Birth story - Lucy and baby Theodore

My sister gave me the positive birthing book when I was only around 12 weeks and I was hooked. My partner also read the book and then bought me the digital pack as a present for my birthday. Throughout the whole pregnancy people were amazed when I told them how excited I was for birth.

Unfortunately throughout my pregnancy I had around 5 different midwifes at my appointments. One of these I really disliked due to her attitude, and one of them was amazing. Unfortunately at my 38 week appointment I had the one who I disliked. She told me my birthing plan may not be read by the midwifes at the birth and that having a sweep at 40 weeks was giving my body the best chance of going into labour naturally. I couldn’t disagree more with her and felt I shouldn’t feel pressured to have a sweep. Thankfully, at my 40 week appointment ,I had the really nice midwife who agreed with me that there was no evidence sweeps worked and advised me I wouldn’t have to have an induction date until 40+13. I declined the sweep and knew my baby would come when he was ready to come.

At 40+2 I lost my plug and started having period like pains. These pains started getting closer together the next morning so we went to the birth centre to be examined. I was 3-4 cm and my waters were bulging so we were admitted, but after around an hour the surges were getting further apart. My midwife had read my birthing plan and knew I wanted as little intervention as possible. She was happy with how baby was coping so she gave us the option of going home to try get the oxytocin flowing again, instead of staying and possibly having to have waters broken and then the hormone drip if I wasn’t to progress.

We went home, the surges were very irregular again for another 24 hours. I went into the birthing centre the following day to speak to a midwife because after 2 days with no sleep I was starting to doubt whether my body would have enough energy when it eventually needed it. The midwife did all of the checks, I still hadn’t progressed any further, but she assured me everything was fine and it was very normal for the latent phase to be this long for first births. Baby was coping fine and my body was fine, I just had to mentally getting through it. She also offered me a massage and lavender oil on a cloth.

At this point I was also offered a sweep which I used BRAIN and accepted because I thought it may speed it up..... well if there’s any evidence sweeps don’t work this is it! After the sweep my surges completely stopped. Which, to be honest, I was happy about as it allowed me to get some sleep and recharge my batteries.

My surges started again that night and by 10am the following morning I could tell they were getting stronger but I didn’t want too get to excited as I knew I’d had these pains for days. By 11.30 my partner wanted to time them but I said not to and got in the bath instead. By 12 I told him he needed to call the birthing centre because the pressure was much more than I’d had before and they advised me to come in to be assessed.

We got to the birth centre and the midwife we had was lovely, she examined me and I was 7cm. She gave me gas and air which was an instant relief! We moved to the birth suite, had the diffuser on, Freya app playing over the speaker and my partner was giving me a massage and helping me through every surge. I couldn’t believe how relaxed I was. My midwife had read all of my birth preferences and left us to it as much as she could other than the observations she needed to do but she just fitted that around what I was doing.

I got in the birthing pool and my waters broke within around 30 minutes. Unfortunately there was poo in the waters and I think my midwife was more heart broken about us moving to the labour ward than I was. She said we would still be able to have our music playing and she would make sure I was still able to be upright and mobile but would need to have monitors on so that she could monitor babies heart rate.

We moved rooms and my partner set everything up so I was comfortable in the environment. It wasn’t long before I was 10cm and ready to push, I could really feel the difference with the surges at this point. I was left to push for 1 hour and then the midwife helped me to try and push. Unfortunately our little boy had tried turning from back to back but had only half turned so it was making it very difficult to get him ‘around the bend’ .

We were advised by a doctor it would be best to go to theatre with the possibility of using forceps (my biggest fear) and if not a c section. At this point I was still calm and in control. I was calm enough to have a conversation with the doctor regarding the forceps and discuss my concerns, thankfully they reassured me and explained why they would prefer to try and use those first. We went into theatre and they were unable to turn him, so we had an un-planned c section. Our beautiful boy was born at 8.51pm 5th December weighing 9lb 11.5oz.

Although I didn’t get the water birth I had planned, the fact that I remained calm and in control through the whole process is all thanks to the positive birthing company. ‘Knowledge is power’ and this helped me through both my pregnancy and birth. My midwife commented on how connected both my partner and i were through the birth and how calm we was.

I can’t recommend the positive birthing company enough! If it wasn’t for the digital pack the experience could have been very different.