Birth story - Kate and baby boy

I am in complete amazement of my body, I can only thank the positive birth company for my birth experience. I have always been scared to have a baby and as the weeks went by I felt like I grew more anxious and scared! That was when we found the positive birth company online course and we started it straight away! We completed the course, pinned up positive affirmations all over the house and tried every way to think of labour in a different way. As the date grew closer I had a few wobbles but my partner tried to get the positivity back in my head!

On the 16th September 2019, I knew it was starting, and from 9.30pm until 5am on the 17th September I had surges every 4 minutes, we went to the hospital to get checked and was told I was only 1cm dilated and needed to go home, I felt completely disheartened, I cried, I thought that’s it I cant do it anymore. But Joe cuddled me looked after me and told me you’ve got this. We got home about 6.30am and the surges continued, I bounced on my ball, took paracetamol, had my feet and back rubbed, multiple baths and used the tens machine. At 6pm I went to the toilet and there was a large amount of bloody show that made me feel worried, so my partner called the hospital and they asked me to come in just to check, so we went back and I still felt like not much had changed but all the rooms in triage were taken so they sent me round to the MLU to just be checked over, the midwife asked if she could do a examination and if whilst she did it she could preform a sweep, I agreed and to my amazement she said ‘you aren’t going home your 5cm dilated’ I was amazed, Joe ran to the car to get our things and when he came back he put all our candles, fairy lights and positive affirmations all around the room! It felt calm not like we were in a hospital. The student midwife and midwife we had were incredible and I just continued having surges using just Gas and Air, until I felt they began more intense and wanted to use the pool! The Midwife’s prepared the pool and I got in and the release of pressure on my back was amazing.

I laboured in there until 1am on the 18th September when they got me back out to have another examination, by then I was 7cm dilated and feeling quite exhausted so I decided to lay on the bed having a cuddle with Joe while trying to rest between surges! About an hour later I wanted to go back into the pool, after getting back in the pool within an hour I knew my body was ready to push! The midwife wanted to check I was fully dilated so got me out just to make sure and of course I was 10cm and ready! I sat on the stool to begin pushing while being coached by the midwife, while the other midwife was getting some more water in the pool so I could birth my baby in the pool!

But at that moment the midwife said ‘she isn’t going to make the pool lets get her to the bed’ but i didn’t even make it there, I birthed my baby who was back to back, naturally standing up with just gas and air being supported under my arms by Joe, and he was given straight to me for immediate skin to skin contact for a couple hours! I felt completely overwhelmed with happiness, joy and love!

The whole labour experience was intense, but I have come out of it feeling incredible! My body has completely amazed me and I feel silly that I ever listened to people saying ‘labour is awful’ because labour is amazing and beautiful! The female body is perfectly designed to birth a baby! So Thankyou to the positive birth company for this whole experience.