Birth story - Ella and baby girl

*Trigger warning* - previous 3rd degree tear, meconium in waters, use of word contractions

Despite a tough pregnancy I had such a positive birth experience for a second time and wanted to share, as someone who had a previous third degree tear, as I was anxious about this before my baby came!

After several weeks of contractions and uncertainty (irritable uterus) I woke up to a bloody show the morning of my daughter’s birthday.

This was exciting and shortly after getting my toddler dressed I felt some contractions come. They weren’t too painful and were a bit sporadic so I bounced on my ball and managed them for an hour or so and then felt tired so had a sleep and some lunch. The contractions tapered off a bit so we went for a walk in the hopes things would get started again.

At around 5:30pm the contractions returned. They went from non existent to very intense and I was having 3 surges in 10 minutes very quickly! I knew it was time to go in so I rang labour ward. The car journey was rough, but I blasted my favourite upbeat music and used up breathing to manage the contractions.

We arrived at 6:45pm and I accepted a cervical check to see where we were and I was 6cm! I walked round to the labour room, sat down and my waters broke immediately. They had meconium in so I had to have monitoring done to keep an eye on baby. At this point people were rushing around a bit as I had just arrived and things were happening fast!

One of the lovely midwives got my LED tea lights out for me but we truly didn’t have time for anything else as I was on the bed on all fours breathing and mooing pretty quickly. I had a previous 3rd degree tear so we opted for me to be sat upright and open for good support of my perineum when I felt like I wanted to push.

I breathed her down and used gas and air, letting everything stretch out and her head was out in just one push! Her body followed with a second push. I couldn’t believe how quick it was and I felt incredible. The midwives supported me with a warm compress and despite my previous tear I just had a little nick this time that required two stitches and wasn’t too sore. She was born at 8:15pm, so less than 3 hours after my first big contraction and an hour and a half after getting to hospital!

I held baby on my chest where she had her first feed, we had delayed cord clamping and soaked up the golden hour with the NHS tea and toast. I got up to have a shower a couple of hours later! My birth experience was powerful and positive, the midwife even complimented me on my breathing which was lovely.