Birth Story - Sophie and baby

It’s been now 2 weeks and I’m finally ready to tell my story. It was Sunday 27th at 7pm, I was 39+3.

After a shower and just before going to a restaurant, I decided to follow my midwife’s advice and start hand expressing my breast to stimulate and maybe induce the labour. 
5 minutes on each side. 

Once finished and literally 3 minutes later, I heard an odd noise down under and then I felt water leaking between my legs. I run into the shower and call my partner. “I believe my waters broke”. I decided to call my midwife to let her know, she was very reassuring and told me to wait until 11am the next morning to come to the hospital. As it was my first, she thought that would take some times.

Half an hour later, the surges started. We cancelled the restaurant and I started to relax on my couch and put the TENS machine on even if I was managing my surges very well with up breathing.

An hour later, I started to feel things were accelerating, I went to my bedroom and listened to relaxation tracks. I was on my gym ball, head on my bed, LED candle as suggested by Siobhan. My partner was giving me hugs during the surges and feeding me when settled.

After an hour of surges, I decided to call back, the surges was powerful and about 45 seconds every 4 minutes. I started to think it was going too fast. She told me to wait a bit more for the surges to be 1 minute every 3 minutes and then to call back. 
An hour later, I was ready. 
I could feel pressure on my pelvic floor and I said to my partner, “call her back, we are going to the hospital NOW!”

With this pressure, I started to be worried that I will have to deliver my baby in the car. I just wanted to be at the hospital in time. I started to make some weird noise and when I finally arrived on the bed at the hospital, I just let all go and cry very hard. It was not about pain, it was just relief to be arrived and ready. 5 minutes later I was ready to push with no examination.

It took longer than I thought. 2 hours. I started pushing on the bed, I asked my partner to set the room with the LED candle. After maybe half an hour, I feel like I had to poo. I told my midwife, she said « it’s fine don’t worry », even my partner told me to do so but I was like “nope, not on the bed. I want to go to the bathroom” so they escorted me there and I stayed on the toilet after my business. The midwife told us it was actually a good position and I could stay there as long as I wanted. So I stayed a bit, and she prepared the room with a mattress on the floor and the LED candle, she also used essential oil to massage my shoulder.

When ready I kneeled on the mattress, my partner was facing me. I was naked so I asked him to remove his t-shirt so we could be skin to skin. I kept pushing in his arm trying to use the down breathing, unfortunately I was screaming during the surges. My plan was to get the epidural and I wasn’t expecting my labour to be so fast. I was confident but in pain so screaming feel like helping me relief. I was just overwhelmed and started to think it was taking too long.

My midwife told to keep this powerful scream inside and directed to my uterus which I did. She used hot towel to help the skin to stretch and it was feeling very nice at this time. I also used gas to help. Once I managed to keep my voice down and use it to push, things accelerated and I finally managed to deliver my baby without help or instrument.

The sensation of your baby going out of your body is very intense but as soon as the baby’s out, it’s just a BIG relief and like nothing happened.

The midwife put my baby on the mattress and I looked down. He was there, just unreal. I took him in my arms and 2 minutes later, my partner help me to walk to the bed. 
We had our skin to skin time for 3 hours.

I had a physiological third stage and my baby stayed attached to my placenta for 15 minutes with the cord still pulsing!!! The delivery of the placenta felt very nice, it was very soft and such a relief.

My baby was born at 12.20 which is less than 5 hours after my first surges. It was 3.9kilos and so I had a second degree tear. As Siobhan said in the digital pack, I didn’t feel it, I was even surprised when my midwife told me. Anyway, she stitched me just after with local anesthetic and I used the gas to help. I recovered very well and never feel any pain after.

To be honest, I’m so glad that I managed to give birth without epidural. I was doubting of myself to handle the pain but I felt so good after, the next day I was so ready to take care of my baby. I’m so happy with my experience, it was unexpected and such a nice birth. Being in this bathroom, giving birth in my partner’s arm was just such a strong bonding experience.

I’m so glad I purchased this digital pack, it helped me prepare myself and change my way of thinking about birth. I followed all the advice: daily meditation, positive birth story, positive affirmations before bed. All these things was very helpful!