Birth story - Louise and baby Isaac

I bought the digital pack after a few recommendations from friends. My first birth was positive but in hindsight there were elements of it where I felt out of control and, after an induction, I ended up lying on my back, feet in stirrups with coached pushing. I suffered a prolapse and was really conscious that I wanted to be more in control second time around. 

I found myself quite stressed during pregnancy but enjoyed watching the digital pack midway through and it reminded me that my body and baby knew what they were doing and that birth wasn’t something to be afraid of. I started reading the positive stories on Facebook towards the end of my pregnancy (I wasn’t in the right frame of mind before then) and this really affected my attitude and by the time I was ready to give birth, I felt calm about it. 

As I hit 39 weeks I was getting really tired and was unable to walk far due to pelvic girdle pain. I had started having cramping each day and just wanted to have the baby! Nothing happened so I felt quite disappointed but I did ask my mum to come and stay with us to help with my toddler and I thought it might help me to relax too. 

I woke up on my due date at 5am with cramps and by breakfast time they were quite frequent. Then they stopped suddenly so I went to meet friends for lunch to take my mind off things. After lunch I met my mum and daughter but was finding it quite hard to walk so we went home. My husband was working from home and I told him I thought things may be moving so I went upstairs to relax and started to pay more attention to what was happening. At 3pm I started to time contractions. They were 6 mins apart and I was using up breathing but if I’m honest, I still didn’t really believe I was in early labour. The surges were getting more intense but I was super calm and the up breathing really focused me. In between times I was watching Friends and my husband kept popping in with drinks etc and commented on how calm I was. My toddler came to check on me a few times and ‘danced’ with me through a few surges :) The Freya app was really helpful in keeping me calm and I was surprised to see when it told me I was in established labour around 5pm. I checked and it was right. I called the hospital and as I’d had a quick first labour, they told me to come in. I was dreading the drive to the hospital but we set off just before 6pm calmly saying bye to my toddler and parents. I was having more frequent surges in the car and but still felt very calm and ‘in the zone’. In fact I asked my husband to stress to midwife triage that I was in established labour as I was conscious that I looked really calm. Triage asked if I was feeling the baby move between contractions. I couldn’t say for sure as I just hadn’t been focused on it at all (I can’t ever remember anyone telling me that I should focus on this in hindsight). Due to this I wasn’t able to go to the MLU and was told it may take two hours to be seen. I knew that I’d have had the baby in that time but I continued to have surges in the corridor and stayed calm despite the strange hospital environment.

A midwife came to see me and when I shared how quick my last labour had been, she ensured I was seen quickly. The midwife asked me to get on the bed so they could monitor the baby and examine me. The BRAIN decision making here was really useful. I asked about alternatives to getting on the bed but there were none and I was given gas and air at this point as I was really uncomfortable when I had a surge sitting down. I was examined and to my surprise, I was 8cm. This really helped me! My husband and I both started laughing and it really relaxed me as I knew the end was in sight.

I was taken to a delivery room which was ‘high risk’ (not sure I needed to hear that!) but my husband was able to communicate my birth plan so the midwife immediately dimmed the lights. At this point I met the more senior midwife who was amazing. I told her I didn’t want to get on the bed, that I wanted an active birth and that I would not be pushing. She just got it immediately, played back to me what I had just told her and then communicated it to the other midwife in the room. This really made me feel in control. My waters had yet to break but I asked not to be examined and she agreed saying that she felt my body would do it naturally.

With my next surge, my waters broke and there was a huge release of pressure. 14 minutes later, my baby was born! In fact my husband almost missed it as he needed the loo! I didn’t push but my breathing naturally changed to down breathing and I had to share with the midwives pretty urgently that my baby was about to be born. I was still stood up at this point and the midwives asked if I wanted to kneel on the bed but I was happy standing and felt incredibly in control. As the baby was coming and was about to crown, the midwife asked me to try and slow it down, which I was able to and then in the next surge he was there. They passed him through my legs to my husband and we were just both in shock!

As I was stood up when I gave birth, the blood flowed very quickly to the baby so we had delayed cord clamping but for less than 5 mins.  Then we had over an hour of skin to skin and the midwife gave my husband a towel to clean the baby so that they weren’t interrupting our time. I really appreciated this. Little Isaac was born at 8.20pm less than 2 hours after we arrived in hospital and 5 hours after I had my first surges. It was a totally controlled and empowering experience helped by my husband really letting me lead things and by the midwife, who just understood what I wanted with minimal questions or interventions. 

The PBC pack was really instrumental in the way that my birth played out and meant I entered the whole process calmly and in control. Importantly, I felt very mindful and present throughout and have really amazing memories of the event. For comparison, I found it quite difficult to think back to parts of my first birth. I think that this helped with the recovery and overall how I felt about my body in the weeks following.