Birth story - Kirsty and baby Willow

We started watching the Digital Pack around 25 weeks and hoped for a natural water birth. At my 39 and 40 week midwife appointments they’d told us that baby wasn’t engaged so we expected to wait a bit longer to meet her. I’d had some tightening’s across my tummy a day or two after my due from date and I was wondering if this was the start, but they came and went for the next few nights, amounting to nothing else.

I was trying to stay relaxed and each day would light candles, put the diffuser on, listen to positive affirmations and my partner would practice the stroking techniques. I continued to do pregnancy yoga and all the recommended exercises from spinning babies to encourage baby to move down.

At our 41+2 appointment they offered us induction at 41+5, we weighed up our options using the BRAIN framework and decided for us this was the right thing to do. Although initially this was really hard to get my head around, we endeavoured to approach it positively. We re-watched the relevant sections of the digital pack to help us prepare and tweaked our birth preferences.

The hospital actually rang us 41+3 and offered us induction the next day but we politely declined as we wanted to give our baby as much time as possible to make her way naturally. As she could potentially arrive on her Papa’s birthday (41+6), we had planned an early mini celebration the night before.

I woke up early on the morning of the induction and noticed my show, this was encouraging as I knew things were getting ready but I also knew it didn’t necessarily mean labour was imminent. I then had low back ache from about 8am. We rang the hospital as planned and were advised to call back at 10am. I then had lots of trips to the toilet which again could have been interpreted as a good sign but I also wondered if it was just nerves! We called the hospital and they said to come in for 11.30am. At this point I was wondering if my back ache could be early surges as it was coming and going. We headed to the hospital and waited a while before being admitted to the antenatal ward, we were very lucky that my partner could attend from the very start despite the current Covid situation.

We were shown to a bed on the antenatal ward, it was all very relaxed and the team did my observations, urine sample and the student midwife then assessed me and thought baby was still not engaged and that we may need a Dr to complete a scan to assess her position. Shortly after the midwife reviewed this and felt that baby was engaged, however would need to do a further internal examination. We went on the CTG monitoring and this showed baby was fine and it also recorded the surges that I was feeling quite strongly.

I sat on the birthing ball and my partner and I had lunch and were playing cards, I had to stop when I had a surge and we used the Freya app which told us we were in established labour!!!

I had an exam at 1.50pm, the midwife also had the pessary ready for induction if needed, but she found that I was 5cm dilated! She could feel baby’s head and my waters - we were very happy…there were high fives between my partner and I! Our midwife rang the midwifery led unit (MLU) to see if they could accept us. We didn’t know how long it would be so we put the Tens machine on as the surges were getting stronger, throughout all of this I was using my up breathing which really helped.

We didn’t have to wait long before we walked round to the MLU, the pool was nearly ready and I really had to use my up breathing and movement to help here as well as the boost function on the TENS. The room was great and my partner put our oil in the diffuser and put up some of our own lights as well.

I got into the pool and initially I managed with just being in the water and my up breathing but I then asked for gas and air as I was struggling with the intensity of the surges – they seemed to be ramping up quite quickly. This really helped and I was holding onto my partner with each surge and re-centring with the MP3s that were playing on the Freya app on our speaker.

The midwife and student midwife were amazing, they read our birth preferences and left us to it, just observing and listening in to baby as needed which we were happy with. I got the vibe that things were progressing quite quickly as they started to get some things ready in the room but focused as best I could on being in the moment. Thinking about presence is perfection and my partner also mentioned for me to use the visualisation that I had been practising. The affirmations, ‘your surges are not stronger than you’ and ‘each surge brings you closer to your baby’ were also key to me here.

The surges gathered in strength and I was a bit shaky and shuddering with the strength of them now. At some point I felt my waters pop. I didn’t notice transition as a stage but just a change in surges and then a feeling to bear down. The midwives were using a mirror to look at baby, I asked at some point if I could feel her head yet…they said no but they could see her hair!! They placed a cold towel on my shoulders which felt amazing at the time!

Then I started to breath baby down, using the gas and air, only once did I feel her bob back up the birth canal, it seems she didn’t want to wait too long to meet us now! I could feel that we were really close and listened to my body to wait for the next surge, this was perhaps the trickiest part. The midwives were crucial at this point, they helped me breath slowly and calmy, at the right time so that she could be birthed gently.

With another couple of pushes, Willow arrived at 4.54pm into the water, the cord was calmly and swiftly removed from around her neck and she was straight in for cuddles. There was a silence before she let us know she had arrived! Our baby had a full head of hair!

We spent some time in the pool, then the midwives asked if we were happy to get out, I’m not sure why but by then we were happy to. We exited the pool with the cord attached, maintaining skin to skin. Papa then cut the cord and the placenta was delivered naturally using gas and air. We enjoyed plenty of time together before baby was weighed. The midwife that admitted us at the antenatal ward popped over and couldn’t believe she was here already!

We couldn’t have been happier that our planned induction became the natural water birth that we wished for. We were so glad that we gave our baby the extra day that she needed to make her way into the world.