Birth story - Naomi and baby Levi

I discovered the Positive Birth Company quite early on in pregnancy, and it immediately made sense to me. I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t have a great experience for my first birth, despite the general attitude of a lot of people around me (and quite a lot of comments!) that first births ‘have to’ be traumatic.

My ideal was for a water birth in the MLU; this didn’t quite pan out but I feel overwhelmingly positive about my birth and I was proud that I felt in control and empowered all the way through, so wanted to share my story in the hope that it encourages other mamas-to-be worrying about induction!☺️ here goes...

My bump had been measuring ‘small for dates’ throughout my pregnancy so I kept being sent for growth scans about every 2 weeks, each time to be told baby was growing fine and was pretty much in the middle of the percentiles for everything. I got sent for another growth scan at 40+1 and they noticed that the fluid levels around baby had reduced quite significantly and his abdominal growth had slightly slowed since the last growth scan. I was recommended by the doctor to be induced at this point. I was quite reluctant at first, but spoke to my husband and we used BRAIN to decide that it was the best and safest option for baby at this point. We got to choose our date, so picked later that night (Tuesday) to go into hospital. I did ask to have the pessary and then go back home, but due to my waters level being low, they wanted me to stay in to be monitored regularly (luckily not constantly!)

So I was admitted late on the Tuesday night and had the pessary put in on the Weds about 1am. That started some mild contractions after a couple of hours but they were totally manageable; in fact I didn’t always notice them. I was enjoying myself, even though we were in a bay, by drawing the curtains round, putting our fairy lights around and the electric tealights, bouncing on an exercise ball and listening to Ed Sheeran (🤷🏽‍♀️😂) in my noise cancelling headphones, with David (my husband) doing the arm stroke relaxation. I managed to get some sleep during the night, and sent David home at about 3am to get a chunk of sleep while everything was still pretty calm, with the promise that he’d bring me back a McDonald’s breakfast in the morning!

The surges/contractions had gone up in intensity and frequency by the morning and I thought I was doing pretty well. I had to have monitoring every 4 hours for 30 mins, but managed to stay mobile bouncing on my ball. If I’m honest, I found that day quite long and boring, and broke up the monotony by walking laps around the hospital with David and watching some shows on iPlayer. The surges were a bit stronger at this point so I was having to stop and breathe through them, but I found the up breathing super helpful in keeping me focussed...they still weren’t at all painful at this point, just an intense tightening sensation at the bottom of my bump.

In the early hours of Thursday when I’d had the pessary in for 24 hours, I had an examination to see how far I’d got, and we made a plan that if I was less than 4cm they would put a second pessary in at the end of the examination. During the examination I was only at 1cm, so the midwife was about to put a second pessary in, but then my waters broke! This was exciting as it meant I had to go to delivery suite and couldn’t have another pessary put in. I was left to continue labouring on the labour ward until the evening of Thursday, so we kept mobile to help things along, bouncing on my exercise ball and walking around the hospital. We also tried to keep oxytocin flowing with lots of cuddles and listening to music. At about 6pm on Thursday I walked over to the delivery suite and settled into our lovely en-suite room. We put our fairy lights and electric tealights around the room, and put music on our portable speaker now we were in our own room. When I was examined, I was 3cm, but the midwife was so lovely and encouraging as my cervix had moved all the way forward and was now stretchy, so I’d actually made more progress than just getting to 3cm.

However, she had to consult with the obstetrician because of the initial concern around baby’s abdomen growth. The obstetrician wasn’t happy with how fast I was dilating, so recommended that I go on the drip to speed things along. David and I discussed this as I knew it could make my surges much more intense and closer together. We decided that we would go with the drip as although I had been dilating, it had been really slowly, and we were super impatient to meet baby by now!

The drip intensified things a lot; the surges quite quickly ramped up and I really relied on David counting for me while I did the up breathing to stay focussed. I did this for a few hours until Thursday evening when I was exhausted as I’d been awake since Tuesday morning, with only small bursts of sleep on Tuesday night/weds morning between surges and it was now Thursday night. With the drip, the surges had built to the point where I wasn’t getting a gap between them anymore and when I kept visualising the traffic light thing but I was definitely getting close to the red zone as I didn’t have time to come back down to green before the next surge came along.

It was at this point when we decided that I would have the epidural to get an hour of sleep, in order to have enough strength to be able to push the baby out myself. I decided that I’d have the first dose but then not press the boost to get another dose, so I would be able to get some rest but then it would have worn off completely by the time I got to the ‘down stage’. The epidural was great! I got to have an hour of actual sleep, and because my body had relaxed again while I was sleeping I dilated really fast from there, and by the time it wore off completely about an hour and a half later, I was feeling a lot more positive again and felt that I had enough energy to continue.

At about 1am I started to have this incredibly strong pressure like I really needed to go to the toilet urgently. I couldn’t get comfortable sitting or standing or bouncing on my ball and I started to panic as I didn’t know what it was. David suggested this might be transition, which strangely I hadn’t even thought of! I asked for an examination out of curiosity, thinking I couldn’t be more than 6am as I’d been progressing so slowly up until now... I was at 10cm and the panic was actually transition! I got on all fours on the bed when I got the next urge to push, but it made me feel quite sick and dizzy; I think because I wasn’t allowed to eat anything on the drip so my blood sugar was quite low. So I lay on the bed, and it was like my body suddenly just knew how to get the baby out. I could feel the pressure moving lower down and more powerful with each surge.

Due to the lack of gap between the surges with the drip, baby’s heart rate was dipping really low as he was getting stressed, so the midwife pulled the emergency buzzer to get the doctor to come in. This meant the lights were turned on and lots of people suddenly came into the room. This is the part where I feel like what Siobhan said about making sure I as the woman was in control of the space and the decisions made about my body and my baby really came into its own...and also the parts about the birth partner advocating for the woman in labour. I asked David if he could get all unnecessary people out, and he got everyone out except the obstetrician and the midwife and student, because actually those were all the people who were needed. We kept the lights on so the doctor could see the progress of baby’s head with each surge, but I remember feeling so proud that we hadn’t just accepted that we needed double digits of people in the room looking at me with my legs open (😂). Baby’s head was coming down quite far with each surge but then going back a bit as expected, but because of the heart rate dipping low, we decided with the obstetrician that the best thing was for me to get a bit of help with the ventouse to get the head out in less surges. With the next surge, I was helped with the ventouse to push the baby’s head out...it was SUCH a crazy minute with his head out but he wasn’t born yet. The midwife asked if I wanted to feel the head and before labour I didn’t think I would want to, but I did and he had loads of hair!! I remember feeling really impatient for the next surge to come so he would be here but also a sense of complete disbelief he was actually going to arrive! There was also a LOT of pressure at this point! With the next surge he suddenly rushed out and I felt a complete relief from the pressure. He was passed straight into my chest and we were covered with a towel to keep us warm. He had loads and loads of the white stuff on him and he was really furry on his back and shoulders 🥰 David told me he was a boy and I cuddled him and we just stared at him for what seemed like ages. When the cord stopped pulsing, David cut the cord and then he got his first cuddle with Levi!

It was so so magical, and I’m so grateful to Siobhan and the positive birth company for how prepared and in control I felt with everything that happened, and even though it didn’t go to plan with a birth centre water birth, I feel so positive about how it all went.

Still hoping for a water birth next time though 😉