Birth story - Louise and baby Rory

Pretty soon after finding out I was pregnant I looked into hypnobirthing as I was always worried that I wouldn’t be able to cope with labour and birth and I wanted to do all I could to change that.

I read a few books (twice) before then discovering the positive birth company digital pack around 35 weeks. The course enabled me to feel far more confident in my body and its ability and I was determined to have the most positive birth experience I could.

I loved the idea of a homebirth but I also really wanted a water birth and living in a first floor flat meant this wouldn’t really be practical for us. We also don’t have a MLU nearby but thankfully our local hospital has an excellent reputation for their labour and maternity ward so we decided to go with that.

I had been feeling a bit achy down below for 2-3 days but my due date came and went as I expected, this didn’t worry me as I knew my baby would come when my baby was ready. We woke up on sat morning (40+2) and my husband and I decided to walk into town for some breakfast and then walked home, this was around 4/5 miles all in all. We got home around 1pm and I started having mild contractions almost straight away. We put on some funny films and I just bounced on my ball and snacked for a couple of hours.

At 3pm I had a show and then the surges started to ramp up a bit. We made our livingroom as calm and cosy as possible and watched more funny films and listened to our birthing playlist. We even ordered a Chinese takeaway which I managed to eat in between surges! At around 7.30pm the surges were coming thick and fast, we used the FREYA app which was brilliant, this showed I was having 3-4 surges lasting 1 minute every ten mins and suggested I was in established labour. I continued to labour on at home using up breathing and a tens machine and eventually went to our local hospital about 10pm. I accepted a VE and was delighted to hear I was 5cm dilated.

I got in the pool around 11pm and things really ramped up. I was trying my best to breath through the surges and had some gas and air which helped a little, but my word it really was powerful, and my body seemed to take over and started pushing at the height of my surges. I got out of the pool for a wee around 12am and at this point I honestly thought I was going to have my baby on the toilet!! My waters then released so the midwives quickly got me back into the water. The last hour I went pretty primal. We had the affirmations playing in the background and I was squatting in the water gripping my husbands hands, mooing with each surge, somehow the sound helped me deal with the intensity. Because I’d only been in hospital for 3 hours I didn’t have time for another examination so we just all went with it not knowing how far along I was, but I trusted my body which had taken over and was bearing down for me. Using down breathing and with around 4 big pushes baby Rory was born at 1.17am. 💙

The feeling of him being born and then lifting him up out of the water onto my chest was honestly the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced 💫 I didn’t even notice that I had suffered a second degree tear in the process (and a bonus labia tear, ouch! Who knew about them). We enjoyed a lovely golden hour and Rory latched on for his first feed before I was stitched up and taken to the maternity ward. The midwives and nurses at the hospital were absolutely amazing throughout my stay, they respected my wishes and supported me before and after birth and I can’t thank them enough for the amazing work they do. I stayed in the maternity ward an extra night as I wanted some support with breastfeeding and we then went home the next day and enjoyed a few days of just the 3 of us with no visitors. I’d really recommend limiting your visitors in the first few days, especially if you’re getting to grips with breastfeeding and recovering down below. There will be plenty time for visitors in the weeks to follow, but you will never get those first precious weeks back.