Birth story - Jenna and baby Bria

During my pregnancy I had been attending a MLU but over the past few weeks I had had multiple reduce foetal movement episodes and monitoring at the hospital so I was booked in for an appointment at the hospital to discuss options. On the 9th of August I attend the appointment with my partner where they discussed with us about doing an induction as I had had multiple episodes of reduced movements and as I had previously experienced a loss I was monitored more closely. My partner and I then used our BRAIN to decide what was best for us and we decided to go ahead and book the induction for that weekend.

I was admitted on the Saturday 11th August and was administered a balloon folley in my cervix to be left in over night that would help to dilate me to 3cms by morning and then once at 3cms my water could be broken and the induction started.

At 5am the next morning the balloon folley came out and I was excited as this meant I had hopefully progressed but when I was checked at 8am I was told I had only dilated to 1cm. They then decided that they would administer prostaglandin gel and recheck in 6 hours hoping that would work to help dilate me.

After about 30 mins I started to feel some very light tightenings I decided that I wanted to help bring on the labour as much as I could so I decided to bounce on an exercise which I did so for 2 hours straight. After 30 minutes on the exercise ball the surges started to become regular and were coming every 3 minutes lasting 1 minute each and slowly building in intensity.

The midwife then came back at 2pm to check me and I told her I had been experiencing regular surges and I was checked hoping have progressed as contractions had started but was told I was only at 1.5cm and as it had appeared that my body had started to labour they decided to leave me for another 6 hours to let my body do its thing. At this point I had a little wobble and my partner refocused me telling me that we would be holding our little girl soon and that my body had responded and started to bring on surges on my own which was a good thing and that I should try to bounce and rest so I could be full of energy when the time came which helped me refocus and I then continued to bounce on the ball on an off for the next few and then have little naps in between.

At 9.30pm they came in to check my vitals and the baby’s heartbeat. The midwife had trouble finding the heartbeat at first and when she finally found it, the baby’s heartbeat was reading at 85-90bpm as opposed to her usual 130-145bpm. At this the midwife called in the doctor and the other midwife in charge of me and my labour to see if they could get a better reading but they weren’t able to.

The doctor and midwife in charge then checked me and I was only 2cm after now 6 hours of regular somewhat intense surges but as the baby’s heartrate had dropped I was taken from the ward across to the birth suit and put on monitors and given juice and some food to hopefully get her heartrate up. After 30 minutes on the monitors the midwife in charge came in and saw that the baby’s heartrate had picked up and she would discuss what was the next step with the doctor. In 20 minutes the doctor and the midwife came in and told me to breath the gas and air and they were going to break my waters to get labour going as it had now been so long with little to no progress, my partner and I accepted and at 1030pm on Saturday the 12th August my waters were broken.

As soon as my waters were broken the surges got extremely intense and my partner helped me through them but as I had now been surging since that morning my body was exhausted and I decided to get an epidural as I felt I needed a break and wanted to conserve as much energy as I could for when I needed to push. My epidural was administered just after 11pm and my partner helped me through the surges.

I was told that as I was a first time mum, I’d be slow to progress and it could take some time so once it started working I decided to rest and fell asleep and was only woken hourly for vitals and then would drift off again. At 2am I was checked and to the midwifes surprise, and my own, I was fully dilated which was such and empowering thing to hear after the long day of little to no progression and made me feel happy with my decision to get the epidural.

I then started pushing at 3am as the epidural was beginning to ware off I was able to feel when I needed to push which was something I had specified I had wanted from the beginning and at 4.03am on Monday the 13th August my little girl was born! I had only gotten minimal tearing inside the birth canal and that was all.

Looking back on my birth I was glad that I was able to use some of the techniques that I had learnt from the Positive birthing pack to help assist me during my labour and birth, I truly believe because of this pack I was able to feel more empowered and informed even though I had an induction and an epidural but truly believe that this was what was right for me and my baby