Birth story - Stephie-Jade and baby Maeva

*Trigger warning* - Use of the word contractions, Ambulance, heart rate dropping, ventouse, hyperemesis gravidarum (including hospital stays, steroids, IV drips and dark thoughts)

Previous Pregnancy:

My first birth story was a positive birth using hypnobirthing techniques. I arrived at Blackburn birth centre at 12pm Christmas Eve 2018 and was already 8cm dilated. I went straight into a birth pool and used gas & air. My daughters heart rate began to drop whilst crowning and meconium was in my waters, we were transferred to Burnley hospital via ambulance at 5pm and she was born via ventouse at 5:58pm 24/12/2018. Although it involved an ambulance I stayed calm throughout and it was still a magical experience thanks to hypnobirthing!

Pregnancy:

Throughout both of my pregnancies I have really struggled with hypremesis gradivarium which has involved numerous hospital stays, IV drips and poor mental health. This pregnancy was certainly harder than my first due to hg being stronger and having a 3 year old to entertain too. I had a longer period of time off work this pregnancy, I was bed bound (in and out of hospital) due to sickness, which resulted in steroids for several weeks in an attempt to get my hg under control. Once it was under control (enough to get out of bed highly medicated) I was able to enjoy this pregnancy in parts, hg affects my mental health and I struggled with dark thoughts especially at the beginning of this pregnancy as well as the whole way through my first pregnancy. My husband was my saving grace throughout both pregnancies! Other than this I had no complications and was able to plan for a MLU birth.

Labour:

On Monday 19th September (40+1) I spent the day with my husbands family, my husband was working at the hospital so myself and our daughter went to watch the Queens funeral, have high tea and a lovely walk with them. Around 5pm I started with niggling pains every hour or just over and thought that I was possibly having Braxton hicks as they weren’t intense or regular, so I continued with sorting the washing and nesting. These continued throughout the evening and stayed irregular so I got on my birthing ball and we watched top gear: a scandi flick and I spent the whole night laughing and tracking any niggling pains with the Freya app.

At 3am after trying to sleep I decided to have a bath, the contractions were coming roughly every 25 minutes and were intense so I knew this was the real thing. The Freya app was so calming in between contractions and helped me breathe through them, I would highly recommend this!! My husband was in and out of a light sleep and kept checking how I was through the night, we rang the birth centre and they were happy for me to wait until contractions were closer together. I had a shower at 5.30am and after this we rang the birth centre (6am) to arrange going in, they said there was no urgent rush as the contractions were still irregular but to start to make my way in. My husband rang his mum for us to arrange dropping our little girl off and he had a quick shower before getting her up and dressed.

Contractions were still 10 minutes apart and irregular at this point. Whilst he was in the shower my first waters broke on the toilet, and less than 10 minutes later whilst he was putting our dog on his bed to leave I shouted down to say I could feel a head (to which he didn’t believe me - used a few choice words and had to see for himself). My daughter at this point was in her pjs on our bed whilst I was in the en-suite, so she went in her room to play and he rang for an ambulance as our baby had decided it was coming now and re rang his mum for her to come to collect our daughter instead. He gathered towels and took turns between watching our daughter and checking on me. I was comfortable being on all fours leant again the bed and used the breathing down technique when a contraction came.

The paramedics arrived quickly but our baby was playing peek a boo with every contraction, as similar had happened in our first labour the paramedics suggested it would be best to make our way in. The rest of my waters broke at the bottom of our stairs and I made my way into the ambulance. I used gas and air in the ambulance to avoid giving birth on the route there. We arrived at Burnley hospital at 7.10am, I was transferred to a bed and 10 minutes later with just 5 pushes our little girl was born safely with my husband and two midwives in the room.

Our beautiful baby girl was placed on my chest and we spent some quality skin to skin time and had our first feed whilst we had a delayed clamping of the placenta.

The placenta took a while to come despite having the injection, but was eventually birthed in the toilet 55 minutes later. I was examined and had a small tear along my episiotomy scar from my 1st birth which was stitched. My husband enjoyed some skin to skin time whilst this was being done.

I am so grateful to have had two wonderful and positive labours thanks to the positive birth company course ❤️❤️❤️

Our eldest daughter was picked up shortly after the paramedics arrived, she spent the time watching the sunrise with her Nannie before telling everyone at nursery that “the police came for mummy and she saw the babies head” 🥺