Birth story - Lillybet and baby Eileen

First time mum

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Vaginal birth

Possible Gestational Diabetes

*Trigger warnings* - Mention of potential GD late on, mention of preeclampsia during birth, meconium on arrival, blood loss, 2nd degree tear. Use of word contraction as not negative for me.

My pregnancy

This was pretty uneventful for me for most of the pregnancy. I had some nausea in the first trimester and then had glucose in my urine at my 36wk appointment. Same again at 38wk so we did fasted bloods to check for GD (although it's hard to diagnose it at this stage!). My fasting bloods were fine and my Hb1ac was slightly elevated but MW spoke to the consultants at the hospital and they were happy for my homebirth to go ahead.

Baby Eilean's birth

Things kicked off on Monday 14th. I went to town to get the car tyres changed (I think this was my partner's way of nesting but he booked the car in whilst he was at work!) I decided to go for a power walk whilst I waited for things to be done.

I kept getting some niggles and tightenings but they were all quite manageable.

Later that day we went to see my sister for acupuncture (I'd been getting this through the 3rd trimester and from week 39 we had started "induction" acupuncture). The car journey was awful! Every bump in the road was painful and I can honestly say hats off to women who travel far to get to hospital whilst in established labour!

That night I woke on and off with cramps.

Throughout Tuesday I was getting stronger cramps but sporadically. They could be anything between 10 and 30min apart. I just went about my day cooking and obsessively hoovering (hello final nesting stage).

That night I hardly slept as I kept waking up with pains and I was having to concentrate a little to get through them.

By Wednesday morning my partner was going to leave for work but asked me if I needed him home. I was aiming for him to go but I had a few contractions whilst he got ready and we decided if he was able to it would be best he work from home (luckily his boss is great so he could!).

I did my own thing through the day with him regularly checking in on me. By 10am we put on the TENS machine and by 11 we phoned triage as we had a few "3 in 10" contractions. They suggested paracetamol and a bath and advised things take a while first time round so to relax and continue doing what we were doing.

I dipped in and out of the bath and this really helped. I had multiple mini naps (a minute or 2 between contractions) as I had to be standing up to be able to deal with the intensity of the contractions.

Add to all this I had been unable to keep any food down and everything I had tried had come back up.

I laboured for hours at the window in our spare room. This overlooks the garden and I was watching birds and squirrels play and bath. With a breeze coming in the open window. It was lush and definitely getting me through!

We tried to go for a walk when my partner finished work and I got 2min down the road before I had to turn back. Once home he went to walk the dog and when he got back we phoned triage again. This time they agreed to send a midwife.

Around 8pm (I had a debrief with the midwife who attended the birth so we went over timings and things) our first midwife arrived and everything slowed right down. I felt great but was gutted as I didn't want her to go again. She said it was normal and she would leave me to it so I concentrated really hard on getting contractions back (and felt like a masochist in doing so).

I finally asked to use the pool around 9.30pm and this was awesome. I spent a couple of hours floating about and breathing through contractions. I was finding it a bit slippery to position myself for contractions and also the temp dropped a couple of times so my partner had to leave my side to go and fill it. I wasn't so keen on this as I found it very helpful to have him with me.

Around 10 a second midwife arrived. I got excited as I thought I must be near as 2nd MW is for baby... But Covid means they mostly come in pairs apparently but because I didn't know this it gave me quite the boost!

Whilst in the pool I tried some more food again and managed banana on toast. I think the MWs were starting to worry that I wouldn't have the energy to push my baby out when the time came.

Soon after getting in the pool I was advised I had protein in my urine. The hospital was called and doctors were happy for me to continue at home but I would need hourly BP monitoring which I happily agreed to.

After a while one of the MW suggested I get out of the pool and bounce on my ball to move things along so off I went. I know this was between 23.30 and midnight because I wanted baby to hold off until the 17th as it's my cousins Birthday on the 16th and didn't want doubles

Things then started moving as I felt something poking me down below and agreed to my first and only VE. I was 7cm with bulging waters, with what looked like a dark haired head peaking! I was excited about the head but a bit gutted at hearing 7cm as I'd imagined I'd be much further along. However I remembered this is just one check at one point in time and things can change so I blocked it out of my mind and continued to tune into my body.

At this point I decided I needed my pre-labour playlist on and started going up and down the stairs and dancing to tunes with my partner. I then felt really nauseous and threw up again and it was so intense part of my waters broke.

We went back downstairs for more ball bouncing and the MW suggested I try to labour on the toilet. Downstairs was a bit small so up we went again. This is where the craziest pop and pressure shot out of me and MWs both shouted for me to get up thinking baby may be in the toilet! False alarm and it was just more waters.

Unknown to me the MWs could see her head but the bathroom was not working for us position wise and the way I was positioned left no room to catch her so I was asked to walk downstairs and try a sofa. This was the weirdest walk ever with what felt like a coconut in a place it really shouldn't be!

Around 1.30am I got on the sofa and things kicked off. Babies head bobbed up and down for what seemed like forever. I was trying to continue with my breathing techniques but wasn't quite managing and just going with instinctively pushing and giving it my all. I heard some metal clinking and worried midwives were preparing to intervene (they were just prepping stuff for clamping the cord ) but this gave me the boost I needed and her head was out at 2am. The ring of fire is oh very real!! One more contraction and her body was out at 2.02am.

I had a leg cramp throughout this part and this almost served as an inbuilt TENS machine as it partially distracted me

I have to say I had guided pushing for her head and this was the hardest thing. Stopping a push mid contraction was torture!

There was fresh meconium in the water and she was a little stunned with her exit speed. I was also quite stunned and instead of picking her up I just looked at her and then back to my partner with huge eyes and apparently said "what the f*ck do I do!?". It was my only swear word in the whole process haha.

The midwives coached me to a sitting position as I picked up my baby and my partner confirmed she was a girl.

There was a bit of worry with blood loss so cord was clamped once it was white and my partner got to cut it. She then went to daddy whilst I was checked and stitched pretty quick (2nd degree tear but I don't recall feeling it). Finally got a taste of the gas and air! I'd not asked for it in labour as I was waiting to be offered it (always thinking something more painful was coming and not wanting to use all my tools!) And the midwives said they don't tend to offer it and are lead by the mum.

By 4.30am the midwives had packed up and gone. I took myself off for a shower and then the 3 of us got into bed to take in what had just happened!

All in all one big Baba with a couple of paracetamol and breathing techniques. It was such an incredible experience and I feel so lucky and proud it worked out this way!