Birth story - Roseanna and baby Bobby

I lost my plug at about 11:00am on Jan 30th. I was beyond excited. I remember looking out the window to sunshine and fresh snow. I thought, ‘oh I hope it happens today what a lovely day to enter the world.’ I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so just went on with the day. I then started to have surges. They were small at first so small I couldn’t even tell really if they were real or if I was excitedly imagining it. So I just carried on pottering about. John was recording a podcast with Leon, and I went to the toilet and was left with no doubt that my plug had definitely gone, I was actually surprised by the amount, because more and more kept coming. At this point I couldn’t contain my self and I told John what was happening, and he went off with excitement like a pop corn machine. I was trying not to get over excited as I didn’t want to get disappointed if it just came to nothing so I insisted on not getting carried away pottered round the house and did some more little chores. I listened to music and really enjoyed myself. I was so intensely happy and relaxed. John was sneaking round after me watching me like he was a puppy and I was keeping his favorite ball from him. Little did I know he had sneakily been timing my surges with his stop watch on his phone. He eventually couldn’t contain him self and said ‘Rose, you’re having surges every three minutes like clock work’. I said ‘no no don’t be silly it’s just the odd one’. His face was like a kids at Christmas. He was so excited. ‘No no honest. It’s every three mins let me show you’. I was still determined not to get my hopes up but permitted him to time my surges with an app, (Freya was not released yet) and sure enough they were every 3 mins and lasting 30 seconds.

John was so massively exited. He was just radiating excitement. I was mentally preparing myself for what I anticipated would be a long journey so continued to try not to get excited. John was indicating that we might want to go to the hospital and I actually felt a bit harassed by that, it was as if he was yelling ‘I can see the finish line’ and we had only just set off for our marathon. I was so blissful and everything was so manageable that I asked him to calm down a little bit I said ‘I know you’re excited, but I need to pace my self and take it easy so I need you to trust me to tell you when it’s time to go’ he said okay ‘I like that. You’re in charge’. I said he could call the hospital to say things were happening so he could feel like he was doing what he needed to, and my friend Amy, who is a midwife, answered the phone which was a lovely surprise. She advised that it was fine to relax and stay at home it sounded very much like early labour, she said I could take some paracetamol and have a bath to relax if I wanted. I decided I didn’t like the thought of paracetamol I had been too scared to take it all pregnancy so decided there was no need to now.

Shortly after that call my waters broke. It was massively less dramatic than I imagined but essentially a small amount of water ran down my inner leg in the dining room. This almost put John’s excitement over the edge and into orbit, but I was so determined not to get over excited that I tried to tell him I thought I might have just wet my self. 😂. He was like ROSE I CAN SEE YOUR WATERS HAVE JUST BROKEN. 😆. I was still batting him away in my oxytocin heaven.

Things started getting a little more intense and the app stated we should go to hospital, John rang back the hospital and found out that the midwife led unit was full. This got me a little grizzly but it really had little to no effect on me as I was just so blissfully happy and excited. The surges slowly started to get longer and come more quickly and I was really starting to have to breathe through them. I sort of separated my mind from my body at this stage. I was floating in between the surges. John said referring to the traffic light system, ‘are you back down to green baby?’ whilst stroking my arm and I said ‘I’ve gone right down to white’ haha. It was sort of blissful lucid nothingness in between the surges. I was just sort of instinctively rolling my hips and body. I didn’t stop moving the entire time. It was completely instinctive. I usually am not so good at letting go of my inhibitions. But I was completely free and just moving with the surges like I was rolling in the contrasting waves of intensity and bliss. I was very free.

By this point my conscious mind (where ever it had wondered off to) knew I was about ready to head to hospital but I was so deeply relaxed and in the zone I wasn’t very good at articulating my needs and what I thought. So the last real thing I asked for was chocolate🤷🏻‍♀️. But by then the surges were coming too quick for me to finish a square of Yorkie chocolate in between the surges which I was finding very frustrating at the time. I actually threw the bar across the living room as a surge came and then demanded it back... It’s hard to down breathe with a big mouthful of chocolate, but I really wanted the chocolate. It was very frustrating 😂. At this point John asked if I was ready to go to the hospital. My rational brain actually said ‘yeah ok it’s probably time to go now’ but what my mouth actually said was ‘I don’t care’ this is about the only answer I would give anyone through the rest of the labour. The only other things I said through the rest of the labour was ‘I need a poo’ and ‘pool please’ along with odd incredibly random sentences.

