Birth story - Hannah and baby Amber

*Trigger warning* - Talk of pain, use of the word contraction (not negative for me), 2nd degree tear, blood loss.

***note: one year later and I’ve finally got round to posting this!! I wrote it the day after she was born, but reading back through has bought back all the smells and feels. Hope your births are positive for you too! One year on, we are just absolutely loving our girl and I genuinely look forward to hopefully doing it all again some day!

I used to love reading all these birth stories, especially the ones that started “I can’t believe it’s finally my time to share my story” and I genuinely feel like that now!

This might get a bit rambley (sorry!) but wanted to write it all down while it was fresh…

Pregnancy

Pregnancy was super straight forward for me. We decided to start trying at Christmas thinking it would take us a while due to issues with my periods when I was younger, and we fell pregnant within 2 weeks! I had a lot of sickness from weeks 6-17, being sick 7 times a day on average but luckily I was working from home so could nip out to be sick in between zoom calls. Other than that and some nasty pelvic girdle pain and some initial concerns at 36 weeks that baby was measuring small (she wasn’t) everything went smoothly. We ordered the course and watched together every night until we finished, we really felt empowered by the knowledge and science but I wasn’t sure if the breathing and relaxation would help me in the moment…

Labour

At 38+1 I woke up in the night with slight cramps/pressure in my stomach… didn’t think much of it but secretly hoped things were moving. At 9:30 I woke up to more pressure and a pop - my waters had just gone! I woke up my fiancé James (we’d been out for a couple of drinks with friends the night before!) and we started to get excited.

My waters were clear to begin with then turned pink which I wasn’t expecting so we called our birth centre just to check. They asked us to come in to double check which was all good and then sent us home again until established labour.

From there things ramped up fairly quickly. Within an hour the Freya app was telling us I was in established labour but the midwife had said to wait for 2 hours at that stage before heading back in. 2 hours later we went in to be examined. The surges were very intense, I was sick all over the hospital toilet and I was struggling to breathe through them effectively. I think this was partially due to the change of scene and also because I wasn’t allowing myself to relax between surges. I was 3cm dilated but they let me stay in and set up our room for us in the birth centre.

Our amazing midwife suggested pethidine to help me through... This was something that I had ruled out on my birth plan due but once she had explained the pros and cons we used our BRAIN and decided to go for it - anything that could relax me at this point seemed like a good thing to do. And I have to say, it was probably the best decision we could have made. The pethidine calmed me instantly and I got back in my green zone and was even dozing between surges.

Our midwives changed over at 8:30pm and the new ones were just as supportive and really helped keep the room calm and quiet for me. They said they’d examine me again at 10:30/11pm but I was scared they’d find I was 6cm and wasn’t sure how long I could continue for with that much pressure in my butt. Our midwife said 5/6cm would be great and expected at that stage but I lost it a little and had a quick cry. I did wonder if that was transition at the time, but was so sure I’d have hours to go.

I was examined and we were all shocked to find I was FULLY DILATED! I don’t think I heard a single other word the midwife said, I was just so relieved it was time to meet our baby!

They left me to breathe baby down for an hour and to just follow my body’s lead while they checked her heartrate etc, and before I knew it it was time to actively push. I ended up pushing for 10 minutes and our gorgeous baby girl was born all in one push at 00:32.

Post Labour

The placenta came away fairly easily and I was just relieved that it was all over as we had delayed cord clamping, skin to skin and baby was checked. I had a second degree tear that was stitched up while I had gas and air and we were moved to another room to sleep. We were very lucky that James was able to stay with us the whole time including overnight, so we spent the first night together in our little cocoon.

The next day we were getting ready to leave but I kept feeling faint when standing so they kept me in for obs. This meant an extra night stay but we were able to keep the same room and cosy set up we’d had. In the end they decided this was probably down to the amount of blood I’d lost (estimated around 700ml) and sent me home with iron tablets.

We’ve absolutely loved these first few days getting to know our baby and I’m so in awe at how the female body adapts and changes to grow and then birth a baby. The course was invaluable to us to teach us what labour actually is and how to make informed decisions, and I ended up using the breathing and relaxation tapes on the Freya app religiously for the whole labour - probably to my fiancé’s annoyance!

Also highly recommend the post natal course from PBC, we’re only got about half way through but have already used so much of what we’d learnt in her first couple of days.

Thanks for reading this far, and good luck with all of your births. You can do it, your body and mind is made to do this one way or another, and however it goes, it will feel magic because it ends with you meeting your baby.