Birth story - Mollie and baby Scarlett

First time Mum

Hospital

Vaginal Birth

* Trigger warning* - Use of the word contractions, major haemorrhage.

I had a sweep at 40 + 2 weeks which had absolutely no effect . Three days later, I woke up to a wet patch all over the bed and was advised by the midwifes to head to the hospital to check if it was my waters. I’d had no contractions at this point.

I arrived at around 11am and was told that my waters had broken and to go home and stay active. I was also told that home births weren’t possible due to understaffing and that I’d have to return to the Birth Centre. I was also informed that if things hadn’t progressed naturally I was to come back to get induced on the labour ward at 8am the next day.

I went home, did some walking, but nothing progressed.

At 8am, the next day, we headed to the labour ward with not much hope of any progression and expecting to be placed on the hormone drip. At 10:30, The midwife checked my cervix and found that I was still 2cm but that my waters hadn’t fully broken and so she proceeded to break them. I was then given 2 hours to progress naturally into active labour. My partner took this as the opportunity to be a physical trainer, ordering me to walk squat and bounce on the ball for the entire 2 hours, at the time I hated him but looking back I think it worked.

After the 2 hours I was checked again and had progressed to 3cm with regular contractions and was able to avoid induction as I continued to progress.

At 5:00pm I was checked again and had hit 8cm within 3 hours of the last check. At this point I had been sat on a chair the whole time as I laboured entirely in my lower back but now decided I’d progressed enough to lay on my side and also up my pain relief to the Remifentanil drip. This was a life saver as it stopped me thinking about the fact I felt like I was going to poo the whole time.

At 7:25pm my midwife was handing over to the night midwifes and left. Within 2 minutes I said I could feel the head and everyone laughed so I repeated myself. The midwife checked and indeed her head was there. With 3 pushes, which I apparently breathed through amazing using the down breathing, and 5 minutes she was born.

I was handed Scarlett for 2 minutes and then had to hand her over to her dad as I was having a major haemorrhage. I tried to use my up breathing to remain calm as there was a lot of people doing a lot of things as well as a fainted student midwife in the corner I was rushed into surgery to remove my lost placenta piece, which took 2 spinal blocks and a lot of moving me around to avoid having a general anaesthesia.

After 2.5 hours I was reunited with my partner and baby.

Even after all of the drama, I’d still say I had an amazingly positive birth and look back at it with positive thoughts. My main advice is, if it all gets a bit hectic at any point remember you’re in the best place and try to breathe even if you’re in floods of tears like I was.

You’re all strong and capable of giving birth to your precious babies.