Birth story - Emma and baby Russell

Its taken me so long to write this, but I'm still overwhelming happy about how my labour and birth went that I feel I need to share!

On the 19th I was happily spending the morning playing with my 2 year old, when out of the blue my waters went! This is how my labour with my first started so I managed to stay calm. I called my husband and he said he wasn't busy at work so wanted to come home to support me with our 2 year old. I also called the MLU to tell them (that's where I was hoping to go!) They asked me to pop in to make sure it was my waters that had gone. We waited for my husband's parents to come over to take care of Liam and off we went. By the time we had got there I felt like surges were starting so I was feeling very positive as surges didn't start naturally with my first. The midwife checked my pad and confirmed that my waters has gone, she then gave us the option to start induction straight away or go home in the hopes things kick off over night. We would have to come back at 10am for induction if things didn’t start naturally over before morning.

We decided to go home. Liam went to spend the night with my parents in-law. I had already booked reflexology that evening so went along to that still. In hind sight I wish I hadn't as I feel all of the travelling stopped the surges. When we got home I ran myself a lovely bath and played my MP3s then got into bed. I didn't manage to get much sleep due to my waters still trickling, and unfortunately no surges started up either! So off we went for induction in the morning.

We were put on a ward with other ladies getting induced which made me a bit nervous as it really felt very medical. At 12 the midwife gave me a sweep and inserted a tablet to try and start things. With the knowledge that, if after 6 hours not much was happening ,I would have to go for the drip. My husband went and brought some lunch whilst me and baby we're being monitored and then we went for a nice long walk around the hospital, getting in as many stairs as we could!

An hour later I felt an intense pressure and couldn't walk anymore so we went back to the ward and I asked for a birthing ball to sit and bounce on. I put my headphones in and closed my eyes to block everything out which definitely helped because pretty quickly my surges really started coming! Yay! 6pm came and the midwife came to take me to labour ward for what they thought was to put me on the drip. I had been so quiet they had no idea I was in labour! Walking down to the ward they soon realised I was having contractions. My husband made sure they knew I really wanted a pool If available and luckily it was! The midwife gave me an examination and found that I was a very stretchy 4cm. She asked if I was happy for the rest of my waters to be broken, which I was, the poor midwife got soaked! Well that really kicked things off.

They ran the pool for me, got me hooked up to the wireless monitor and I got in! They dimmed the lights and lit candles for me. I was so lovely! Not too much longer after I really felt the need to push, the midwife trusted me and told me to go with it. At this point I asked for gas and air. Unfortunately the monitor for baby’s heartbeat stopped working so I had to get out! My poor husband got flattened to the floor as another surge came as he was helping me out! I managed to get onto all fours on the bed. I used the gas and air for each surges which was just amazing. A few surges later my perfect little boy arrived!

Thank you so much to Siobhan and the PBC, the digital pack was just amazing and allowed me to be confident to have the birth experience I wanted, especially after feeling very lost the first time round!