Birth story - Ma and baby Annika

*Trigger warning* - 3rd degree tear, cervical trauma, high risk pregnancy.

I was given a hypnobirthing book at around 28 weeks into pregnancy. I read it and I was fascinated. I wanted to do a bit more than just read a book so I found the PBC course. It was perfect! I watched all the videos twice. Once with my husband. And from then on I read all the stories on here. They were the most helpful for me! Thank you to everyone

My previous labor was 54 hours. When my son was born my cervix ripped and a week later a piece of it came off. That's why my next pregnancy became a high risk pregnancy. We were not sure if my cervix would work as it should. Due to that I was monitored a lot in my second trimester. Luckily my cervix was working just fine and I did not need a cerclage or any treatment. Thanks to Hypnobirthing I was also very confident on having my baby vaginally again.

My mom came to visit us for three weeks from Switzerland. Her flight back home was on the 14th of April so I did everything so the baby would come on time. I ate dates, took raspberry leaf tablets, ate spicy food, ate lots of pineapple and of course had sex. I had a lot of practice surges for about 3 weeks before labor and I also was losing part of my mucus plug. So we all thought she would come early....but nothing happened. My mom was already here for 2 weeks when my due date came. I was booked for a sweep a few days later and I was really hoping that she would come before that as I had bad memories of the sweep I had last pregnancy.

Labor:

One day after my due date I went for a nap when my son was napping. When I got up at 3:30 pm to pee my water broke in a gush. I called my husband who was out with my sister in law. I put on a show and started bouncing on the ball so I would hopefully start having surges. I did have one or two surges while I did that and lots of more water came out.

My mom got up from her nap at around 4:30. I told her that my water broke. She is a midwife so she said that she would check my cervix and listen to baby. Baby’s heartbeat was good and I was already 5 CM dilated. I was so happy about that! She told us to get going to the hospital because she thought it would be quick once the surges pick up.

We got everything ready to go and we left the house at around 5:30. I had maybe 2 strong surges at home and 2 surges in the car. I managed pretty good with the up breathing. I was counting in my head which helped a lot. When we walked in the hospital from the parking lot I started to get one surge after the other with very little time in between. They were very intense and I had to stop every time to breathe through them. Before getting assessed I was checked and I was already dilated 8-9cm. I could not believe it! They brought us to our delivery room at around 6:15. Once we got there I really wanted some gas and air and I even asked for a epidural. It must have been the transition because right after I felt very pushy. They told me not to push yet which I ignored because from the birth stories I read, many were saying that by this point you should just go with your body.

I was trying to do my down breathing but I did lose a bit of control in the pushing stage. Maybe because it was all pretty hectic and there were a lot of people in the room. They were also telling me that I was not allowed to give birth while standing because it was to dangerous for the baby. I was a bit disappointed as this felt like the position I wanted to be in. I went on the bed which was ok too. I was leaning over on a ball and started pushing. I did have gas and air from that point on and I really liked it. After 15 minutes of pushing I could feel the ring of fire. I reached down and was able to feel my daughter's head. That was very special after a few more pushes her head was out and with the next surge at 7:40 she was born. They passed her to me through my legs and I was able to cuddle her on my belly until they cut the cord 10 minute later. It was a very short cord so I was not able to bring her up to my chest.

The placenta came out after about 20 min and I got my hour of cuddles while they stitched up my third degree tear.

I was still bleeding quite a lot after a while and the doctor had to come back to check me. She mentioned that I had blood clots in my cervix and they were preventing the cervix from closing. So the doctor had to go in to remove the blood clots. Ouch! After she removed all of them the bleeding stopped and we were able to go into our postpartum room and have some family quality time together.

I felt overwhelmed with joy!

It all went a bit quick but I was always in control and I managed to stay focused. Hypnobirthing is not very common here in Canada and the nurses and doctors were very impressed at how calm I was during the whole labor.

I hope this was helpful for you guys! I wish you all the best for you pregnancy and labor! You can do this. x