Birth story - Jessica and baby Millie

Pregnancy:

I found out I was pregnant again when my little boy was just shy of 5 months old; a day I’ll never forget for so many reasons.

My pregnancy was absolutely amazing, I hardly knew she was there but it was extremely hard work at the end. Having a very active 13-15 month old, running my own business and working until I was 39+3 (I had her 39+5) and being heavily pregnant, could genuinely be a form of human torture I’m sure of it 🤣 all jokes aside the last 2 months was crazy hard and made up for the fact I hardly knew she was there until around 30 weeks.

Come to 39+5 … Millie day 💗

So my due date was approaching and I knew my body was ready I could just tell. With my son my waters had been broken for 5 days before I gave birth to him and I had to be induced with the drip and I didn’t want to go down this route again. I had been having tightenings for days, on and off false contractions and like I said I just knew I was ready. I decided to ask for a sweep, my homebirth team agreed and said they would be round to do one. When the midwife arrived around 3:30pm, she advised me that there was no homebirth team that night as there were ambulance strikes so if I went into labour I’d need to go to hospital. I was so adamant the sweep would do nothing (as I’ve heard they hardly work) so I said let’s do it anyway.

4pm. Sweep time! When my midwife examined me, her eyes went wide and she said, sweep or no sweep, I think your having this baby within 48 hours.

I was 3cm, my waters were bulging and she was touching babies head. I told her to crack on with the sweep (again had little faith in it).

8pm, my bloody show came. At this point I decided to go to bed to get some sleep just incase.

2am. I woke up to what I knew was a contraction. It wasn’t painful, but you just know. I woke my partner and told him to carry on sleeping and I’d wake him up when ‘it hit the fan.’ I went downstairs, got on my birthing ball, timed my contractions (3 mins apart) and watched ‘this is 40.’ I was laughing to myself, had a cuppa and thought I best contact my midwife. I rang my midwife who told me she could have a home birth team with me @ 7am but anything sooner I’d have to go to hospital to have baby. I was told to come whenever I was ready and she’d be there (she was working on the ward due to strikes)

3am. Partner still snoring. Second cup of tea. Still chuckling to my film. I decided to ring my mum and sister (my other home birthing partners) to tell them my contractions were coming 2-2:30mins apart) they were with me by 3:15am. My mum, sister and myself sat and watched the film together. We were all laughing and joking it was really lovely.

4:30am. I was in the bath at this stage. My mum sat in the bathroom timing my contractions and suddenly she said, ‘Jess your contractions are 50-60seconds apart you need to ring your midwife.’ At this point my contractions weren’t what I’d consider painful so I didn’t think I was ready to leave. Enough to stop me talking through them, but not agony pain. (I was stupidly comparing them to hormone induction contractions… TOTALLY different. That stuff is horrific and i laboured through that pain relief free so you can imagine I’m naively thinking I’m not close)

I rang my midwife and during my short conversation with her, I had 3 contractions almost back to back, then very calmly she said ‘I don’t think your going to get here in time, get in the car, get to the hospital and if you start pushing, ring an ambulance’ (I live a good 30 mins from my hospital)

Well sh%t … no bag packed, no car seat out the loft, partner snoring in bed, 15 month old snoring too…. Ahhhhhh!!!!

We then began rushing around the house quietly like mice trying to not wake my son, getting everything ready. My partner is nearly throwing up in panic, I’m in hysterics laughter, my sister extremely overwhelmed not knowing what to do. Honestly it was like something off TV. My sister decided to stay at home with my son.

5:10am. We get in a totally frosted car, partner is trying his hardest to defrost the car, mums trying to time my contractions and she says ‘they’re 40 seconds apart.’ I made a comment (minus some words) ‘get in the car and get me to hospital.’ *My sister was born in the car and my mum delivered her, herself. It was like history repeating itself!*

Driving to the hospital I started to transition and made very weird comments, flying down the M1 my partner was being told bizarre things by myself such as ‘oh no matt they’re spreading salt on the roads, oh no there’s a drunk driver’ (god knows what I was going on about).

5:26am. We arrived at the hospital. Greeted by a lovely receptionist who didn’t quite believe I was stopping myself from pushing a baby out, she finally let me in and I walked up to delivery.

5:38am entered the room, in my ‘ready to birth a child state’ I stripped off naked, jumped on the bed, got on all fours and 6 minutes later my baby girl was in my arms. 💗💗💗💗

I was home by 10am, after a total whirlwind few hours with my two beautiful babies 💙💗 what an amazing birth. They only get better and I truly believe it’s all about mindset and this course has helped soooo much!!!

My mum photographed the entire thing as she did my son, so I have the most amazing pictures just too graphic to share!