Birth story - Lauren and baby girl

I had a positive birth with an epidural for my first child, but learned about hypnobirthing shortly after and knew it seemed right for me with my second birth. The digital pack and FB community were perfect for me as everything “made sense” and the positive birth stories reminded me that I could do this.

I woke up with cramps, put my husband on heightened alert at work, and continued about my day with my older child. Nothing was painful or consistent, just moments of discomfort throughout the day. I called my parents to come as they live a couple hours away, just in case it was real, but I kept thinking it was prelabor symptoms that would stop. I put my daughter to bed at night and got a little sad thinking maybe I wouldn’t be there when she woke up. That was when I thought maybe it really was labour.

Somewhere around 8-9pm, I decided to time the surges as they seemed a little more consistent, and I hadn’t really been paying much attention to how close they were. I used the timer part of Freya but kept it on mute as I still wasn’t that uncomfortable. Surges were between 7-15 mins apart. As I still wasn’t completely convinced it was real labour, I got ready for bed. My husband went to put gas in the car just in case, and while he was gone, I had a 25 min break with no surges. I thought everything was just going to fizzle out, but then the opposite happened. As soon as he got back, surges ramped up in frequency and intensity. I put my TENS unit on (which I LOVED), and paced around my house during surges with freya counting for me. In between, I bounced on a ball, gathered our bags, and called my parents back over as they were staying close by at a sibling’s house. All of a sudden, I checked freya who told me I was in established active labour and my surges were 3-5 mins apart. I had a rush of panic that I waited too long because our drive to the hospital was not clear cut (it was close in mileage, but often had much traffic - we got stuck in traffic in my first labour). I was also dreading the car ride as the best way I could manage surges was walking around. I cried pulling away from home thinking about my older daughter, but quickly regained focus, turned freya up, closed my eyes and got in my zone. The car ride was epic in that we didn’t encounter any traffic, got a parking spot immediately, and I quietly breathed the whole trip. My husband actually thought maybe my surges had stopped because I was so quiet and focused.

We arrived at the hospital by 11:30pm, stopped for a quick prebaby selfie before walking into the hospital and checking in. Everything was prompt and comfortable for me. My midwife came right in, I agreed to a cervical check, and was 8cm dilated. Standard policy at the hospital was that I had to be monitored for 20 mins continuously when I first got there in order to not be monitored the entire time. I was nervous about this as I had to lay still for that time. I turned freya up, closed my eyes again, and focused. The time went fast, baby was great, I was able to be off all monitors and I was totally in the zone. There were no available pools, but midwife thought there wouldn’t be time to fill one even if it was available. I paced around the room most of the time, trying to squat or bend over during surges, but found that walking through them was most comfortable. I used my TENS, and remained calm almost the entire time, only slightly panicking if I lost track of my breath and needed help getting back on. The environment was quiet, with dim lighting, I was in my own clothes and only had my husband, midwife and nurse with me - who were all very supportive. I started feeling a lot of pressure to bear down, yelled that I needed to poo, was reminded it was the baby, yelled that I really needed to poo, was told to poo, and then pooed! Ha. After that, I still had the rectal pressure and was convinced it was the baby this time. Midwife had me try all different positions (squatting, standing, leaning, hands and knees) and I couldn’t “get comfortable” enough to stay still for “pushing”. I slightly panicked here too as all I could think of was all the positive birth stories I read and how everyone said the pushing part felt so good/like such a relief - and I wasn’t having that experience. I told my midwife maybe I wasn’t ready to “push” yet. She asked if I wanted another cervical check, which I agreed to. I was 10cm, baby was in optimal position but water was still intact. Using my BRAIN, I opted for her to break my waters as we felt like that might help get me more comfortable for next stage of labour. I ended up agreeing to try side laying (even with Siobhan’s voice in my head saying to let gravity help as much as possible) and that ended up being most comfortable for me. This part seemed hardest for me as I didn’t feel as in control as I had for my first stage of labour. I lost track of my breathing, pushed for 15 minutes and out came my baby girl a little before 2am. We had delayed cord clamping, immediate skin to skin and she nursed almost instantly.

I didn’t really feel “euphoric” as so many moms described, but I was really proud of my effort and experience and nothing else really mattered because I was holding my baby.

I delivered the placenta, had a very small tear that was stitched and overall felt pretty good. I got up after an hour to try to use the bathroom, and started bleeding a lot which turned out to be a moderate postpartum hemorrhage. This part “tainted” my original perception of my birth being positive as I had to have what felt like a lot of interventions in a short time. I had 5 hours of IV synthetic oxytocin, rectal pills, a catheter to drain my bladder, and the midwife manually removed clots from my uterus with her hand. My daughter was enjoying skin to skin with daddy while much of this was happening. The manual clot removal was actually so painful, that my midwife offered me IV pain meds (which I refused as I had just given natural childbirth!). The whole situation resolved in a couple hours and we were transferred to a postpartum floor.

In general, everything didn’t go as smoothly as I had practiced in my head - most notably the pushing and immediate postpartum period - but I am very proud to call it an overall positive birth experience. My biggest takeaways are that I was thankful that I did what worked for me (side laying and having my waters broken, for example), and I remained focused on my breath and calm most of the time. You got this, mamas.