Birth story - Namrata and baby

Slightly long story - best experience of my life! (bear with me!!)

I talk of induction, interventions & C-section ending in a physiological birth, with TENS, 2 co/drydomol & 3 puffs of gas & air, in a delivery suite.

From week 32, everyone I met kept asking me how nervous I was about giving birth and I genuinely hadn’t given it a thought as I was taking pregnancy day by day with a positive mind-set from the start. I, however, stumbled upon PBC on Instagram and oh boy, I am SO glad I did! I found it amazing that the female body is able to perform something so magnificent and the way Siobhan explains it all just made a lot of sense to me.

At week 39, I had a scan after which the doctor told me that the baby is “on the bigger side” (at which point I was telling myself that my baby is the right size for my body) and because of that, I wouldn’t be able to have the water birth I was planning. She then also put forward a form to plan an induction at week 40. See, at this point, I would have totally panicked, as things were not going my way. But using the BRAIN Framework, I did sign the form but wanted to start labour naturally earlier so asked her about a sweep (the doctor did not even offer it!). After a little chat, the doctor did the sweep for me on the spot. That’s when it all started for me…

I was sent home and in the car I started feeling sporadic surges. I thought to myself, ‘surely this is not possible; the effect cannot be so immediate.’ That evening, I felt a few more surges and went to sleep happily. The next morning, (week 39+1), they were back - at this point, I ran myself a bath with some aromatherapy, used the birthing ball, started with the TENS machine etc. Most importantly, I kept myself in the UFO position, up breathing through each surge and listened to my playlist. It worked: surges were getting closer together and more powerful so I went to the hospital around 4pm where my waters also conveniently broke. At this point, I was not dilated enough for them to take me to the delivery suite so I was sent to a ward where I asked for pethidine. The midwife gave me co-dydramol instead to start off with (which I am really happy about!). I paced myself with the TENS machine as I was sure labour would be longer but got to level 8/15 and suddenly felt the need to push (this was about 5 hours after I reached the hospital). The midwife confirmed I was fully dilated and ready to birth baby! I was rushed to the delivery suite (apparently stole someone’s suite + midwife!) and was encouraged not to push as the room was not fully ready for me so they gave me some gas and air. Then I was finally allowed to push baby out.

By this point I was exhausted because I hadn’t been fuelling up enough (I was just concentrating on my breathing and refused to eat in between). I had been pushing for an hour and, I’m not going to lie, mentally I was prepared for a C-section. The doctor even came in and spoke about interventions or C-section and made me sign a consent form. That triggered me. The doctor started preparing to take me to the operation theatre and that’s when everything came back to me from nowhere: ‘there is no way my baby is being born with help.’ I gathered all my strength for one last push and did the biggest poo of my life.. and out came my little one!

I would like to thank PBC for arming us women with such knowledge - it is true that I only knew about labour the way it’s been portrayed on the screens or from negative stories.

A massive thank you to all those women who post their stories on FB - I kept reading them and went back to them week 39 to make myself accept the fact that I may need interventions or a C-section.

I also would like to thank my birthing partner, he was genuinely the best through it all, making sure he was the Keeper of the Cave.