Birth story - Hannah and baby Lily

I had the best birth I could have imagined despite having to give birth to my first baby in a middle of a global pandemic.

In the weeks running up to my due date my husband and I have never been so stressed. The hospital and community midwife team seemed to be dealing with changing Covid19 policy weekly. We emailed private hospitals to enquire about booking an elective caesarean to ensure my husband was present at the birth. This would have meant spending all our life savings but at the time it felt not only necessary but essential.

I had tried every old wives tale remedy to kick start labour in a hope that we wouldn’t go overdue and hit the expected peak in Coronavirus cases. We went on a walk at around 4pm on the Monday. I really struggled with mobility and the walk was slow but the longest we had done in weeks.

I began having contractions at around 5.30pm and I put on my Tens machine, bounced on the ball and settled into watching our favourite films all the time practicing my up breathing. My contractions were steadily 5 mins apart and lasting for 60 seconds. My husband rang the labour line to ask for advice and we were told to wait until my contractions were every 2 mins and lasting 45-60 seconds to come to the hospital. We waited patiently for hours (all night) and there was no change in the contractions and by 7am they had started to fade.

Upset, tired and sore I took myself to bed. I then slept all day on Tuesday feeling the odd strong contraction once every 30 mins or so but didn’t get my hopes up. I jokingly said to my husband at bedtime, I bet I go into labour in the middle of the night tonight and didn’t think much of it.

I woke up at 3.30am having strong contractions which I began timing on the Freya app. I didn’t want to wake my husband in case it was another false alarm and he had been working during the day after our all night false labour the previous night. I left it about 2.5 hours before the sensation of the contractions was getting a bit more intense to wake him. He ran me a bath and got me some toast and we talked through our early labour plan.

We set our environment as Siobhan suggests in the digital pack. Low lighting in our bedroom, Disney’s Hercules on the tv, the ball next to the bed so I could bounce on it whilst leaning on a pile of cushions the bed (UFO) and used the Tens machine to distract myself.

I laboured in our room until around 10.30am when I knew we had to call the hospital. I was fully expecting them to advise we waited longer at home but instead they asked us to go in.

This is when the Freya app was a godsend. I put my noise cancelling headphones on and listened to Siobhan’s voice on the Freya app as we drove to the hospital and it kept me calm during the uncomfortable journey.

My husband wasn’t allowed with me until I was in established labour due to the covid restrictions which meant I had to get myself from the car to the Maternity unit. This was really hard and I found it distressing being without my birth partner. The triage to enter the ward took about 25 mins during which I nearly lost it and panicked but instead I concentrated on Siobhan’s voice and my up breathing whilst rocking forward onto a chair in the hallway outside the maternity unit surrounded by strangers.

Once I was let into the ward I was checked over by the midwives and told I was 4 cm dilated and ready to be moved to the birth centre.

This all happened pretty fast and I was so grateful to have had my headphones and the Freya app with me. I was able to stay in my zone and focus on my breathing and not that I was alone.

Once on the birth centre I was checked in to a room by a wonderful midwife and fully expected to get left in there alone for a few hours but instead she said my husband could join me. I think The relief at this news of this must have caused what happened next: as my husband entered the room my waters broke in true hospital drama style with a huge pop and the feeling that some one had thrown a bucket of warm water all over my lower half. My contractions intensified massively at this point and I was so grateful when the midwife said that we could move into the birth pool.

The water was lovely and really helped with the intensity of the surges. I had specified in my birth plan that I didn’t want to be offered pain relief, I would ask I wanted any. I asked for something to take the edge off and was given Eqinox gas which was amazing! I laboured for 7 hours with my husband by my side and the midwife who made us feel so safe.

I had a bit of a wobble about 5 hrs in where I asked if it was too late for an epidural which I recognised somewhere in my brain as transition but it was too late to have one.

The next two hours I was definitely in “labour land” I don’t remember anything happening around me including new midwives joining us due to a shift change. All I remember was the sensation to bare down and intense pressure.

I kept up with the up-breathing as I had kept me going so far.

The midwives told me they could see my babies head and that they couldn’t believe how much hair she had. That spurred me on to dig deeper than I ever thought imaginable given how exhausted I was and I panted out our beautiful baby girl after 7 hours in the birth pool. It was absolutely surreal and I remember asking my husband “is she really here?” as the midwives passed her up through my legs.

She was a bit startled at arriving and we weren’t able to have delayed cord clamping as the midwives wanted to check her over. After a few minutes (which felt forever) she started crying and the midwives gave her to my emotional Husband for some skin to skin Contact.

I had the physiological delivery of the placenta I requested and was then checked over by the midwives.

Amazingly I only had a small tear and I declined stitches. Tearing was my biggest labour fear so to get this news was fantastic and I put it down to the down breathing I did to pant/push through the ring of fire calmly. (For ten minutes!!!)

Sadly my husband was only allowed to stay with us for an hour after our daughters birth which slightly burst our elated happy bubble but 36 hours later we were reunited as a new family couldn’t be happier.

I have highly recommended the positive birth company to all my pregnant friends after I was recommended it by my best friend. I feel it my duty to pay it forward :)