Birth story - Louise and baby Maeve

Thank you in advance for reading my lengthy birth story but I feel I need to give it some background to do it justice...

I gave birth to our first daughter 3 years ago which was quite a traumatic birth. I was told I needed constant monitoring on a CTG and therefore I couldn't move and so I requested an epidural and had a vontouse delivery with an episiotomy. I remember there being so many people in the room at one point and it was really scary. I also suffered with postpartum anxiety immediately after birth which luckily I got quick help for and I recovered quite quickly.

When I received the very welcome news that we were going to have another baby I suddenly started to experience panic attacks again just like I did after my first birth. I knew I had to do something different this time round and I needed to change my negative connotations towards birth. A good friend of mine was a hypnobirthing mum and when she talked about her birth I was in awe. I couldn't believe that we have control over our own births!!! 🙈😂 I decided immediately to book on a KG hypnobirthing course and started at 12 weeks pregnant. Because I'd started the course so early on in pregnancy I decided to do the Positive Birth Company digital pack as a bit of revision in my final weeks of pregnancy. I'm so glad that I did! I loved Siobhan's clear and calming videos and I listened to the MP3s every night leading up the the birth. I also watched Louise Pentland's birth story which really struck a chord with me because of her previous traumatic birth. It inspired me more than any other of the positive birth videos I'd been watching during my pregnancy.

At 40+4 I was offered an induction due to baby's growth stopping. Baby was still happy and wasn't showing any signs of distress. I had a borderline Gestational Diabetes diagnosis at 35 weeks and so had been having fortnightly scans. I remembered my affirmations "my baby will be born when baby is ready", and used the BRAINS acronym and declined induction trusting my baby would he born soon, but took a sweep just to help things along. I was then booked in for induction at 41+1.

24 hours later, I lost my mucous plug and started with some light cramping. At around 5pm on the 9th April my surges started becoming a lot more intense and I needed to use up breathing to get through them. My husband put our daughter to bed and rang grandma to come round as I listened to my affirmations in dimly lit bedroom and gently bounced on my ball. At 7:30pm I got into the bath and my husband lit some candles, it was then that the surges started coming every 4 minutes or so and they were around a minute long. I told my husband to ring our birth centre and they asked us to go in.

The car journey was quite testing but I did as Sioban said and listened to the MP3s using my headphones. I was assessed at 8:50pm and I was already 6cm dialated! I couldn't believe it! Because of my GD there was discussion about me having to be monitored on CTG but my husband was amazing and used BRAIN and agreed with the alternative of using a Doppler every 20mins to check on baby. I requested to use the pool and this was agreed to providing my blood pressure was ok.

At 9:30pm my surges were every minute and we're getting very intense, and I was able to get into the pool, it felt lovely getting into the warm water. My husband dimmed all the lights, put calming spa music on a wireless speaker and put some lavender oil in a diffuser next to the pool. I tried some gas and air but I felt it was putting me off my up breathing so I ditched it. My surges at this point we're getting very powerful and I could feel loads of pressure in my bottom. At around 10:15 I had a little wobble and thought about asking to get out of the pool... Hello transition! 😂 The surges that followed were different now and I could feel my body starting to push. I could no longer breath out for 8 and started making some pretty primal animal noises as I could feel my baby's head coming down the birth canal. I had 3 powerful surges, the first I could feel her head coming down, the second her head was born and then her body was born with the third. I felt like a lioness roaring her out of my body... it was so empowering and primal! I scooped her up out of the water between my legs... I just couldn't believe it... She was here and I had done it! We had a delayed cord clamp but a managed third stage as I was pretty tired by this point. I did get a second degree tear which I expected this time because she came out so quickly.

If someone had said to me at the beginning of my pregnancy I would have had a drug free, water birth using only my breathing to birth my baby I would have laughed my head off... Yet it happened. It happened because hypnobirthing gave me the confidence to believe that I COULD to it and that my birth WAS going to be beautiful. I'll forever be grateful to the Positive birth company and I'll be singing their praises from the rooftops for the rest of my life to anyone that will listen!

Thank you again so much for a life changing experience xxx