Birth story - Stephanie and baby Sophia

I have been writing this in bursts between meeting the needs of a newborn who is 4 week today. I loved reading everyones birth stories in the run up to my birth so I just had to get this down in writing.

The night of the 15th March I went to a wedding reception and danced my bump off and ate a lot of pizza (must have been carb loading)!!! I remember being quite uncomfortable on the car journey there and back but didn't think anything of it.

I woke at 02:30 and 05:30 that night with very mild lower back, period type pains and think I had a good 💩 . I got annoyed at 05:30 that I wasn’t having more ‘signs’ of early labour though.

I also had a super weird dream about giving birth to a bald middle aged man and was super hungry so I got up and had a snack. I also tried nipple stimulation which helped to get the contractions started.

I woke hubby up at 6:30 and told him that we might have a baby today. He got excited and we were both a little nervous.

I started the Freya app which was fabulous. Within an hour it said that contractions were close enough to call the hospital but I was in denial and kept telling my husband that this could go on all day. I text my doula (my best friend’s mum who is a retired midwife) and we rang labour line. Whilst labouring at home I used clary sage on a damp flannel and my TENS machine.

My doula arrived and I was having stronger more regular contractions, shortly followed by the beginning of my show. Labour line called us back 1/2 hour later and said there weren’t any midwives available for our planned home birth unfortunately.

We got to hospital about 10:30am. I listened to the Freya app in the car whilst wearing an eye mask the whole way.

I was shown to the pool room and accepted an examination. I was dubious about having one as I didn’t want to be disappointed but had a word with myself and remained positive and was delighted to be 6cm. In the process of the examination she accidentally broke my waters as they were bulging. My baby’s head was high above my cervix as it was my waters that were dilating me. Contractions intensified and my tummy felt a little strange. I had the meditation/relaxation track on in the background the whole time and waited for the pool to be ready.

I tried gas & air whilst waiting which made me amazingly light headed to begin with which was fabulous. I went through a record 3 canisters through the day.

I got in the pool which felt incredible and I had no idea that I was in the there for 4 hours. I had yoga music on at this point not that I can really remember it. I ate a few jelly babies and made sure to drink too. My husband was fab and rubbed my back the whole day.

When in the pool they started to have problems detecting baby’s heart rate so they made me get out of the pool for monitoring. I wasn’t worried and just knew she was fine. I got annoyed when they said that I couldn’t get back in the pool and therefore had to move rooms. They applied the heart monitor to her head and continued to labour on dry land. I was given diamorphine at some point and this helped me to chill out between contractions. My contractions were strong and extremely regular throughout.

I have no concept of time but I was fully dilated at 8pm and pushed for 1.5 hours. Again, this could have been 10 mins. The whole day felt long but super short at the same time.

Even though I can barely remember anything and had my eyes closed for 15 hours I remembered everything from the course info. I had this inner calm throughout, and trusted my body completely to do what it needed to do. I highly recommend listening to the affirmations daily during pregnancy as this is what kept me going as I can’t remember hearing anything during the day.

I can’t say I noticed the transition or felt that need to expel my baby but I really remember the pushing stage and that incredible feeling of a baby moving down. So grateful that I got to experience this and even had a little feel of her head as she crowned.

I didn’t get delayed cord clamping or immediate skin to skin unfortunately as the paediatrician had to check her over due to the risk of swallowing meconium but she was perfect and was given to me shortly afterward.

I had the injection to birth my placenta but unfortunately it would not come out. I had to wait a few hours for the theatre to be free which in this time I had skin to skin. This period of time is a huge blur but I remember trying to sleep and being a little annoyed that my placenta was still inside of me.

They removed my placenta and stitched me up in theatre with a spinal block. I had a very small perinium tear requiring a couple of stitches and a urethra tear. The spinal was the best post birth pain killer ever as the post birth back ache was intense. Despite the urthera tear, weeing the next day was not a problem at all. I made sure to drink lots to lessen the acidity. I also recommend having lactulose at the ready as the post birth constipation wasn't fun.

Even though I didn’t get my home/water birth I have such positive memories of the whole experience. I owe a lot of this to the digital course and I had so many comments pre birth about how positive I was. I didn’t fear labour at all and was so certain I would not have the terrible birth my mum and best friends had. I also got lots of comments about how well I did in labour and how well I managed the pushing stage which definitely prevented further tearing.

All the best to the mummies in waiting.

I should add that I’m a photographer so insisted my hubby got some photos for me to edit. You may not think you want photos but I barely remember the day and these make me so happy.