Birth story - Rebecca and baby Blake

I had thought I was likely to have a quick labour second time round, as my first was born within 2 hours. For her birth I had a really positive waterbirth in a midwife led unit and I was really keen to do this again if possible.

However, at 36 weeks I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes which meant that I would now have to give birth on the labour ward and the consultants weren’t very keen on me having a waterbirth (if I was lucky enough to get a room with a pool). This situation gave me a lot of anxiety and talks of early induction made me very uncomfortable. This course really helped me and in every appointment I used my BRAIN to ensure I was making the best decisions. By doing this I avoided being rushed into an unnecessary induction and used the NICE guidelines (I had extra growth scans and monitoring to ensure baby was safe and healthy).

From 38 weeks I was having signs that things may be starting to happen soon, baby was fully engaged, I was gradually loosing my plug and I had lots of cramps & small contractions. However, unlike my first who came at 39 weeks; my due date came and went. I was booked in for a sweep to try and get things moving before an induction scheduled for 40+5 weeks due to the Gestational Diabetes.

On Friday 16th November I had my sweep, my cervix was forward and very soft and I was a good 3cm. Much like every other day for the last two weeks, I felt like something might happen but I woke up on Saturday and disappointingly nothing had happened!

That Saturday we carried on the day as normal and at 7pm we put our toddler to bed. We were sat watching tv together and I started to feel slightly more painful contractions, they were bearable but were definitely more significant than any I had been having before. I downloaded an app and started to time them, they were roughly 4-6 minutes apart. I could still talk through them but I thought I’d ring the Labour ward at about 7:40pm just in case, we chatted through my symptoms and they suggested that as they were still quite irregular and I hadn’t had any whilst we were on the call so I should stay at home for a bit longer and call if things progressed (I made them aware of my quick labour last time).

As I got off the phone to the labour ward, I had one very painful contraction and my waters went! It was such a strange sensation, as I hadn’t felt them last time as they went in the water just before my daughter was born. From this point my contractions became very intense and very close together. My husband called the labour ward straight back and they advised to come in, he then quickly called his parents to come and be with our daughter (they live about 15 mins away).

I was breathing deeply, with my eyes closed and standing upright, whilst trying to listen to my body. By this time I suggested to my husband to call a friend who lived closer, as I could feel things were moving quite quickly. In the meantime I tried to get to the car to wait there, as I got in the car I just knew that we weren’t going to make the 20 minutes to hospital; my instinct told me to get back inside. So at about 8:10pm my husband rang the labour ward, who told him to get inside with warm towels and that an ambulance & community midwife would be called out and someone would call him back.

We got inside and I continued to breathe through the contractions. I was quite scared at this point, as nothing was going to plan and the reality of the situation was starting to hit. I tried to control my environment by having the lights in my sitting room dimmed and kept my body upright, whilst I breathed through the contractions.

My in-laws arrived, who helped gather towels (my father in-law waited outside for the ambulance) whilst my husband was on the phone to the ambulance control room, who were guiding him through what to do. I quickly felt the urge to push, so they instructed for me to lie on my back (I knew this wasn’t an optimal position, however, I was very aware we didn’t have any medical professionals at home at this point and they were instructing my husband so I needed to help him as well). Once I was lying on my back, I had a moment of panic that we were on our own but then the urge to push was too strong and I started to push. After a couple of pushes, our baby was born and delivered by my husband at 8:36pm. Our baby was placed immediately on my stomach, we had to untangle the cord (it wasn’t wrapped around the neck but was over it) and we had to quickly cover in a warm towel whilst still on me.

A few minutes later the ambulance team arrived, they were amazing and quickly checked us all over. We waited a few minutes to clamp the cord (we had delayed cord clamping for my daughter and I wanted it to happen again this time) and then my husband cut the cord. We then realised we hadn’t even found out if we had a little boy or girl and much to our surprise we had another little girl!!! I then brought her up to my chest and got her to latch on. Shortly after, the midwife arrived and I was starting to feel contractions again. The midwife helped me to deliver my placenta, I was offered gas & air by the ambulance team but it made me feel a bit sick.

Due to me having Gestational Diabetes, we had to be transferred to hospital for both myself and the baby to have our bloods monitored. So we had to take a trip in the ambulance. We were given a warm welcome at the labour ward, where we were both monitored and I got some stitches for a small tear.

After all the checks we were home again the next afternoon 😊 I can’t praise the ambulance team, community midwife team and Princess Alexandra Hospital enough, very grateful to the NHS.

Although it wasn’t the birth I’d wanted and it was quite dramatic, it was still a really positive birth and our daughter gets to say that her daddy delivered her!

The Positive Birth pack helped my mind to stay focused and to make the most of the situation I was in and also in the lead up to birth when it came to how we managed our care with Gestational Diabetes.