This week’s birth story comes from a lovely lady who attended a refresher TCBS Hypnobirthing Course with Beccy Angove of The Beautiful Birth Club covering The Cotswolds including Cirencester, South Gloucestershire, Gloucester and Cheltenham.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful calm birth story of baby your baby girl with us!
“We were consultant led for our second pregnancy due to IUGR in our first, resulting in a nice long 3 day induction at 37 weeks when our babies measurements started to drop off. Luckily 2nd time around IUGR didn’t seem to be a problem however it was reassuring to be closely monitored. At 39+1 I had a midwife appt, my consultant had ok’d a sweep from 39 weeks onwards – I had read the 2020 published Cochrane review and was happy with my decision to give the sweep a go. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience and I left feeling extremely positive, happy to wait or happy to labour, so no pressure either way. At this appt my urine test had flagged proteins so was sent for further analysis.
At 6.30pm that evening I started having the first twinges of contractions. We put our daughter to bed, the contractions continued but were manageable with ball bouncing and breathing. I felt confident this time around to know what I would feel and at what stage. I set up camp in the living room, sending my husband off to bed just in case it decided to tail off. I stayed as active as possible throughout the night, used the tens machine, watched my favourite series (lots of snacks!) and started to time the contractions as they got stronger and closer together. I felt calm and happy at home, even happy in the knowledge that if things progressed quickly, I would be able to cope and transfer if necessary. By 7.00am the contractions were every 3-4 minutes, so we woke our daughter up, dropped her at our parents and made our way to Gloucester maternity unit. I had hoped to give birth in the birth unit, after a lot of interventions first time I wanted to enjoy the relaxing light poles and birth pool. When we arrived it was noted that the urine sample that was sent for analysis tested positive, a blood test was ordered which indicated deranged kidney function and I was told that it was likely that I had pre-eclampsia but as I was already in established labour, normal BP and minimal swelling they were happy to let me continue. This did mean that I wasn’t able to use the birth unit, after a brief stop in triage I was moved to the labour suite at 9.00am.
The contractions were now every 1-2 minutes. The midwives were fantastic at encouraging an active labour by lifting the bed so that I could use it for support and providing a whole range of birth balls. At some point I asked for paracetamol and gas and air. I started to feel the pushing sensation not long after and delivered our baby girl on all fours – the midwives passed her straight to me underneath my body which was magical. I accepted the syntocinon injection and delivered the placenta without any problems. I had a 2nd degree tear which was managed with local anaesthetic and stitches, similar to my first birth so this didn’t worry me.
The 4th trimester so far has of course been exhausting but my birth was so liberating that it’s carried the positivity through. I was so glad that I decided to refresh my hypnobirthing memory and invest in Beccy’s classes, my birth was still hospital managed in the labour suite with the added complication of pre-eclampsia, but I felt in control and safe the entire time which is all I needed to welcome our daughter safely into the world”.
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