Birth story - Julie and baby Ben

At 41+1 weeks pregnant, I was desperate to avoid induction and so anxious for labour to start. I couldn’t wait to meet Ben, my little boy.

My surges finally started and woke me up at 3:00 on 15th October. They were 10 minutes apart. Half an hour later, I went downstairs to the living room and laid on the sofa. I enjoyed using the Freya app during this time to help me focus and stay calm. At 7:00 my contractions were approximately 7 minutes apart and I decided to go upstairs and tell my husband. I had my surges in the bed while my husband finished packing and tidying the house. I had a shower and by 11:00 the surges ramped up. My husband was in touch with our doula throughout. When the surges started coming every 5 minutes, we decided to leave for the hospital which is about half an hour’s drive away.

We live in a duplex and there are many steps to exit the gated community, so it was a challenging journey to the car. I took it one step at a time. The ride to hospital was very uncomfortable but I managed to stay ‘in the zone’, listening to the Freya app. We arrived at 14:00 and I found it nearly impossible to get out of the car, but luckily my doula arrived shortly after us and was able to help. They brought a wheelchair which I used as a walker as I didn’t feel like sitting.

Upon examination, they found I was 4cm dilated which meant we could go straight into the delivery room. I was very pleased with that. We chose a private hospital and the room was spacious, with a sea view and bathtub. Active labour was quite the workout! I tried various positions on the birth ball, in the shower, holding the ceiling ropes, on all fours… but the fetal monitoring bothered me a lot! I got quite frustrated because I knew my baby was fine, however the band kept slipping so they had to ‘start over’. By 18:00, I was 8cm dilated and I got to 9cm around 20:00.  

I asked several times to use the birth pool but I kept being gently dismissed. It annoyed me because I knew they weren’t telling me everything and I had dreamed of labouring in the pool. I later found out this is because they were worried it would slow down my labour and progress was slow. I started having the urge to push around 21:00, even though I was not fully dilated yet, they encouraged me to do what my body felt was best. In total, I was in transition at 9 cm for 6 hours! I pushed intuitively for 4 of these hours, which really tired me out.

Then the midwife decided to help me with guided pushing, which she rarely does, but the guidance really helped me. Even though I did not want this initially, the position which gave me the most progress was on my back with both legs propped up on either side of my face – left leg held by my doula, right leg held by my husband. The other positions tried were on my side with one leg elevated and on all fours with my bottom in the air. Even though these positions helped Ben to position himself better, they did not feel natural to me.

When on my back, I felt like I understood what was needed, plus I was able to rest in between surges. The midwife, after asking permission, also helped by putting her hand inside me and applying pressure on the spot where I should push. This was very helpful to me. Guided pushing lasted about 1h30. I could manage three strong pushes in a row but didn’t have the energy for a 4th of 5th push which is what was needed. The surges were still only coming every 5 minutes approximately. After a while, despite everyone’s best efforts to keep things positive, I felt the energy in the room change. The gynaecologist was putting pressure on the midwife and even though no one told me this, I knew that my chance of a natural birth was seriously decreasing by the minute and I just had to go for it.

Encouraged by the team, I knew that I had to go beyond 3 pushes so I just willed myself to push for a 4th, then a 5th and somehow I managed to do this twice or three times so that Ben’s head came out. I couldn’t believe I had done it! The midwife asked me to wait before pushing the shoulders out but I didn’t hear or listen in the moment and when the urge came I pushed Ben out completely. I was in complete shock when they put him on me, my 4.2 kg baby boy! Ben was born at 1:17 on October 16th, so all in all the labour lasted about 23 hours from the first surges to baby being born! 

Ben nursed pretty much immediately which was an amazing feeling. The hospital staff gave us a full golden hour to bond with our little boy. The placenta came out quickly which was a relief – a nice, warm feeling! There was a 3rd degree tear to repair which was a scary experience for me, but having Ben on my chest helped distract me.

We are over the moon with our little boy, he is the light of our lives and we are so lucky he got to experience a natural birth which we feel set him up nicely for a good start. We are grateful to have learnt so much doing the hypnobirthing course and felt we had all the knowledge necessary to make good decisions. I couldn’t have done it without sheer stubbornness and support from an amazing midwife, doula and husband whose hand I insisted on squeezing every single surge!