Birth story - Rebecca and baby Beatrice

My beautiful Beatrice is my second daughter and, although both my girls were vaginal deliveries, the conception and labours could not have been more different for me.

My first daughter, Tabitha, was an IVF pregnancy after three unsuccessful years at attempting to get pregnant. We were hugely fortunate for our first ever IVF cycle to work and I had a perfect pregnancy, albeit with a fair few tests for gestational diabetes because I threw myself into the ethos of eating for two. My delivery was a strongly suggested induction that then took more than 48 hours and resulted in a third degree tear a sizeable blood loss and a pretty nasty affect on my mental health in the subsequent few weeks. Although I had completed an NCT course I didn’t have the confidence, or the knowledge, to know that I could refuse an induction or challenge many of the decisions across those two days.

Beatrice was instead a complete miracle during the pandemic at a time when we were gearing up to try IVF again and was the most wonderful surprise.

During my pregnancy I decided to try a number of new approaches to reduce my need for epidural, prevent tear and to protect my mental health. My mother in law knew I had the hypnobirthing book and gifted me the online course as an early Christmas present. I also decided to try perennial massage, colostrum harvesting and I made arrangements for my placenta to be made into capsules to take postnatally. I was very fortunate to have an amazing community midwife who supported me with all these tools.

In the days following my due date I had three sweeps which I was happy to have in a real effort to avoid induction. On Tuesday the 27th I had the third and yet more mucus plug came away which had happened each time previously. I went to bed convinced nothing would happen and by day 12 I’d be looking at another long induction but I woke at 11pm with very regular period cramps. I managed fitful cat naps until 1am at which point my husband heard my restlessness and suggested that we get my mum to our house as childcare and contact the labour ward. By the time my mum arrived, only 35 minutes later, I was unable to hold a conversation during the pains and they appeared to be every other minute. I was convinced they couldn’t be labour pains because of the frequency with which they had started as I assumed stupidly I’d have a “tv birth” and they would start every 20 minutes or so and gradually build. This was most definitely not the case and the car journey to the hospital seemed to speed them up.

On arrival, the midwife was AMAZING, she immediately said that I wouldn’t be going home and she supported me to remain UFO as I knew how important this would be for me in my hopes to not tear this time. I had awful waves of nausea that seemed to coincide with the contractions and vomiting and contracting was one of the worst parts of my delivery. Because of my previous blood loss a plan had been put in place to establish a cannula from the outset in order to run a drip after delivery and this was all sorted really quickly.

In the room I had a diffuser, my playlist and dimmed lighting, it couldn’t have been more perfect. We had arrived at the hospital at 3:20 and when I was examined an hour later I was 6cm. This was the only examination I had and my monitoring was done in the most considerate way so that I could keep moving.

The hypnobirthing module on pooping must have resonated a bit too well as I had the awful experience of soiling myself repeatedly in front of my poor husband and the midwife and student midwife. They were amazing and what could have been the most mortifying moment was cleared away and dismissed as though nothing happened and thankfully my husband and I laugh about it now.

I used my up breathing for two hours alongside gas and air and I cannot explain how proud I am of that. When my first daughter was born I had a number of drugs and although that makes my delivery no less of an achievement it did have an affect on my body in the immediate aftermath and I was so hopeful that if I used all I’d learnt on the course I could do more of it naturally.

At 6am I decided, through tiredness and pain, that I couldn’t do any more on my own and asked for an epidural, it was at this moment that the midwife broke it to me that they could see the babies head and I would definitely not be having an epidural. I pushed for 32 minutes and out came 9lb 11oz Beatrice Alice Ruth with no tearing and no stitches.

I cannot explain in words the euphoria that I felt immediately after she was born and that I still feel now when I think about that moment. I have never felt more proud of myself or more wonder woman like. It’s how every woman deserves to feel after delivery. My husband and my midwife were the most phenomenal support but the hypnobirthing course gave me the confidence to recognise that my body was built for this process and that my feelings during birth are my natural instincts and if I could just keep the fear in check I could 100% do it my way. I reminded myself constantly that my contractions wouldn’t be more than I could bear and I used this mantra to embrace the urge to push and use them FOR me and Beatrice rather than letting them work against us.

I feel like my little family is complete with my girls now and this experience has completely altered the way I recall my first birth. The trauma of it cannot be erased but I now see it in a different way and recognise that preparation and planning would have changed the course of events completely.