Birth story - Kareen and baby girl

My partner and I had planned on completing a hypno birthing course at my local hospital, however due to covid19 all courses were cancelled.

After some research, I found @thepositivebirthcompany and we started hypnobirthing at around 6 months pregnant using their digital pack. We would watch the videos (not consistently) at night. We practiced up breathing (helps in early labour), down breathing (helps in established labour) and soft touch massages. We also learnt how to our BRAIN (benefits, risks, alternatives, implications and nothing).

All the above helped my confidence and positive thinking of labour. As we know, black women are 5 times more likely to die in pregnancy and child birth so I was very nervous.

Sunday night we finally put babys cot up, we went to bed and I felt my first painful contraction. Up until then I was only experiencing Braxton hicks. I went to sleep as normal, at around midnight, but was woken up by more contractions around 5am. I decided to go and lay in the front room and listen to my Freya app (hypnobirthing meditation) I didn’t want to wake my partner because I wanted him to have energy during active labour.

My contractions were all over the place! Sometimes 4 minutes apart, sometimes 21 minutes apart (fuming!). I was so ready to meet my baby! My partner lit some scented candles, closed the curtains and I took two paracetamols during the afternoon in hopes of some sleep..it didn’t work! I hated the smell of the candles that I normally loved and paracetamol did nothing.

My family came over all excited, but they were getting on my NERVES (love you all lol). I needed quiet!

I decided to try a hot shower which helped a treat!! Literally couldn’t feel anything whilst in there! My partner gave me a body scrub and massage in there too! I had a couple showers throughout the day to relieve the pain however, I couldn’t stay in there too long due to the heat. In my last shower I had my bloody show, we were getting somewhere!💃🏾

I started to use my Tens machine which definitely helped ease some of the pain.

The contractions continued through to the night and were becoming more painful. At around 10pm on Monday night I decided to go and get checked at the hospital. Due to Covid19, only one person was allowed to escort me in. So my partner stayed in the car whilst my sister brought me in but had to sadly leave me. I was checked and only 3 centimetres dilated. I was gutted!!

In order to be admitted into hospital WITH my partner, I had to be at least 4cm dilated - this is classed as active labour. I decided to go home because I didn’t want to stay there alone. As soon as I arrived home (in 5 mins) I vomited! There goes the pain relief 🙄

The pain ramped up as soon as we got inside! I sat in the dark, put on my Jill Scott and Erica Badu playlist and sat on my ball and swayed my hips. My contractions started getting consistently closer together and the pain was becoming unbearable. Back to the hospital we go! This time with my bags!

On arrival at around 2/3am (i think), they refused to check me because they had checked me 3 hours ago🙄. Which meant my partner had to leave me again! Instead, I waited a couple of hours when I was then admitted to the birthing suite where they gave me some morphine at around 5am. It was amazing!! I was able to have a few hours of pain free sleep!

At around 8am I was woken up by pain again. It was very intense and I asked to be checked out again, the midwives said it was too soon 😕 I was livid because this meant I had to continue to be alone and not allowed gas and air yet!

At around 10am I could no longer take the pain and demanded gas and air and explained that they were ignoring my needs. I got my gas and air😌.

By around 12pm I felt my waters break (they hadn’t broken yet)..The pain was becoming unbearable at this point and I knew something had changed! I called my partner in hysterics! He had been sleeping in his car in the downstairs car park all night waiting for ‘the call’.

They then decided to check me and I was 6cm dilated! However only my forewaters were broken so they had to pop my hind waters.. when they did, shit started to get real!

They told me I could call my partner. Unbeknownst to me, he was in reception kicking off😂😂 perfect timing because he was finally allowed in!

My midwives told me to get on my knees and hang over the bed. By this point I was asking for an epidural LOL. This was not in my birth plan and my partner told them not to give me one.

I was knackered and high as a kite from the gas so did as they said. Luckily my partner was able to advocate for me and told them that I had requested a pool birth. They said if I could walk to the pool room, I could use it.

I have NO idea HOW nor do I remember how I got to that room but God got me there.

I felt instant relief as I entered the pool😍

My partner put my Freya meditation app on the speaker, the lights were dimmed and I was able to relax a little.

Most of the pool experience is a blur! I remember my partner coaching me through my ‘down breathing’, fanning me and forcing me to drink water and lucozade sport. I was also falling asleep inbetween contractions because I was exhausted.

After some time, I could feel my body starting to push! But I was fighting it! I was scared of the pain and fearful of tearing! But the body will do what its doing! I decided to listen to my body, the midwives and my partner and push!

The RING OF FIRE was exactly that! And I heard ‘OMG she has so much hair’ i wanted to say ‘i know! I can feel it!’.

They coached me to push her head, but I gave one big push and she came out completely!! My daughter was born!! 5:45pm on Tuesday!

She loved the water and cried when she had to come out, so they put her back in!

I cried, he cried and then we both saw the blood 😫.

I think I then went into shock at that point. I thought something was wrong. However all was well thank God and it was the water that made the blood look alarming.

I had no tears (thank God) and only a couple grazes!

We did some gorgeous skin to skin and she then went and did some skin to skin with her dad.

I was given some tea and toast which I never knew could taste so good😂

He was allowed to stay until midnight before collecting us the next afternoon!