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First time mum, Emma, shares her story of tuning into her body, trusting her instincts & using the tools she had learnt during pregnancy to support her decision making.
Grab a brew ☕ and enjoy Emma's birth story!
I had been relaxing watching TV on my exercise ball and decided I should grab some breakfast, at 9:30am my waters went, it was a very strange sensation of not being in control. I’ll be honest I wasn’t sure if my pelvic floor had just blown.
I called the midwifery team who recommended I come to triage to be checked out. I took my time and at 11:30 the hospital confirmed my waters had gone. The midwifery team opened up a bed for me on ward but also said I could go home if I’d rather. I chatted to the midwife to establish if there was any benefit to me being on the ward and we agreed that being at home at this stage would be most productive.
By the time I was leaving the hospital I had started getting mild twinges a bit like this early period pains.
I went home and spent the day watching films, eating and napping…Around 17:00 I could feel things moving along so we ordered a takeaway and then I headed to bed.At 19:00 I woke up feeling it was time to go to hospital, contractions were defined contractions at the point. I was supposed to have my sister as an additional birth partner, however, baby decided he was going to come 2 weeks early and my sister was on a work trip out of the country. So my Mum became a very willing substitute (I think she was very happy as I think she had been disappointed I hadn’t initially asked her).
This is where my husband first protected my birth space, as I was getting ready to leave the house I looked out the window to the car where my husband was loading up all of our prepared bags (we packed for a 2 week holiday looking back but I don’t regret having everything available to me even though I used none of it) where my mum was “helping” flapping about like many Mums do best.
Within a couple of minutes getting into the car my Mum, being her helpful self, gave me my first piece of “advice”, my husband handed me the AirPods he had put in the front with my played my pre-prepared playlist and politely said to my mum that I was listening to my music so might not hear her. Whether they carried on talking or not I’m not sure because I just zoned in to my music and body.
When I arrived at hospital I went to the toilet and noticed a light pink tinge in my pad. At this point my hopes of a waterbirth were not possible. I had an examination and I was 2cm, the hospital said that I was able to go home as long as I monitored for more blood or I could be admitted into the hospital. Again we discussed the options and I decided I would no longer be relaxed at home if I was needing to monitor myself. The midwives were super supportive for me to stay in hospital. Now I don’t know if I just got lucky or because I mentioned I wanted my space I got admitted straight onto the delivery ward meaning I had my own room.
I’m not sure if it was the change of environment or that time just flies by, but my contractions really ramped up, still manageable. Something I didn’t expect was my contractions actually felt like they were going down my thighs and I kept getting cramp.
My how’s of being mobile weren’t fulfilled, not because of the midwifery team but because of little fella, if I was comfortable, he wasn’t happy. With this I noticed how powerful my instincts were, before the midwife could tell me he wasn’t happy I just knew. For example, when I was comfortably sat on the exercise ball with my arms over my husband’s shoulders for support, I just felt like baby wasn’t comfortable, I asked the midwife how things were and that I had a feeling he wasn’t happy and she confirmed she was going to give me a couple more contractions but that the monitor was showing he wasn’t too happy with that position.
Basically my body and baby went completely against UFO (upright, forward & open) I was so glad I knew about these positions but more than anything, I zoned into my body and what it was telling me it needed.
The consultants did their rounds and to say they zapped all energy out the room would be an understatement, the room felt all of a sudden very clinical and serious, plus he had the personality of cardboard. After they left I had to clarify there was nothing wrong because I suddenly felt I was being told I was going to have an induction to speed things up and that they would assess me for a caesarean. To this day I have no idea what they were on about because he kept talking at me mid contraction. I was reassured by the midwife that there was nothing wrong and that my body was currently making the progress it needed to. I asked the midwife is they would be back and she said that she would make a point of only calling them back if there was a medical need for them and that she would request I be given space unless they were required.
After a few hours I had an examination and I was only at 3cm, I was starting to struggle with the contractions, the contractions themselves were manageable with gas and air but the cramp in my legs were meaning I wasn’t recovering effectively between contractions so I started to consider an epidural. This was when I started getting upset as I felt so conflicted, I felt I could cope at the time but was worried without the effective recovery I would get tired and end up with avoidable interventions and that if I had an epidural my body would be able to rest and potentially lead to a lower risk of intervention.
The midwife was so supportive, helping me go through my decision making process, at this point I realised I was no longer in a mental space to make decisions. The midwife handed me what can only described as a menu and told me to take my time and she would be ready when I was to discuss any options. As I discussed my options with my Mum and husband I suddenly realised I wasn’t in it alone. My husband asked me if I wanted him to take the burden of decision making of me a little and I said yes. At this stage he proposed I had the diamorphine first and then reconsidered the epidural later if I still felt I needed it, reminding me that I was wanting to leave the hospital as quickly as I could and that an epidural would potentially add to my stay, another factor he raised was that I wanted it be as mobile as possible and that his concern is that I would lose the autonomy to follow my instincts.
Considering I hadn’t had a plan about medication other than to go with the flow I felt a sense of disappointment and that I was “giving in”, my husband gave me a huge hug and reminded me that I wanted to follow my instincts and that I was meeting that goal, my body was telling me it needed a helping hand to recover and I was listening to it, that I was changing my positions to keep our baby safe, I was doing everything right !
I have never felt such a powerful connection to my husband than in that moment.
Within an 1hr of having the diamorphine, baby’s monitors weren’t happy and the midwife asked how I would feel about a monitor being placed on babies head. I asked what the risks were of this and I asked if there were any other options before doing that. She said I could wait it out a few more contractions and that she would do another examination (with my permission) babies heart rate was much happier at this point she told me I was 7cm ! I was elated.
30 minutes later I started feeling the urge to push, I decided not to say anything to anyone (not sure this was the right thing to do but I wanted to have this moment to myself). I would say about 10 minutes later the midwife asked me if I was feeling the urge to push (the rest of this is from my husbands view)…
“You told the midwife you were feeling the urge to push and she was updating your notes and I saw his head ! I was looking at the midwife like there’s a head there’s a head and then she rushed to get her gloves on but you paused for a moment and smiled up at me, took a huge breath and then next thing he was on your chest”
I ended up delivering on my back in the bed, my body was telling me that’s what I needed so that’s what I did even though it went against what I thought was “right” the only right for me was to follow my body. Afterwards the midwife said baby must have hit every position possible trying to come out and that was probably why I was struggling to find good positions to birth him.
After the birth we did skin to skin & asked the midwife for support getting baby on the breast (very calmly) and after some discussion, I decided to deliver my placenta naturally. My reason for this was because they couldn’t disturb me and I couldn’t move until that placenta was delivered, therefore I really did have that peaceful skin to skin I had wanted. The hospital would allow up to an hour for the placenta to deliver naturally, mine was delivered at 59 minutes!
Baby was born at 03:57 and we were all at home by 15:00. This was due to my husband and I advocating for me and pushing for the checks to be done as soon as they could be.
I smiled
I laughed
I cried
I mooed
I brought my son into this world my way, safely.
There really is no rule book!
Thank you so much for sharing such a beautiful birth story Emma ♥
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