So despite my insistence that he should trust me to say when we needed to go to the hospital, John had to use his brain and take control a little bit here, my surges were lasting a minute and coming every 2 to 3 mins. So he got me in the car and apparently I said ‘cats have 6 babies so this should be easy’ (I’m a crazy cat lady)😆 we got to the hospital and the MLBU was still full, and delivery suite were rushed off their feet. They were trying to get me a room ready, so we were in the waiting room for a period of time (I have no idea how long) and there were other pregnant ladies in there waiting for their scans or check ups. I hope I didn’t scare them too much. I barely registered their presence and carried on acting on my impulses moving around. I was leaning into John and holding him whilst breathing. Apparently I laughed in between a surge in my oxytocin high, and John said ‘what’ and I said ‘there is no room at the inn’ 😆. We eventually got a room on delivery suite and John jumped straight into action dimming the lights and setting up our cave sorting out the scent, taste, sight, sound and touch and our friend Amy, bless her, was trying to facilitate a move to MLBU for us as soon as a room was available for us. It was now about 4:30pm and we were left to it for a while whilst the Midwifes delivered other babies.

Around 6pm they came and asked to do an internal examination, again all I said was ‘I don’t care’. But decided to just lay on the bed and go with it. I hadn’t really decided before hand if I wanted an examination I just figured I would roll with it and do what felt right at the time. Interestingly this is the only time I got a tad stressed as it was massively against my instincts to lay on my back and no sooner was I on my back my legs started to shake. The midwife said that was adrenaline. Which again I didn’t like. She prepped me to the fact that first babies come slow and my surges may not have translated at all into the cervix and not to be disappointed if I was not dilated, however I felt instinctively that I would have dilated but again prepared my self to not be disappointed. The midwife was very pleased to state I was at 5cm and my cervix was very stretchy and relaxed. As soon as she stepped away from me I sprang off the bed like a rocket and started pacing and swaying around the room again. I was offered gas and air, as being on my back had intensified things a little and I accepted only to dislike it immediately and proceed to quickly fill an entire bed pan with vomit. I went back to what felt right to me moving and rolling my body. Walking round the room, and my shaking was gone straight away.

At this point I kept repeating that I needed a poo. I was getting up and down up and down off the toilet. A few moments later I was told a room with a pool would be ready for me in 45 mins. This registered as positive but it really didn’t matter to me as much as I thought it would. I could have comfortably had her in the hospital reception and would have been cool with that. I was so very relaxed. Afterwards John said to me that at this point he was thinking he wasn’t sure if we would make the 45 min wait. I, at the time, thought the same in the back of my mind but wouldn’t vocalise that as didn’t want to let myself get carried away and continued to run my mental marathon. I carried on with the cycle of exclaiming to need a poo and getting up and down off the toilet, and whilst sitting on the toilet a new sensation happened. It was a bit like the surge started but then didn’t see it’s self though and a hydraulic pump took over the surge and a completely involuntary downward Mexican wave went through me. It was about 6:30 and John said to me ‘you just pushed didn’t you?’, ‘I said I don’t think so’. Now I knew full well my body had just ‘pushed’ but my mind was saying ‘but I haven’t asked for an epidural yet. The transition is meant to be intense, I can’t be pushing I was 5 cm 30 mins ago’ but sure enough my body was pushing down. John said he tried to tell the midwives but they said they didn’t think so because I was only at 5cm and not to panic. I vaguely remember a midwife saying ‘oh don’t push yet it’s too soon’, and I vaguely thought to my self ‘tell it to my body, because I’ve got nothing to do with this’. They told me that the MLBU room was available and asked me about a wheelchair or walking to which they got ‘I don’t care’ so John stepped in and made the decision for me and got me into MLBU via a wheel chair. I vaguely remember making a sound like a Viking warrior wrestling with a car crushing machine in the corridor as another downward push waved though me, these sensations were so strange it’s like a very powerful backward hiccup or being sick downwards. But they were a welcome change from the surges and they brought a big decrease in the discomfort. it was more than anything an incredibly bizarre sensation that my body was doing it and I had literally nothing at all do to with it.

I got into the MLBU room and there was no pool. This is where I kept saying ‘pool please’. John was telling the midwives that I was pushing and they were saying ‘no no she can’t be pushing it’s too early don’t panic’. Again I was just running my own little instinctive mental marathon with beautiful waves of oxytocin calm, between the surges, I was sure that baby was about to be born but I was just so in the zone that I couldn’t say anything. The staff were changing doing a handover so we were alone again. I managed to articulate to John that I could feel our babies head with my hand. He had been running out to the midwives to ask for help because some blood (a normal amount for delivery) had started to go into the toilet and he knew this meant things were moving along but they had said don’t worry it was just the show. I realized afterwards that he was containing his panic at this point, he was worried our baby would be born into the toilet I was sitting on, with out the midwives there at all. He was gently trying to coax me off the toilet and ask me if the baby was coming and all I could say to him until then was ‘I don’t care’ - which wasn’t even an answer to what he had asked me. So thankfully he had learnt enough through the hypnobirthing course to know that baby was indeed coming and he was torn between leaving me and getting the midwives.

