Birth story - Jessica and baby girl

*Trigger warning* - long early labour, secondary degree tearing, stitches, use of word contractions as not negative to me.

I found these posts to be really reassuring when I was in the late stages of pregnancy so wanted to share my own in the hope of reassuring others too!

The birth of my beautiful girl will forever be the most magical experience I have ever had.

My pregnancy was far from planned, baby was a happy surprise for us both as my partner and I had not long been together. I had a wonderful pregnancy and consider myself extremely lucky to have not experienced any sickness or complications throughout. We had regular growth scans towards the end due to having a smaller bump than the charts predicted for my height and size but all scans always came back fine.

On the 19 - 20th June between 12am - 3am I experienced mild contractions that woke me up and were like period cramps. The same happened again for 20-21st between 12am - 3am and 21-22nd between 12:30 - 4am.

I was booked in for and had a sweep on 22nd and was given advice on other techniques to try and get things started properly. I found that more contractions started at 5:15pm on 22nd after my sweep but they were irregular through the night and into next day. I had a bloody show on the 23rd and the irregular contractions continued but started to become more regular and intense.

I had another sweep on the 24th and was told during this appointment that I was 3cm dilated. The midwife sent us home to rest and said we'd probably be going to hospital that night. After this, I started to experience much more intense contractions on the way home.

We went to hospital at 7pm, I was given Codeine and Paracetamol but sent home as still at 3cm. The contractions eased a bit for a few hours but then became much more intense again. I called the hospital at 12am and went back in. I was examined at around 1am and told I was still 3cm but effaced and close to 4. I was given more Paracetamol and Codeine and left to go between the shower, swaying next to the bed, walking and kneeling on a mat against the bed to get through each contraction.

I was examined at 5:20am and told I was finally at 4 - 5cm so the midwife started started running the pool for me! This completely changed everything for me and I felt myself relax so much and the pain felt much easier to manage. The midwife also gave me the gas and air at this point.

I was examined again at 9:30am and told I was no further forward so the midwife attempted to break my waters. The midwife told me the membrane was stuck against baby's head so after a few attempts she was still unsure whether my waters had been broken. I got back in the pool and the contractions quickly became longer, more intense and closer together and within half hour I was feeling the need to push.

Our beautiful baby was born in the water at 11:55, I was able to catch her myself and bring her to my chest.

We had delayed cord clamping, daddy cut the cord and then had skin to skin while the midwives helped me out the pool. We waited to see if the placenta would deliver on its own and I breastfed for the first time but it got to an hour and nothing was really happening so I had the injection and the placenta came straight away.

I did have secondary degree tearing which they stitched up.

We were then left to enjoy our baby bubble!