Birth story - Mum and baby girl

I am very blessed to have had the empowering birthing experience I had – I was able to remain calm, make decisions that were best for me and baby, and birth my baby with minimal interventions as I had hoped for. Our fertility journey was difficult to begin with, and the pregnancy did involve some risk factors which could have taken our birth experience in a different direction, but the hypnobirthing course we completed by PBC allowed us to remain flexible and advocate for our choices.

Pregnancy

After 4 yrs of fertility treatment and IVF due to PCOS we finally fell pregnant. The first trimester was incredibly difficult with all day morning sickness & aversions but this thankfully resolved by 16 weeks. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 20 weeks and had to monitor blood sugar levels 4 times a day. I was lucky that my blood sugars were well controlled with diet alone. I was also diagnosed with Group B strep and advised I’d need antibiotics during labour.

During one of my scans, I was told I had low levels of amniotic fluid, borderline oligohydramnios and that baby’s weight would need to be monitored with regular scans. My fluid levels remained around the lower centiles throughout my pregnancy, and babies weight fluctuated but remained within the centiles (at one point dropped 30 centiles and needed CTG monitoring and checked to see if I had broken my waters prematurely with a smear-like test, but everything was fine). I also had a foetal anomaly scan which came back normal. Baby continued to grow and my fluid levels levelled out near the end of the pregnancy.

There were moments with my consultant where I felt I was being pushed into being induced early due to low fluid levels, but I remembered the course material and that I don’t ‘have’ to do anything unless I wanted to. This gave me the courage to ask questions – why do I need to be induced, could I not wait an extra week, could I have extra monitoring instead? Finally, I was able to firmly push my induction after my due date and get the all clear for a birthing centre delivery if I went into labour spontaneously.

At 38 weeks I accepted a membrane sweep as I really wanted to labour spontaneously. It failed, but my second sweep a few days later worked!

Labour

At 2:30am on a Sunday (39+1) I was awoken with quite intense period pains – I had been having period-like pains on and off for a week prior so I though nothing of it. After an hour of tracking on my app I realised they were every 5-8 mins lasting a minute each. I decided to labour at home as long as possible (to get that oxytocin flowing!). At 10:30am I went into triage as the surges were quite intense and was found to be 2-3cm dilated but they’d keep me in to start antibiotics for my GBS. I was admitted to the birthing suite. I made sure to stay upright and use the birthing stool, birthing ball, the peanut ball when lying down. My husband also set up the environment as planned with tea lights, my own spiritual music, my own room scents, and ensured I ate and drank. He also made sure the midwives had read my birthing plan and knew we were following hypnobirthing techniques, and they respected our choices.

After 7 hours, I was assessed again and found to still be 2-3cm and was advised to continue labouring at home. At 7pm we returned home feeling dejected and upset that despite everything we hadn’t dilated at all! At home the surges were becoming very strong and only a few hours later I decided I needed a form of pain relief, so we returned. I was found to be 4cm in established labour and was re-admitted. Maybe I just needed to go home and be in my familiar environment to continue with dilating.

From 10:30pm to 1am my surges grew stronger; gas and air did not help so after a few uses I stopped using it. As the surges were becoming so uncomfortable so quickly, I accepted the pethidine injection – this helped me rest in between surges but did not help with the surges and their intensity. By 1am I was mooing and making very guttural noises and mentioned something about an epidural out of panic (my husband later told me he decided to quietly ignore this comment in case it was said in panic, he was right as I was actually transitioning!). I started to feel pressure as if I needed to push so my midwife checked and found I was 9cm! I had gone from 4cm to 9cm in 3 hours. She asked if I wanted my waters broken – at this point I couldn’t imagine going through this much longer and so I accepted. As soon as this was done, I was ready to push and so they started filling up the birthing pool.

Delivery

I got into the pool at 2am and stayed on all fours trying to push down my baby with each surge. I did struggle with the down breathing and found the overwhelming urge to push hard to control, almost as if my body was taking over. Within half an hour I had birthed my baby and brought her up to my chest, she was beautiful, and I couldn’t believe it was all over! We had delayed cord clamping, my husband cut the cord, I needed quite a few stitches for a second-degree tear and a few grazes which I got through with the gas and air, and I was helped with immediate breastfeeding. We had the most magical overnight stay in the birthing centre as our ‘golden time’. We ended up staying in NICU for 5 days due to suspected sepsis, baby being on the smaller side, and hypothermia. She did well on the antibiotics and we were finally allowed to bring her home.

The PBC course gave me the courage to advocate for my birth, and trust in my own body after so many years of doubt with our fertility struggles. We did it and you can too!