Birth story - Willow and baby Ozzy

As someone who has struggled with anxiety for most of my life the idea of labour and parenthood in general was quite terrifying! But I had always wanted to be a mummy and wasn't going to let my fear stop me. So when I found out I was pregnant I started researching, a lot! I found The Positive Birth Company and immediately downloaded their hypnobirthing course. I followed every bit of advice and had a solid birth plan.

I wanted a hospital birth as I knew being surrounded by medical professionals would ease my anxiety, I also read a lot about epidurals and how they are much different to what they used to be, and that women are now able to move around, and feel their legs etc, so I decided I wanted an epidural. I loved the ideas around making a hospital room more relaxing and I packed up my bag with essential oil diffusers, electric candles, music, fairy lights etc.

On my birthday (4 days before my due date) I went to bed and woke up at 12.30am to wee as usual, and noticed a bit of mucus, even with all the preperation I had done, my immediate response was to have a panic attack 'omg it's happening, I'm not ready, what have I done, this was a mistake' etc etc. So I woke Jack up and explained to him that I think things might be getting started, he calmed me down a bit and reminded me it could still be a while yet and to try and get some sleep. Obviously I couldn't sleep as my anxiety was running rings around me! I felt some of my waters break and I filled the pad I was wearing, in the end I just used a big towel as my waters were more 'leaking' than one big gush!

After a night of little sleep my contractions still hadn't started so we called the midwife who explained the risk of infection after 24 hours and encouraged us to try and get things going. I was having some surges but they where very irregular and would stop and start quite a bit. I did lots of walking around the garden, acupressure and bouncing on my ball but by that evening I still had no contractions, the hospital started talking about induction. We used our BRAIN tool and decided to wait until the following morning to decide. Over night the surges got a little more intense and I tried to sleep, again I was feeling pretty anxious but managed to get a tiny bit of sleep in between surges, they where about 10 minutes apart, I was using my breathing which helped my anxiety as well as reminding me to relax my body through the surges. I'm someone who absolutely loves a bath and so I was looking forward to having one, but once I got in I immediately didn't enjoy it and wanted to be out again!

We called the hospital and they said they wanted to see us, so off we went, I agreed to be examined and then make a decision about the induction. It turned out I was already 2cm dilated! So we decided to go for a walk and try and get things going, at this point the surges where much stronger, however still quite irregular, we decided to stop timing them and just go with the flow. I kept worrying that because I was having panic attacks this would make the pain worse, as everything I had learnt taught me that anxiety will make your muscles tense up etc and I found I was putting so much pressure on myself to stop panicking that I was just panicking more. My mum told me to view the panic attacks as just bubbles of energy and emotion that, like the surges, would peak and subside. This massively helped and I noticed that when I was having a surge it distracted me completely from any anxiety I was feeling and I just solely concentrated on relaxing my entire body and breathing, this helped so much.

We went for a walk in the sunshine outside the hospital and ate a picnic, on the outside I looked calm and serene but on the inside I was a bag of nerves! Once we got back to the room my mum set about making the room all lovely, the midwives all loved coming into my room, they said it smelt so nice and was such a calm environment.

I was examined again and was 4cm, I burst into tears, I thought for sure I would have been further along and the 2 nights with no sleep was really starting to get to me! The good news was that I was able to have the epidural now, the midwife told me that I was doing so well with the surges that she didn't think I needed one, however I knew that this was what I really wanted and so went ahead with the plan. Having the epidural really wasn't that bad, they used a local anesthesia on my back so I couldn't actually feel the epidural going in. Once it started working I felt instant relief, no pain at all! But I could still feel my legs and could feel all sensations such as touch but just no pain, I was able to sit up, move my legs around, snack, rest, chat. The midwife suggested having the induction at this point to try and speed things up as it had been well over 24 hours since my waters broke and things where still moving pretty slow, again we used our BRAIN and decided to go for it.

After a few hours I started to feel a lot of pressure in my bum, this was all good signs said the midwife. The pressure got pretty intense and I felt like I was ready to push, the midwife said she would wait a bit longer then examine me, however baby had other plans. His heart rate dropped a couple of times so the doctor came in and explained he would need to examine me, and that if I was not fully dilated they may need to do a C-section and if I was fully dilated I would need a forceps delivery! I was not at all happy about this, the doctor examined me and said I was fully dilated and the head was right there, I was ready to push! (I knew I had been feeling the urge to push!) The doctor then said he was going to get the foreceps, which I really didn't want, the midwife knew this and immediately told the doctor to let me try and push myself without intervention, the doctor agreed but said I only had 10 minutes otherwise he would want to use the forceps!! The midwife kicked him out, and I was determined to deliver this baby myself.

Throughout my pregnancy one of my big fears was tearing, I told the midwife this and she reassured me to listen to her guidance and let her know when I felt the urge to push. After 10 minutes of gentle pushing Ozzy was brought into the world in a quiet, dark, relaxed room, he was happy and healthy.  And, I didn't tear!! I was so grateful to my midwife for putting her foot down with the doctor. At one point just as the head had been born the doctor tried to come into the room, the midwife shouted "shes doing it! We don't need you!" this made me feel so empowered! Our midwife also encouraged my husband to help birth the baby, this isn't something we had planned but we are so grateful to our midwife for encouraging this, my husband held the baby's head and guided him out, catching him and helping to bring him onto my chest, this is something he is so proud of and tells everybody about!

I had wanted to birth the placenta naturally but had been told it was unlikely this would happen because of the epidural, however we gave it a try and the midwife told me when to push and I was able to easily birth the placenta naturally. We where able to do delayed cord clamping and daddy cut the cord.

I think it's really important for anyone who does struggle with panic attacks to know that it's actually OK if you're anxious during labour, it's normal, the hypnobirthing will still work, yes anxiety can make the body tense up, but if you have the knowledge that comes with the positive birthing companies courses, you can work on relaxing your muscles just through the contractions. Don't beat yourself up for feeling anxious, or feel like you have fallen at the first hurdle if you find yourself having a full blown panic attack right at the beginning of Labor, you havn't failed, you can still go on to have the birth you always wanted.