Birth story - Zoe and baby Rohan

My pregnancy seemed a breeze health wise with minimal sickness at the very beginning and nothing much more out of the ordinary! After a short battle with cancer our family suffered the awful loss of my father in law who we desperately wanted to hold out to meet his new grandson. Unfortunately it wasn't to be and we said our goodbyes to Grandad 4 days before my due date - I never anticipated how hard it would be to manage grief of loss alongside the joy of waiting for our new arrival but as soon as labour kicked in and we met our baby we knew we were the happiest parents there could be.

Childbirth from the very beginning had always been a massive fear of mine so when I heard about the positive Birth Company I jumped straight on the course. I went down the private midwife route due to the uncertainty of Covid and the effect it had on my appointments, potential birth numbers etc my anxiety was through the roof and knew I needed additional support.

An induction had been booked for Monday 7th Sept which I wasn't too happy about but wanted the arrival so badly that I knew it was time. Luckily on Sat 5th Sept my labour journey started with a contraction around 2am, I had a bath and took myself downstairs, not wanting to wake my husband as I knew we potentially had a long journey ahead. The contractions remained at 7 minutes apart until 4am where they then became less frequent ranging from 12-15 mins apart.

I continued between bouncing and resting and got in touch with my midwife to give the heads up around midday. At 7PM my contractions increased to every 5 mins and my midwife turned up alongside my mum to start the next steps. Upon turning up my midwife checked me to advise I was 3cm, to say I was disheartened after 17 hours of on off contractions was an understatement but the excitement had kicked in and we knew the journey was well under way! At this stage I used my tens machine and birthing ball alongside my up breathing to help overcome the contractions.

At 4am I was classed as fully dilated and ready to push to which I climbed into the pool and started on the gas and air which was bliss!! I was constantly pushing despite our baby not wanting to make any sort of appearance! My cervix was constantly moving and making it impossible for any progress. At 12 midday my midwife advised I could either continue for as long as I could now that the cervix was in the correct place or visit the hospital for some intervention. After 8 hours of pushing and 34 hours of having contractions I was exhausted and knew I needed some help.

The ambulance arrived and my midwife came with me followed by my husband, all the staff at the hospital were brilliant and advised that the cervix had yet again moved to make it hard to start pushing, they put me on a drip to increase the contractions and advised they wanted to wait for an hour to see how the cervix moves to which I straight up requested an epidural! I was always wary about this but until the time came I was prepared to have any help necessary to get me through!

The epidural allowed me to fall asleep and have a well needed rest to get me though the next stage. After an hour of monitoring they advised I was ready to start pushing. Yet again me pushing was having no results and after 1hr30 the registrar advised they would need to intervene with a forceps delivery.

After approx 2 mins baby Rohan arrived and was placed straight on my chest. The most magical feeling in the world!

Despite all the bad news we have suffered we know that Rohan Emmett is being watched by his Grandad everyday and we know how proud he would be! Its the most magical feeling in the world and I would do it all again tomorrow to get these results.