Birth story - Jen and baby girl

Two days before my due date, I woke up at 6am needing to go to the toilet (standard!), as I went to stand up there was an almighty gush, no doubt about it, my waters had gone! I ran across to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, Waters still gushing. I finally went into our bedroom and told my husband ‘it was happening!’ 

We were both quite shocked as I had had no tell tale signs whatsoever of anything happening any time soon. 

I text my best friend Kelly who (very handily) is a midwife to tell her my waters had gone but no contractions yet, so she booked me in for day assessment at 9.30am as she said they would want to see me. Contractions then started and quickly got more intense, so I got in the shower to wash my hair, blow dried it and had some breakfast. We made our way into hospital for the day assessment appointment, in the car my contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes lasting around 45 seconds and very uncomfortable, so I thought things must be moving quickly. They took one look at me at day assessment and sent me down to my own room on the delivery suite. A midwife there checked babies heart rate and examined me to see how far dilated I was.

When she told me 3cm I very nearly cried, the contractions felt intense and I was convinced I wouldn’t cope as it could be hours and that I’d need an epidural- which I didn’t ideally want. My husband, Arron, calmed me down and I took 2 paracetamol! The midwife then told me it would likely be a while with it being my first baby, and suggested I went home or to the maternity ward... I knew I couldn’t go home (despite wanting to be at home as long as possible) so I went up to the maternity ward at around 12, which I was not happy about because I just didn’t want to be around anybody! 

In a lot of pain, I sent Arron off to get some food as we could be stuck there ages. As soon as he left I got an almighty contraction and rushed to the toilet- people weren’t lying when they said a contraction makes you feel like you really need the toilet!! Sat on the toilet, I had an uncontrollable urge to push, I knew the baby was coming. I had to press the emergency buzzer in the toilet, a whole load of midwives came running and rushed me down to the delivery suite. I was then examined and confirmed I was 10cm dilated. I had gone from 3-10cm in around 90 minutes!! I was relieved things were happening so quickly, and that’s why it felt more intense than I’d imagined, but panicked as Arron was still not back and I didn’t have my phone to call him, and didn’t know his number either!! Luckily he made it back just in time, and after 15 minutes of pushing on the floor on my hands and knees, our healthy baby girl was born at 1.20pm weighing 7lbs 14oz.

I used the breathing techniques the whole way through my contractions, and thanks to my friend Kelly’s advice- listened to every word my midwives said when I was pushing. I didn’t need any pain relief (other than the paracetamol in the morning!) or stitches, and have never felt so amazing as I did after giving birth. It’s something I’d always been nervous about and thanks to the digital pack and my incredible midwives, it couldn’t have gone better. I didn’t listen to any of the mp3s when I was pregnant, but for me knowledge is power, and just understanding what and why things were happening during my labour (thanks to the digital pack) helped me so much, and the breathing to keep calm and get through each contraction. I would recommend the digital pack to anyone! 

Thankyou so much