Birth story - Rachael and baby boy

The Positive Birth Company Digital Pack was recommended to me by a couple of different friends so I invested early in my pregnancy to give myself plenty of time to work through it. I honestly didn’t know it was hypnobirthing until someone told me after I’d run through it for the first time! The content had seemed far too logical to match my preconceived idea of hypnobirthing. I used the relaxation and breathing techniques throughout pregnancy and labour and really felt they were beneficial. Trusting in myself and being reassured by the knowledge from Siobhan definitely got me through. My husband also watched all the videos and read through my birth preferences so he was fully aware of what I wanted to happen in each scenario. Knowing that I had someone I trust to be my voice whilst I focused on giving birth helped me to remain calm throughout.

I woke in the early hours of Monday morning to go pee. I was aware of a slight feeling of leaking but just assumed it was discharge. However on returning to bed it happened again, so I went back to the bathroom. Still not convinced I started to rummage around for a pad and felt a little gush. Feeling a little excited at the prospect of this being the kick-off I went back to bed and put on the relaxation track, took some deep breaths, and went back to sleep. In the morning I got up when my husband was due to go to work and discovered a small amount of bloody mucus on the pad, so we called the maternity hospital. I was advised to come in to get checked over and to confirm it was my waters. We took our time getting ready and heading into the midwife lead unit. I had had no contractions but was still leaking every time I bent over or sat down. They confirmed it was my waters and said due to the lack of contractions I should go home and see what happened. They offered an induction if there was no progress by 24 hours. We had a chilled out day, walked the dog and ate good food. Still no contractions though.

The next day we went back into the midwife led unit because it is a lot closer to us than the hospital and I was still not having any contractions. I knew that due to it being over 24 hours after my waters breaking I would not be able to give birth in the midwife led unit, but was reassured that they had a birth pool at the hospital that was likely to be available. I turned down the induction and was happy to progress at my own pace. My waters were leaking gradually but baby and I were both happy and the benefits of doing things on my terms far outweighed the low risk factors. They hooked me up to the monitor in the midwife unit at about 11am Tuesday and it turned out I was in fact having contractions! I had been vaguely aware of a mild cramping sensation but didn’t think it could be contractions as they weren’t that noticeable. Now I knew what I was monitoring we went back home and kept an eye on them. I agreed that once I was in established labour I would go onto the labour ward in the hospital and that they could do continuous monitoring so long as I could stay mobile. If I had not given birth by 48 hours they would want to do IV antibiotics and keep the baby in for monitoring.

My contractions ramped up gradually throughout the day. I kept mobile by walking laps of the downstairs, walking up and down the stairs and doing some gentle exercises on the birth ball. I found keeping moving throughout the contractions really helpful and also sitting on the loo with my bottom right to the back of the seat. By about 5pm my contractions were getting close enough together to call the hospital but were still perfectly manageable. The lady in triage asked to speak to me and to listen to me go through a contraction. From our conversation she deemed I was not far enough along to come in and to carry on with what we were doing until they ramped up a bit further. We called her back about 20 minutes later to say we were on our way! The car journey takes about 45 minutes and previously I had worried about this part if I had to go to the hospital. In fact it was fine. I was not able to be as mobile in the car so I focused more on my breathing and relaxing through the contractions. I was even still able to be a back seat driver whilst in labour.

Things continued to progress as we were waiting in triage. I was still moving around a lot through the contractions, I remember having a few contractions where I was thinking I’d like to know how far along I am because I wanted to know if and when it was going to get to the painful part. Soon after with every contraction I was involuntarily dropping into a full squat, at this point I made my husband go tell the doctor I was about to start pushing in triage if he didn’t hurry up! I had refused all internal examinations so I think they assumed I had a way to go. Luckily this made them realise I was progressing well and we went through to the room with the pool. There was no time to get us hooked up to all the monitors and our observations were fine so we were allowed to continue without. The contractions were getting intense but I was straight back to normal and able to chat in between them. My husband got straight to setting up my birth playlist and having a water bottle to hand. I had laid out all that I wanted in the birth bag over the previous weeks and he had packed the bag so he knew exactly where everything was.

Being in the water was bliss. I was only in for a couple of contractions before my body started to push. I was not actively pushing but was focusing on staying relaxed through the contractions to allow my body to do its thing. I was aware of the pressure becoming lower and lower and was able to feel him relax back up the birth canal a little between each contraction. The midwife agreed that I was allowed to continue like this for 30 minutes maximum and if there was no baby by then I would accept an internal examination. She didn’t want me to continue too long without being sure I was fully dilated. After 30 minutes I consented for an internal examination but only if I could stay in the pool. Luckily I was fully dilated and allowed to continue. I could feel how low down the baby was with each push and agreed to join in and push when my body was pushing. It was still all so involuntary, I was able to push with the contraction and bring the baby down a little further each time. I was aware of a slight stinging on one side of my vagina for the last 3 pushes, this was the only sensation out of the whole thing that I could describe as pain. It was these 3 pushes that birthed the head and then the rest of him. I could feel him turn as he came out. My son was born at 00:21 in the water. No pain relief required. The cord was pretty long and was wrapped around him a couple of times. I scooped him up and kept him under the water to admire him whilst I untangled him. I then lifted him onto my chest for the best cuddles of my life.

My husband cut the cord after about 10 minutes. We stayed in the pool for about 40 minutes doing skin to skin. I then got out and breastfed to try and stimulate the release of my placenta. It would not budge. We tried several different positions but I only had 2 very minor contractions over all this time and no sign of a placenta, so I agreed to the syntometrine injection. It was like magic and the placenta was birthed immediately and easily. My husband had some skin to skin time through this and whilst I was getting stitches. I had 3 tears, the one that had stung at the end was a labia tear and I was aware of it being painful when examined. The other two, one of which was third degree and internal, I could not feel at all. I was apprehensive about the stitches and the numbing injection but they were fine. I was helped to shower and get dressed and we were then left alone in the room and had a really lovely time just the three of us relaxing and listening to music. I was pumped for hours after the birth and chatted non-stop to my sleeping husband! We went home that afternoon feeling truly grateful that we had such an amazing birth experience. Remaining calm and positive throughout and using BRAIN at each step played a massive part in achieving this.