Birth story - Joanna and baby girl

*Trigger warning* - Use of word ‘contractions’ - not negative for me.

Pregnancy

I was very lucky that I had a really low risk pregnancy throughout. I suffered with morning sickness for the first 12 weeks but wasn’t too bad. I went into hospital a few times for growth scans but baby was measuring perfect every time so I was discharged back to the midwife each time. I am very petite so I looked like I had a very small bump. I was diagnosed with low iron levels around 20 weeks so was subscribed iron tablets to take until the end of my pregnancy. Other than that I had a really easy pregnancy.

Birth

I expected to go overdue as first time babies often do. I had a sweep performed at 40+3 which was successful and caused a bloody show. I then, the following day, had my mucus plug come away, however no others signs happened for next few days. Then at 40+5 my waters broke during the night and I went into hospital where they examined me and baby. We were both doing fine so I decided to go home and wait 24 hours for something to happen naturally. We were booked in the following day for induction if I hadn’t progressed.

24 hours went by and still no signs of contractions so we went into hospital.

The midwife then examined me and could see I was 2cm but said my waters had not fully gone and could be broken, she performed this and broke them around 11pm on 25th July. Within around 1 hour I was having contractions 4 within 10 mins. I quickly progressed to 4cm, they then checked me over again and in the space of another hour I had gone from 4cm to 10cm! I was then ready to push and the midwife advised me if I felt like I needed to push then I should push. The only way I could deal with the pain was to push through it, my body was doing the pushing for me but I was helping it along it almost felt like. I began to push through every contraction, I was trying to use the gas and air to help with the pain but it became hard to with having to push. I was begging for pain relief but I had progressed so quickly it was too late.

My husband was helping me through each contraction and holding me, within 45 minutes of pushing I had delivered our baby girl. I had her given straight to me for skin to skin and took the injection to deliver the placenta. Whilst the placenta was delivered my husband had skin on skin. My labour in total was 2 hours I was lucky enough and needed no stitches too.

I was really really anti pain relief but I would say to anyone just be open minded, looking back I cannot believe I managed to do it with just gas and air. Our bodies are literally incredible and shows how much pain we can endure, I was slightly traumatised after the birth as it happened so quickly. I needed the midwife to talk me through what happened, this massively helped me mentally to come to terms with the birth. I have no words to describe my love for our daughter, and it is true .. you do forget the pain, I feel I already have, and I would do it all over again for our baby girl. I was super anxious throughout pregnancy thinking about the birth, but for anyone who feels this too please don’t worry, when your moment comes, you go into survival mode for you and the baby.