Birth story - Emma and baby Fabian

After four previous miscarriages, I spent every day of my fifth pregnancy feeling anxious and waiting for something to go wrong. I bought myself the ‘how to have a positive birth’ book thinking it wouldn’t be much use as hypnobirthing sounded like nonsense: all I had heard was people saying how awful labour was, how would a bit of breathing make it any better? However as soon as I started the book I realised how much I needed it and how wrong my perception of what hypnobirthing involved was. Reading the book made me understand that my main source of anxiety was not trusting my body to do its job. It had let me down repeatedly and I didn’t believe it would see me safely through the rest of my pregnancy and certainly not giving birth. As I got bigger and there were more kicks and somersaults from my belly I started to believe it would be ok a little more each more each day. By the time I finished the book I realised something had changed: I had gone from terrified about giving birth and trying to avoid thinking about it to being excited. The change in mind set was a relief, it was exhausting being anxious. 

At 39+4 I had a routine midwife appointment, she offered a sweep at this point but I declined and carried on as normal. That night in bed I couldn’t sleep so was awake reading and felt and heard a cartoon-like pop followed by the gush of my waters very unexpectedly breaking. I called triage and explained my waters had broken but I wasn’t in labour. They said try to rest and relax, likely labour will start soon but if not I would need to be induced if it got to 24 hours post waters breaking and still no signs of labour. The morning came with no contractions, I was called to come and be checked in hospital. By this point I was getting a bit nervous as they booked me in for an induction at 11am the following day. I got home and re read the chapter on induction: it wasn’t what I wanted but I thought at least I will be prepared and understand the process. Lying in the bath with my music on reading it I started to feel proper contractions. I stayed in the bath as long as I could but then started to worry if they got much stronger I would physically struggle to get out! 

I started using the Freya app to time the surges, at this point and they were still all over the place so I thought I would be in a for a long night so got ready for bed. However as soon as I lay down they really ramped up and started coming much closer together. My husband at this point was reminding me of my breathing (having also read the book!) And the app was really helping with the breathing as well.

The app told me it was time to call the hospital which was helpful as it had happened so quickly I didn’t trust myself so it was nice having back up! On the phone, triage were reassuring but adamant it was too early to come in, having had contractions for an hour and with it being my first baby they were sure it was the start of a long labour. I took their advice, took some paracetamol, promptly vomited it straight back up, and said to my husband if we don’t go now I don’t think I will be able to get in the car. By this point I was pacing around the bedroom and needing to stop and lean on something when the surges came and I felt anxious about dealing with them while sat in the car for twenty minutes. We got to the hospital and the midwife was lovely but again very much convinced I was at the hospital far too early. She watched several surges and didn’t think they were very strong. She said I could be examined just to be sure or we could go home. I knew at this point I needed to stay and trusting myself, I asked to be examined. When she said “oh, you are 5cm dilated, I’ll call labour ward!” I felt relieved I had listened to my body.

There was a pool free so I was taken up to labour ward and into a lovely calm room. We had bought our fairy lights ready but the room was already full of them, so we got our speaker out and I put my birth playlist on that I had made. I also needed monitoring as the baby was having ectopic heartbeats but amazingly they had waterproof wireless CTG monitoring so I was able to stay in the pool.

Getting into the water felt amazing, I immediately felt much calmer and the surges felt more bearable. My midwife was so lovely, calm and quiet and encouraging. By this point I was using gas and air, she was coaching me to use my breathing techniques with the gas and air. After an hour or so in the water I had a wobble: I asked her what pain relief I could have and still stay in the pool. She said to me calmly "I think you are transitioning: you can do this". Having the knowledge of what this meant from the book meant I immediately relaxed and started letting my body do what it needed to. All I could think at this point was “I’m going to meet my baby soon".  

The bands from the CTG were slipping off and she had to keep repositioning them, so she called in a second midwife who advised I should get out of the pool to ensure better monitoring of the baby. I knew at this point it wasn’t going to be long and obviously the baby being monitored was my priority so I got out and onto all fours and shortly after he was delivered. The feeling of him being placed in my arms was indescribable.

I did have a second degree tear requiring stitches, but we were home the same day which was lovely. I was only in labour for 6 hours, and using breathing techniques, gas and air and the hypnobirthing tools Siobhan sets out in the book definitely helped me stay relaxed and calm. Even at their strongest the surges were never painful, just intense. And he managed to arrive 5 hours before the time I was booked in for an induction!

I have also kept the app, sounds silly but seeing the surges on the timer is actually a lovely reminder of that night. All in all I loved every minute of it and it was such a calm empowering experience.