Birth story - Melissa and baby Zachery

Its taken me a while to write this as Zak is now 9 months…My birth story has some positives and some negatives but it mainly went how I had hoped.

I really enjoyed being pregnant. I stayed fit and healthy, dog walking daily, eating well, acupuncture weekly and regular chiropractic adjustments. Although, there were a few knock backs medically.. I did have COVID around 34 weeks but luckily it didn’t seem effect me or baby. One of babies kidneys were measuring large so we had regular observations around this. At 37 weeks, babies growth had dipped and was measuring on the 4th percentile. Due to this, we were offered inductions on numerous occasions. It seemed that the doctors were keen to induce us but we wanted the labour to happen naturally and repeatedly needed to explain this to the professionals. It was difficult saying no to them at times and when questioned often, however it was worth it for how things panned out. We agreed to be monitored every other day for the last week of pregnancy and as the MLU was two minutes down the road, it wasn’t too bad.

The birth

On the Friday (40 + 3 days), I had my monitoring in the morning then me, my partner and dog walked into town, for some breakfast, and back. I started doing some crafts when home and then I felt a leakage, twice! I went to the bathroom to check when more gushed out, which my partner witnessed! I didn’t have any contractions so I carried on with my day. I was very excited that everything was happening naturally and cleaned the house and car ready! My partner went to work so I went over to my mother in laws. She mentioned that I should call the hospital, they were surprised I hadn’t done so before and asked me to go in. By the time I got in, around 6, my contractions slowly started. Again, we were offered an induction but declined and agreed to be monitored in the morning. We got home around 1/2 am.

Saturday evening, we put on White Chicks and I recorded my contractions on the Freya app. When it said I was in labour, I called the hospital and went in, it turned out that I wasn’t in labour and went home after declining an induction.

At 4 am on the Sunday, the contractions got a little more intense and I noticed some very light bleeding on my pad. We went into hospital and made the decision to have an induction. This was because of my waters, things seemed to be progressing too slowly and I was getting so exhausted. My partner and I were the only ones in the ward so we finished watching White Chicks together while waiting to be taken to the delivery suite/for staff to change over.

We were taken to the birthing suit around 9am and met our lovely midwife, Dani. She had changed the lighting and we sprayed rose oil around the room, it felt very calming and not like a hospital environment at all. My contractions started to happen naturally and we were able to hold off the hormone drip.

When I was about 5cm, I started to want some pain relief. I had asked for the pool but it wasn’t available. It was agreed I could have a bath which really helped ease some of the pain, I even managed to nod off a little. I LOVE a bath anyway!

Shortly after this, unexpectedly, my mother in law came in to give my partner some food and ended up staying. This was not part of the plan but now I’m not sure how I would have managed with out her.

At 7cm I was struggling and I was told that the hormone drip would be needed as things had started to slow down. At this point, I asked for pain relief as I knew I wouldn’t cope with the stronger contractions. We agreed to Diamorphine which I was so ready for! It definitely calmed me down and helped ease the pain a little. Things really seemed to speed up after this, I ditched the gas and air as it didn’t do a lot for me and I was soon 10cm. By this point, the midwife was due to go home so we had a change in staff.

I wierdly didnt have a massive urge to push and it was soon getting quite crucial that the baby was to be born. I had two midwives telling me I needed to get the baby out (some doctors also visited but I was pretty unphased). I was put into stirrups (which wasn’t that bad) and had a bar in front of me so I could push more into my bottom. At one point, my partner and mother in law were each side of me, holding onto my arms and pushing with me. I feel like the contractions were so much more tolerable during the pushing part, maybe because I was so determined to get baby out! I had a local anaesthetic injected into my penerium to ease off the stinging as I was holding back. The bruising from this hurt for a while after.

It felt like I was pushing for ages and I was getting worried more interventions would need to happen. However after the head started to come out, it was over very quickly. The midwives were fantastic and as asked, one put a warm flannel on my penerium and guided me with my pushing.. I believe this was why I had no tears or stiches, just grazes!! Baby was born at 21.19!! I didn’t even really notice him fully come out (no ring of fire possibly due to the injection). I was in total shock when he was placed on my chest. The most surreal experience ever. My partner and mother in law were a lot more emotional than I was, I think I was too overwhelmed with different emotions and absolutely exhausted!

I had the injection to help the placenta come out, along with a bit of a tug from the midwife. This did not hurt, I didn’t even feel it. We had two hours golden time, I was told to try and breastfeed but I was too tired to succeed. I think this was because of the lack of sleep before and also due to the diamorphine.

Zak and myself stayed in hospital for a while after. He was monitored regularly due to my waters being broken for a while before birth and meconium in my waters. He was given one round of antibiotics and we fought for him not to be given anymore as he was not showing any signs of illness. This was quite difficult as not all of the medical team were on board. We really had felt that throughout this pregnancy. I wasn’t prepared for the 5 days in hospital, so that’s something to consider when packing for hospital.