Birth story - Eilish and baby Saoirse

What a journey! I bought this guide when I was 31 weeks pregnant! This guide helped me so much it was incredible. I was so nervous about birth and then Siobhan showed me through the course that there was nothing to be afraid of.

I was so nervous because my birthing centre wouldn’t let me have my baby there if I was 42 weeks or over. So I was on a time crunch. I had been having sonograms since becoming 41 weeks and all was well in the belly. The morning of the 21st, I had mild almost “diarrhoea” cramps that felt different when I was at my sonogram appointment at 10am. I went to the birth centre after to check in with my midwife....I was 3cm dilated and they did a membrane sweep (this was my third time...I had one done at 40 weeks and 41 weeks). I realized the cramps were definitely surges because as soon as I was done with the midwife, they intensified. I was hooked up to the machine to monitor surges and sure enough, they were happening 1-2min apart for about 30 seconds or more. I was so happy. I had the Freya app to track them and it was awesome. My fiancé and I went home and we were supposed to call the midwives if I was having them every 5min for over a min for over an hour.

So 2 hours later we were heading to the birth centre. I was only 4-5cm when I got there so they sent me home to labour and told me to come back in a couple of hours. When we came back to the centre again, I was a little disappointed that I had effaced a little but no more dilation. My surges were now farther apart. Then I became a little upset when one of the midwives offered me a narcotic to take away the pain....I said no. She also said I probably wouldn’t have my baby till maybe Saturday so to just go home. My fiancé and I went home and relaxed. I kept waking up to surges and couldn’t sleep...this time I was moaning during my surges...they had got stronger.

The morning of the 22nd, I took a bath and relaxed. My surges came and went but after my bath, they got stronger and I had a lot of pressure down there like I had to have a bowel movement. We called the midwife on call (which happened to be our favourite midwife, WOOHOO) and she told us to come in. We went in at 2pm and I was 6cm dilated and almost 100% effaced. My fiancé and I did a couple of stairs and walking, my mom and sister came to help, we snacked, all was well! Surges picked up but nothing I couldn’t breath though.

One of the nurses encouraged me to hop in the birth pool to relax at about 5pm...after 10 min, my water broke and I was making lots of noises during surges. The midwife ran in and wanted to check me. I was 8-9cm and had slipped into transition without knowing it. 20 min later, she told me if I felt like I had to push, to do it. I ended up having a little tiny rim of cervix left so the pushing swelled me up and on top of that, there was some meconium coming out but it was thin enough to not transfer me to the hospital. My midwife told me to maybe hop out of the pool to put some arnica on my cervix. I got out of the pool and after the arnica, I had to pee so the nurse and I went to the bathroom and I couldn’t get off the toilet because the contractions were so close.

I went back and laid on the bed to be checked for swelling and immediately I needed to push. I pushed for about an hour and the baby was out. The midwife and nurses were amazed on how well I did breathing. When my placenta came out, I ended up losing a lot of blood and being just short of a haemorrhage. On top of that, I needed about 20 stitches because my babies head didn’t mould so it forced itself out. So when the stitches were being done, I used up breathing to help me through it! Overall, such an amazing, empowering experience and I cannot wait to do it again one day!

Thank you Siobhan! ❤️