Birth story - Poppy and baby Jacob

Wow I didn’t expect this to be so long!

I’m so thankful for everything I learned with Positive birth company. Even though I wasn’t able to have the Birth centre water birth I dreamed of, or have delayed cord clamping, I still had the most magical experience bringing my little boy into the world and I honestly would not have been so calm if not for the digital pack!

On Saturday 20th April I’d been feeling very achey in my hips and lower back all day, so in the evening I asked my partner to give me a massage as I thought it was just general pregnancy aches and pains.

That night I was tossing and turning as the lower back ache made it really uncomfortable to sleep, but thought nothing of it (especially as I was only 33+4 at this point!)

The next morning was Easter Sunday, and I noticed some light period pains that kept coming and going, and I said ‘ah this must be Braxton Hicks!’ & found it quite exciting.

As my back was still aching, we set off for Sunday lunch at the in-laws with my birthing ball in tow as it helped the back ache.

The ‘Braxton hicks’ continued all afternoon, and over dinner (3pm) the surges had really sped up and were coming every 4 minutes. This is when we decided to head to triage just to check if everything was normal (my partner was convinced it was early labour - I thought he was being dramatic!)

To my absolute surprise I was 3cm dilated and fully effaced. Although my pain was totally manageable, they said they had to keep me in the hospital until the baby was born, as early babies can often come really quickly, so it was too risky to let me go home.

They then advised me to have a steroid injection in my bum to help with the development of babies lungs and gave me tablets to stall labour, in order for the 2 doses of steroids to be administered 12hrs apart). I agreed that this was a good idea.

So they popped us in the labour ward overnight, and by 4am the surges had stopped and I was able to get some sleep.

The next day went by without any progression or surges due to the tablets, and I was moved to the antenatal ward, however I started to get bad hip pain which was annoying (now diagnosed as bursitis - don’t wish it on anyone! 🥵)

The following day my surges started to appear again at lunchtime and I began to time them, and between 1pm - midnight they followed no real sense of pattern but got more powerful as time went on, and lasted from 45 seconds to 2 minutes each, which was confusing, but I was so, so grateful to the Freya app which kept me and my partner feeling organised and in control.

He gave me some amazing counter pressure on my sacrum which really helped, and the best positions for the surges were on the ball or on my hands and knees on the bed.

At about 10pm I felt like things were really cranking up a gear, but the midwife on duty wasn’t able to do an internal as I was preterm, so only a consultant was able to perform an examination. It took 2 hours for a consultant to become free, so during the wait I bounced on my ball and stared out the open window, breathing through the surges, listening to my playlist. I was in a weird trance by this state, and felt a bit drunk from the power of the surges!

When the consultant came to examine me I was about 6cm and was transferred up to the labour ward (you have to be 37 weeks to use the birth centre 😞 )

I was still calm by this point, and as soon as we arrived in the labour room I got on my knees and rested my elbows on the head of the bed and went to town on the gas and air. It was amazing!!!! The pain instantly vanished and it really worked for me. I felt happy and there are videos of me singing along to my birth playlist, and making jokes! There’s a bit of a blank spot in my memory, because my birth playlist is only 1 hour long, and it took until 6am to get to the 2nd stage. But according to my partner I stayed in good spirits the whole time and was requesting songs for him to play 😂😂

When I got to the second stage my midwife had to leave, and we got another 3 midwives, 3 nurses from the SCBU, and a consultant.

I was on my back, and I asked if I could move to be on all fours to be in a UFO position, however they were closely monitoring babies heart rate as he was pre-term, and said that it would be best if I stayed put or the monitors may slip. I was content with that answer, as I definitely wanted the baby to be closely monitored!

Despite all the new people in my little room I wasn’t too phased, and continued on. At some point the babies heart rate started to drop so the gas and air was taken from me and I was coached to push. Because I was exhausted my pushes weren’t doing much at all (I think this is partly because I wanted to breath the baby out, but as his heart rate was dropping they needed a bit more effort on my part.) They catheterised me to see if it would help (which it did a little - I had about 1litre of urine in there!)

After half an hour of my pushing, the heart rate dropped even more, so they said they’d have to give me an episiotomy, and would I be ok with that? I said yes straight away, because I just wanted my baby out as quick as possible, and strangely in the moment the idea of an episiotomy didn’t bother me much as I thought it would have. I really kept calm and kept quite reasonable the whole time.

After the cut was made, baby came out in 2 pushes on the next surge, with no instruments.

He was placed onto my body for less than a minute whilst they clamped his cord, and he was whisked away to the NICU to be fully checked. Placenta was birthed 7 mins later and didn’t hurt at all, but wow!! It’s so beautiful!

It does make me a little sad that I didn’t get the birth I dreamed of at all - but in the circumstances I’m so glad that I knew everything I did, because it helped keep me calm and collected, and I knew so much about my body! I’m also so proud that I managed to get through 2 full days of surges with no pain relief and kept positive even though he was 6 weeks early.

Jacob is a perfectly healthy little boy, he just wanted to be here a little early! He spent 5 days in SCBU and was discharged in time to attend our wedding 7 days after his birth!