Birth story - Sophie and baby girl

*Trigger warning* - use of word contractions (not negative to me), mental health issues, previous traumatic birth.

Pregnancy

I would love to say I enjoyed being pregnant this time as much as my boys but this pregnancy seemed to drain and test me even harder.

I had a fair bit of grief surrounding my antenatal appointments and something usually seemed to go wrong at them.

I suffered quite a bit with my mental health this pregnancy due to my first baby's birth. At my (second) 12wk scan I was referred to Healthy Minds and the mental health midwife who also had her own business helping mums who had previous traumatic experiences with birth and offered something called Rewind Therapy - I won't talk about it here but if anyone has any questions then please feel free to message me.

Due to my mental health and several other issues, I knew fairly early on that I wanted (and needed) an induction and my husband agreed with this. After talking to my mental health midwife, and having her full support, we got a plan in place and at every appointment from 20wks (I had to have growth scans due to my bmi) we would ask about booking it in. After much persuasion on both out parts (she really did advocate for me on every level), I eventually had an induction date booked in at my 36wk appointment.

Induction

I had my date and all my plans in place.

I'd been bouncing on my ball at home and eating snickers dates (dates sliced in half, filled with peanut butter and dipped in melted chocolate ) to get things ready.

On the day (39+1) I went in to the induction unit and was popped on the monitor for a bit to check baby - she was grand in there and wreaking havoc as usual. I had an examination which found me to already be 2cm dilated and very favourable so I didn't need to have the pessary inserted and could just have my waters broken.

This is where things got a bit squiffy as they couldn't take me down to the labour ward as they were super short staffed down there and had a lot of walk-in labour's which obviously took priority.

I ended up staying on the induction bay for 4 days waiting to be taken downstairs which really tested my mental health even more. Every midwife I saw, I would pester to find out what was happening and when I could be taken downstairs - they had to shut the labour ward at one point because they were so short staffed.

In the time I was waiting, I kept as UFO as I could by doing laps of the hospital corridors, walking up and down the kerbs (which my husband found hilarious) and bouncing on a ball.

My husband came to visit me every day and on the Saturday just as they were about to kick him out for the night, a midwife came to tell us there could finally take us downstairs!

We had a lovely midwife who came to get us at about 10:30pm. She read through my birth plan and agreed I could have pretty much all of it but I would likely need the drip if things didn't progress. I said I didn't want this straight away and I wanted to wait for the maximum amount of time to allow my body to do it itself and she agreed with this.

Things then went a bit wonky as she was called away to an emergency which again took priority over us.

At 4am, the unit co-ordinator came in to have a chat with us and tell us that we would need to wait until the morning when they had more midwives available to start my induction. Me and hubby weren't happy in the slightest at this but had some tea and toast and tried to get some sleep in before we finally (hopefully) got going.

At about 7:30am the most amazing midwife Lucy walked in and I just cried with happiness because I knew that everything would be alright and everything was going to start. I'd had this midwife look after me on the induction bay 2 days before and if there was anyone I wanted to help me birth my baby it was her.

Birth.

We talked through my birth plan and yet again discussed the drip but she was happy to let me get going as this was my third baby.

I got popped on the monitor about 8am - baby still doing fine and dandy in there - and got my waters broken about half an hour later as well as a VE and a sweep (the bouncing really helped because I was already 3cm).

I started to get mild contractions about half an hour later which I could breathe through.

The contractions started to get a lot stronger to the point where I needed the tens machine on and had to really concentrate on breathing through them.

I also found the best way for me to manage them was to be stood up and rocking through them.

Things kept progressing quite quickly and at one point when I was on the loo I found myself pushing a bit.

They wanted to keep the monitor on me but I asked for it to be taken off as it was distracting me from breathing and rocking though the contractions. I thought I would have to fight this but Lucy agreed and I was unclipped from everything.

I then found things quite difficult and declared that I couldn't do it anymore, it was too hard and could I please have some gas and air - hello transition!

Things progressed super quickly and I found myself at a right angle over the bed, tens machine on boost constantly, chugging and biting on the gas and air, crushing my poor husbands hand and having a fan blow down my back with every contraction.

The weirdest bit was feeling her bob back up the birth canal with every contraction, such a strange but amazing feeling.

It started to feel stingy and the other midwife suggested a compress to help which I agreed too. She placed the compress but things felt strange so I put my hand between my legs to move it and instead felt my baby's head halfway out and with the rest of a contraction she was out.

I couldn't believe I had caught my baby!

I brought her straight up to my chest, we were wrapped in a towel and I had the injection for my placenta which came out a few minutes later.

I was still in shock that I caught my baby and felt like a superhero!

My labour from start to finish was recorded at about 5hrs. I was in established labour for 2hrs and only 20 minutes of pushing.

My husband cut the cord once it had finished pulsating and we had an amazing golden hour where she managed an amazing feed for about another hour!

I did have a second degree tear which required sutures but we were allowed to go home the same day after 6hrs.

Whilst things might have gone wonky and squiffy along the way I'm glad that I was listened to, that I was able to have the birth I wanted and most importantly that I had the most amazing midwife to support me and trust me throughout the birth.