Birth story - Francesca and baby Emmie

*Trigger warning* – Reduced heart rate, use of word contractions.

On Saturday 9th July @ 01:30am my waters broke, I didn’t quite believe that’s what had happened at the time as it didn’t feel like what I’d imagined.

I’d spent most of my night googling “Have my waters broken” and what it could have been instead.

When my partner woke in the morning, I explained what had happened, he suggested calling the Midwife led unit I’d planned on Birthing our baby in.

The midwife agreed it sounded as though my waters had broken, she asked us to come into them, as and when we were up and ready, to be checked over.

Once we arrived, we were taken straight in to be examined. She agreed our little baby girl was on her way and my waters had broken.

We were given the option to either go home and wait for contractions to start or to go to the JR hospital and get induced.

We decided that we’d like to go home in the hope contractions came on naturally, hours went by with no contractions or twinges of any kind.

Come 20:30 we were in the JR where they monitored our babies heart rate, her heart rate was healthy, and they were happy that I was doing ok as well.

They advised the labour ward was extremely busy so I could either wait on the sixth floor where they had rooms that I could stay but my partner couldn’t, so would have to go home out of visiting hours or I could go home.

With that, we were on our way home again.

They called the following morning to get me back in.

Once we were back at the hospital, they began the process of giving me antibiotics to prevent any infection as my waters were already gone and put me on the Oxytocin drip.

After a good hour on the Oxytocin drip no contractions had started but my Babies heart rate had dropped. This then dropped so much that they couldn’t pick up the heartbeat on the monitor, with this I was rushed to theatre for an emergency C-Section.

By the time we’d got to theatre her heart rate had picked back up again so they gave me the option of going through with the C-section or returning to my room in the hope contractions eventually started, we decided on giving it another go without surgery.

Every time they got me hooked back up to the Oxytocin drip, we lost our babies heartbeat.

After the third attempt they gave me the option of trying one more time then I would have to go for a C-section or going straight for the C-section.

We asked to have 10 minutes to discuss it between us, my partner reminded me to use my B.R.A.I.N, we then decided the only logical thing as far as we were concerned was to agree to the C-section, we didn’t want to put any more stress on our baby.

They then explained the process and risks of a c-section and got us to sign some paperwork.

The midwives and doctors were extremely reassuring throughout the evening.

Even though I was about to have major surgery I felt calm and excited to meet our baby girl.

The anaesthetist was amazing and kept both myself and my partner calm and happy in the knowledge we were in the best hands.

Within 20 minutes our Baby girl was there! I’d never felt such love for something so instantly.

We were then taken to the observation ward where I stayed overnight, and my partner returned home for a brief few hours as requested by the nurses on the ward.

It was the oddest feeling being alone with my baby girl, I couldn’t take my eyes off her!

Although the birth of our baby didn’t go as planned, I’d always been prepared something like this may happen, and I believe I wouldn’t have remained so calm if I hadn’t completed the hypnobirthing course.

PS. We had a baby shower in June where we had baby prediction cards, and no one could have possibly guessed that she would have arrived nearly three weeks early, and not only early but on my birthday! The best birthday present ever!