Birth story - Mum and baby boy

So bit of a long one!!! We found PBC through a friend of a friend and got the pack roughly 30 weeks.

Woke up 4am, had a bit of a bloody show, 40 mins later, surges started. Spent all of Tuesday with surges every 10-15 minutes. Hubby came home from work about 6pm, surges start speeding up to every 3 minutes. By about 8pm Tuesday, we're at 2-3 minutes rest between each one.

Call the unit, they ask us to hold on, we hold on, the surges increase in intensity, we call around midnight, asked to hold on a little more, after 30 more minutes surges are very strong, we call, in we go. Get there. Within a couple of hours, surges slow back down to every 10-15 minutes. So we are advised to labour at home for comfort and to only come back when surges are about 4 in 10 minutes, back home 2am Wednesday. Ramp back up to every 2 minutes by 6am so we call... In we go. Get there, dilated to 2. Surges slow back down to every 10-15 mins 🙈

Back home we go Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday evening and going into Thursday early hours, ramp up quickly to 1.5 mins rest and 2 mins long surges. So, we call around 4am, asked to hold off as long as possible, around 5am surges are very intense and back to back. By this point, I'm exhausted and struggling to breathe through any of the surges, but I did my best to use the up breathing. I did find it hard, and had a few wobbles, but hubby kept reminding me and helping me. Call the unit again, they tell us to try stay home but I say no I need to come in. We go in, dilated to 4cm and officially in established labour with the midwives shocked how long and strong my surges truly were.

We head to midwife led unit for our relaxing planned water birth, and hubby sets up our spa like music, dims the lights and gets the room as relaxing as possible. All going great, albeit slow. We spend a few hours in the birthing pool labouring with support from the midwives, my husband was absolutely owning the positive affirmations, so much that the midwives didn't need to, they even ask if they can borrow him for other births. I'm getting tired again. We get out of the pool and are asked if we'd like an examination to see what movement had happened, I wasn't really overjoyed with any examination ideas, however we'd been here over 4 hours now, we all talked, asked what if we do nothing, and overall decided that it'd be beneficial to understand how much further along we were. There is a different midwife with us at the moment, she examines and says we're 4cm, 5cm at a push, progress had started to slow.

Options were discussed at this point. I'm physically exhausted, I'd been drinking little and often but only a little, my husband had been encouraging drink and food, I'd had maybe half a slice of toast, a few Jaffa cake nibbles (seriously not recommended, dry and cardboardy is an understatement), about half a breakfast protein bar. I managed a wee for testing and keytones were high, I was dehydrated and needed water and more food. Although surges had slowed I was feeling them intensely and we talked through pain relief options, I accepted a dose of pethidine, which made me feel a bit drunk and light hearted, I made some jokes with the midwives.

For the next 3-4 hours I laboured on the bed, sat upright, forward and open to help with gravity, drinking isotonic drinks, water, eating nibbles and more toast, trying to feed my body and prepare for the transition stage. During this time the new midwife seemed to be gearing towards more assistance as progression wasn't going as fast as they'd expected, surges were slowing down on the pethidine. They wanted to test my wee again as I'd drunk a bucket full (certainly seemed like it) of isotonic drinks and water. And wooooohooooo, my waters broke (with quite a gusto). Things started to speed up again and I felt like I needed to get back in the pool. We talked about options again and whether I could get in the pool again (as it's not safe with pethidine active in system) we accept another examination to determine movement and the midwives discuss if I can get in the pool.

I'm 7 and a half cm dilated and the pool is filling up. My body is bearing down. We actively labour in the pool for 30 minutes, they feel like 30 very long minutes, again my husband is by my side, comforting, encouraging, saying all the right stuff, helping me when I feel like I can't do it, reassuring me, I can do it, I am doing it. Rubbing his scratching beard on me, not nice, we have words, it's funny but no one is laughing right now. My legs are tiring again, I can't stay upright in the pool, we switch positions to rest my legs. That doesn't work as I'm not upright enough, We get back out of pool.

The midwives ask to examine to see if I'm fully dilated and ready to push but I decline, explaining that quite simply I couldn't not. My body was doing it whether I chose to or not. We did get to 10cm and my body is still pushing down. (One of the midwives shows my husband a crease at the top of my bum/base of the spine and said that all women get this crease when fully dilated). All goes ok for some time, but I'm running out of energy, and fast. Then suddenly, it becomes so so much to handle, my legs are wobbling and I feel like I can't hold myself up any more, I'm just shattered, surges go from 2 mins long to 30 seconds or a minute long with it being really really difficult to keep baby moving.

Next thing we know we're being told baby's heart rate is rising up and my blood pressure down a little and we are advised that at this stage we will have more assisted support up on labour ward. It's explained that we're still fully in control and there is just more support and careful encouragement on the labour ward.

Things are different on labour ward, we still have our calming music playing. It's magically coming out of my husband's bag (confusing everyone of the medical team which had us giggling!).

We're told we have to drain my bladder (I'd stopped being able to go and that was why they thought baby was stuck!) And possibly do a C-section to get baby out. We stayed calm. Let them do the catheter (and they drained a HUGE amount) but unfortunately it didn't help the surges or baby move. They offered synthetic oxytocin to bring on surges again which we accepted while we looked at our options.

It seemed that things needed to happen fast, there was lots of advice being suggested although it wasn't feeling as optional now. Baby was close but it's been a few hours of 'active' labour and baby is still not here and becoming distressed.

The surges came back but too quickly and still too short. They again suggested either a C-section or forceps delivery and covered pain relief options for both. We Refused a C-section and opted for assisted delivery instead in the form of ventouse, and we declined the spinal block or epidural they normally provide as standard for assisted delivery, and opted for remifentanil instead along with local anaesthetic below for an episiotomy so I could still be in control and feel the surges.

So pleased we stayed calm and reviewed all our options! We certainly didn't have the relaxing water birth we had hoped for, However I am so so pleased that thanks to PBC, we succeeded in avoiding a C-section and a spinal/epidural, and understood we had time to ask questions and have them fully answered. I have no doubt without those skills we would have ended up in C- section land and I would have panicked. But instead, when things started to "go wrong" as such, I was calmer than I ever thought possible and we made the right decision and had a very successful assisted delivery where I still pushed baby out with help, and I still consider the birth to be as calm as it could have been and positive.

Little boy was born at 11.11pm at 7lb9.5 Needless to say we are in love! And this team green mamma is officially team blue 😍