt them come I was able to change me breathing technique and allow my body to move her down. It took around an hour to push her out.

Willow was born completely healthy and we have skin on skin contact. She had a really short cord so I wasn’t able to have a delayed cord clamping, as she couldn’t really be moved, so dad cut the cord and I had the injection to help birth the placenta, which took around 10 minutes.

Even though my birth wasn’t how I planned it, the course allowed me to feel empowered and have knowledge around the stages of birth and what to do. Willows now a thriving 5 month old 🌸👨‍👩‍👧.