Birth story - Hannah and baby Maisie

** Potential triggers: induction, contractions (the word is not negative for me!) **

My birth is definitely a tale of two halves. It wasn’t the birth I wanted or envisaged when reading the hypnobirthing book but it was still overall a positive experience and I hope that’s encouraging! 

I was induced at 41+5 and although I did research induction and used the positive birthing company book to support my decision I feel that in some way, as a FTM, I wasn’t strong enough to ask to wait until I was further along. It’s a very personal decision but in hindsight I wish I had used the statistics in the book to help back up my feelings. If you’re not sure about something then speak up!

I was given the pessary at 9am as my cervix was completely closed. I now know that women respond to this very differently and usually the pain isn’t as bad as I felt it! The antenatal ward I was induced on only used codeine to manage pain but I was having very strong contractions and was struggling to handle it. I would not have been able to get through the night if it hadn’t been for the TENS machine and the Freya App to help my breathing and get me through with affirmations. However, even with those things to help, by 4am the following morning the pain was too much for me to manage and I asked them to remove the pessary (again, something you can definitely do! You are in charge of your body!). Luckily I was 2cm dilated and so they agreed to put me on the list for the labour ward. 

Two hours later I begged them to give me stronger pain medication and I was taken down to the midwifery led unit and given diamorphine which took off the edge but didn’t remove the pain of the contractions. At this point I used BRAIN and I asked for an epidural. It was always the bottom of my list as I really wanted a water birth but I realised that I was in so much distress and had hardly dilated in over 24 hours that I wouldn’t be able to manage days of this without something stronger. My body knew what it needed and so I went with it.

I had the epidural fitted at 3pm and was immediately relieved from the intense pain I had. At this point my husband was able to join me as per coronavirus rules and they broke my waters. It’s worth mentioning for anyone worried about epidural, I could feel my legs the whole time and I was able to move my legs and feet but not put any weight on them. It is nowhere near as frightening as I had thought. As soon as it was fitted I was able to go back to the affirmations in the book and my husband said them to me too! I was checked at 5pm and I was still only 3cm dilated so we were prepared this was going to likely be a long time. At 6pm I suddenly felt the urge to pass stool even with the epidural and embarrassed I told my midwife thinking she’d have to clear it off the table! She gave me another check and I’d gone from 3cm dilated to 10cm in one hour! A lot of this was the pain relief, the affirmations and being able to have my partner!

They asked me to wait until 7pm for the baby to descend down the birth canal naturally and so I used the Freya app breathing again which was extremely helpful! At 7pm I started pushing and Maisie was born in fifteen minutes. The birth part of my story was incredible, I was positive throughout and due to the breathing exercises was able to focus on how surreal and wonderful giving birth really is! I actually wish I could relive it again - anyone else feel like that?!

Thank you to all you Mamas who post your stories, I went through them like mad before I went in! Thank you to PBC for all your advice, help and tips.