At this point I finally did my damned poo! I was so relieved and my body instantly told me to get onto the floor. So when I managed to move and say I can feel the babies head John ran out and high jacked the first midwife he found and made her come into the room, she got down and immediately saw that I was infact crowning. This midwife was amazing. She burst into action and immediately took control and must have been the biggest relief to my lovely John. I said ‘pool please’ she told us there was one run for me but it was in the room across the corridor. So with no hesitation at all I walked out of the room naked from waist down into the corridor and said ‘where is the pool’, (I say walked, more wide leg shuffled) the midwife guided me to the room with the pool and I made it into the doorway of the room when the next downward push started. I reacted instinctively and dropped to my knee just inside in the doorway of the room, where my actual assigned midwife was just finishing running the pool. The pool was next to the door so I gripped my hand on the edge of the pool to stabilise my self. Our midwife was very shocked at our arrival and what stage we were at. I listened to what was happening around me for the first time and I heard the midwives conversations and one said that the baby’s heart had not been checked just yet. This for the first time brought me back ‘into the room’ and I realised I had a decision to make, I felt like the baby would be with us in two more down pushes unless I decided to physically get involved in this game myself. So I knew I could push now with my pelvic floor and core and get baby’s head out or I could let this one pass and get in my bath. I made the instant decision in light of baby’s heart not being monitored recently that I would move a mountain to get baby out there and then so I somehow bore down with my body, my breath, my air, my everything and with a hot waving sensation of pure relief baby’s head was out as I gasped in air, I even managed to vocalise what a relief it was. I turned to look for John and I looked at him and made eye contact for the first time since we arrived at hospital and his face told me a story of the journey he had been on. It was a face I knew and love so well and it was so intensely written with so many emotions at once I couldn’t break my eyes away from him, we spoke a thousand things to each other there and then but said nothing at all. Time was still and calm as I breathed waiting for the next downward push. I managed to say to John ‘have you seen baby’s head’ he said ‘no’ and the midwife told him to look. He said he was so glad he did. It was the best thing he ever saw. In the moments of calm waiting for the next downward push John dipped his finger in the bath water and said ‘look we made the bath’, 😆 and we all managed to laugh. Me, the Midwife’s both supporting me, and one also stopping the door from closing on us with one hand as we hadn’t quite cleared the doorway enough for it to close and John all laughed together - born on the wrong side of the pool on the floor almost in the doorway.

The next downward push happened and I was holding her in my arms. John took some photos and I am so glad to see that moment for myself. John told me she was a girl he said it’s ‘Bobbie’, I was surprised as we had guessed it would be a boy. As soon as she was put in my arms, through my legs, I was aware of how dainty she felt. I was blown away by how wonderfully perfect and petite she felt like a little doll. We moved to the bed and I had skin to skin with her for a long time. Just watching her looking at every little inch of her. The midwife came back in and clamped the cord. John cut it and had some skin on skin whilst I birthed the placenta.

The room was beautiful it had provided twinkly lights on the ceiling and beautiful peaceful classical music was playing. We stayed in that bubble for hours together holding each other on the double bed. A family.

Bobbie was born at 19:25 at 5.10lb. Despite being moved from room to room and not getting my ideal birth preferences I went from 5cm to holding her in my arms within an hour and 25 mins. I put this down to a complete lack of fear, knowledge of the stages of labour having a birth partner who was incredible at sorting out my environment when contending with unideal changing circumstances. We moved cave three times and I always felt safe, and never exposed, as I knew he was by my side and on my side, I put it down to trusting to the instinctive nature of birth and completely surrendering my body over to our little Bobbie and letting my instincts take charge.

I am positive I would have not had this wonderful empowering experience if it was not for the hypnobirthing course I did. If I had not known what the course taught me I would possibly have gone into shock due to not anticipating the stages and asked for an epidural straight away, I would have felt adrenaline due to my lack of knowledge and understanding of what was happening to me, this is shown in what happened when I laid on my back on the bed and adrenaline kicked in. I also would not have had the confidence to trust my instincts and trust my body. I would not have understood that pacing around was the right thing for me to do, and that it was ok. I would have believed it was the right thing to lay on my back on the bed and shake.

I did not need stitches afterwards I just had grazing. I didn’t feel this other than a warm heat wave, more than anything else the birth of Bobbies head brought massive relief and elation.

I sort of feel like I didn’t participate in giving birth to Bobbie. I really did just surrender my self over to it. I read a quote the other day that said something like ‘it is said that women in labour leave their bodies when they give birth and travel to the stars to collect the souls of their babies and return with them at birth’ I couldn’t agree with this more. The female body is a truly incredible thing. I am in awe of what I did, it’s like I tapped into some deep and powerful instinctive, almost primal, channel and it was the most intense, powerful and beautiful experience of my life. Thank you John for protecting me from the delays and keeping me safe thank you for shouldering all of your worries and fears and protecting your girls. We love you.

Also thank you Siobhan from the positive birth company for educating and empowering women everywhere. If you had not made your course so easily accessible and affordable I might not have considered it at all and would not have had this happy birth. And also thank you to my Lauren who inspired me with her brave and happy birth story and made me realise for the first time a few years ago that birth could be a very positive experience. Finally thanks to the midwives who were rushed off their feet but still safely delivered so many babies that night. There really was no room at the inn!