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I’ve finally found a spare minute to write
up my birth story. Jude is 5 weeks old
now - the time has flown by. Sorry, it’s
a bit long!
 On 19th Sept at about 4pm I was
getting out of the car to go into the supermarket with my 3 year old daughter
when I felt a gush of liquid – I was 37+2 so was a bit shocked that my waters
had gone as my daughter was born at 41 weeks but I felt really excited that I
would definitely be meeting my baby in the next few days. The night before I had finished everything
that needed doing and said “Ok baby, you can come now” and I had been joking
with my friend that day that I was going to have the baby the next day.
I called my hubby but said not to get too
excited as it could be days before anything happened. I decided not to call the midwife yet as I
didn’t want to be pressurised to go in if things hadn’t started happening to
their timescales (waters were clear and baby was moving). DH came home from work and he got dinner
ready for our daughter and him and I started having tightenings at 6pm that were
coming every 10-15mins but were very manageable.
I showered and washed my hair then listened
to my natal hypnotherapy CD in bed – the tightenings continued through
this. I then had to write out
instructions for my hubby as everything was on the laptop, which had died
earlier that day! Poor thing wasn’t at
all ready and he said "I'd better get a good night's sleep tonight” I said that I
didn’t think either of us would be getting much sleep and I thought baby would
be here tonight or early tomorrow.
After getting everything ready (oil burner
etc.) I spent the evening sitting on my birth ball, watching X-Factor with DH –
laughing and breathing through surges. By 10:30 they were coming every 5 mins and lasting about a minute. We called the on-duty midwife who, it turned
out, lived almost an hour away so I said I’d like her to come out just in case
things speeded up.
Midwife arrived at 11:30pm and read birth
plan. She was not really on-board with
my request for no internals and said the other MW was an hour away so it might
be good to know how far along I was to let her know. (I didn’t really care whether the 2nd
MW came or not to be honest – as long as we had one there!).
Surges were much stronger at this point but
I just practiced my surge breathing and DH used shoulder anchoring through each
one, which really helped. At this point
I was just chilling on the ball, listening to a CD of my favourite music and
singing along between surges. I found
that walking around and leaning on a wall / fireplace helped too. I felt really nauseous with each surge but
couldn’t be sick.
At 1am I felt like getting in the pool and
curiosity got the better of me so I said MW could do a VE. I was 5cm and my cervix was very thin and baby
very low down. I had been in established
labour for 2.5 hours. The internal was
way more uncomfortable than the surges – esp as I had SPD.
The pool was amazing – and I just zoned out
from then on. The endorphins were making
me feel great and I can honestly say I have never felt so relaxed as I did
between surges.
By about 2am the surges were getting really
strong but still not painful just really intense. I start vocalizing
instinctively on the out breath and find it really helps to release the
tension. I am then sick during a strong
surge and think I’m probably in transition – woo hoo! I start feeling pressure but the contractions
aren’t expulsive yet.
 It doesn’t take long before I start
grunting and feel my body pushing. I ask DH to get in the pool and he comforts
me. At 2:35 the MW goes into the other
room to call the 2nd MW but I know she’s not going to make it and
I’m really glad that there isn’t going to be a complete stranger flapping in at
the last minute! The noise wakes my
daughter but amazingly she agrees to go back to sleep until baby arrives! The pushing completely overpowers me and is
really intense just like it was with my daughter. Not at all pleasant! I didn’t actively push myself but my body was
doing it all for me. I was slightly
dreading crowning as I remember this being really painful with my daughter but
the head was born really easily (am sure the water helped) and I told the MW
and DH that the head was out. I put my
hand down and felt a mass of hair. And a
hand and arm! No wonder I was struggling
to get him out – the same thing happened with my daughter. He was a bit stuck because of the compound
presentation and I didn’t think the his body was ever going to come out but at
2:55am with a bit of help from me, baby Jude swam into the world, caught by DH.
He weighed 7lb 14oz and the cord was
wrapped round him twice. Because of that
and being stuck his face was very bruised but he scored 9 and 9 on his apgars. Established
labour was 4.5 hours.
I delivered the placenta in the pool – it
just happened when I stood up to get out.
DH woke our daughter to meet her new baby brother and we all snuggled up
on the sofa.
Having had 2 home births – the 1st
without hypnobirthing, I would recommend it to anyone. I can honestly say I felt no pain until the 2nd
stage and It only occurred to me afterwards that I hadn’t even thought about
using gas and air, which I had done with my daughter. I felt completely different afterwards and
people kept telling me how well I looked.
The Dr that did the newborn check said I looked more like I’d been on
holiday than had a baby! Needless to
say, Jude is super chilled out too. I feel like I could do it all over again
even though we are not planning any more!
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