Here’s Rebecca’s birth story. Thank you for sharing it with us x
“So I have been meaning to write my birth story for a while and then suddenly I realised that nearly 4 months has gone by ? I have written everything down so it’s a bit long….
I was very fortunate for my first pregnancy to have a lovely, low risk pregnancy and had opted to have a homebirth from the very beginning. I enjoyed completing the Calm Birth School online course with my husband, but honestly was a little bit hit and miss with the mp3s until I finished work at 35 weeks – then I was listening to them everyday and taking the time for myself to relax and trust my body.
After doing some reading I was drinking a cup of raspberry leaf tea and eating 6 dates a day from about 38 weeks. We also completed a massage course so every night we practised the techniques (it was awful having a massage every night ?)
No signs of little one arriving until I was 6 days over my guess date – 10th December 2016… I woke up at 6 o’clock for my usual morning wee and found a very large glob of mucousy show, which was delightful! Very pleased to find that there was some signs of things changing. I got back into bed and felt some period type pain, nothing regular or too uncomfortable so opted to try and get some more sleep.
After waking up and having breakfast we decided to make a plan for the day. I told my husband that I might be starting to niggle a little and he wanted me to stay home but I’m not very good at being cooped up all day and I wasn’t feeling anything at that point. So we went off shopping and when we got back I thought I would try to sit on the birthing ball to see if that would encourage little ones arrival. My husband went out to walk the dog and when he got back there was nothing happening so I decided that I would go for a nap in case it all started overnight. Luke was very happy for this as it meant he could watch the rugby!
I got myself comfortable and lay down on the bed at 16.00…. 15 minutes later there was a very strange sensation and pop! My waters had broken! Luckily the bed remained dry! So Luke paused the rugby and I called the homebirth team to let them know. I was starting to feel some period type pain again, irregular but I was happy that things were happening since my waters broke.
The homebirth midwife came over at 17.00 – tightening’s were happening quite frequently but not too uncomfortable and I was able to chat through them. The midwife was lovely and checked everything over. The waters were clear and because I was just starting to feel some tightening’s we made the decision not to have a vaginal examination. Local hospital guideline is the induce after 24 hours if no signs of labour so as she was working the next day she would call us in the morning to book a slot for induction if we had not called them overnight. She started to put all her things back in her bag when suddenly it didn’t feel like tightening’s – it was much stronger. It made me cry and give a little involuntary moan. She looked up and I apologised – “Sorry that was just a bit stronger and caught me off guard”…. then 2 minutes later it happened again…. and 2 minutes later again….
Kerry the midwife was amazing and suggested maybe trying some massage and change of position to help and she would just wait a minute to see how they went.
Well from there it is all a bit of a blur and Kerry never left. I remember Luke using back massage and it being really lovely, then suddenly I didn’t want anyone touching me. I was convinced I needed to have a wee so off I traipsed up the stairs with Luke in tow to help me focus on my breathing. Then Kerry came up – I heard her say that Luke should start filling the pool. That sounded like the best idea ever! Luke went off the kitchen and Kerry stayed with me and helped me focus and reassured me that I was doing well and I could do it.
The surges were every couple of minutes and sometimes it felt like I wasn’t having any time to recover but I kept my focus. Kerry asked if I wanted any Entonox but I wanted to wait as long as I could. Then she told me the birthing pool was ready so back down the stairs I went and plonked myself in the pool… and it was so amazing. I felt all my muscles relax and felt able to tackle anything. Luke dimmed the lights and put on some relaxing music whilst offering me sips of water.
Then the next surge I felt the sensation to bear down! So I told Kerry and she reassured me to trust my body so I did. I followed my body’s natural instinct and heard her tell Luke that she had called the second midwife to come but she wasn’t sure if she would make it in time!
Then there was a knock on the door and the second midwife, Jayne, arrived. She prepared everything in the background and made sure the room was warm. I changed position a lot during this time and settled sitting up and almost squatting when I felt the sensation to bear down.
At 19.50 I gave birth to a beautiful baby. My birth preferences included Luke telling me the sex of the baby… but as I lifted the baby up he couldn’t see as the cord was quite short and we couldn’t get the right angle. So we waited until the cord was cut. I opted to have the injection for the placenta and the midwife was happy to wait for 5 minutes before cutting the cord. And Luke announced we had a little girl ❤ she latched onto the breast in the pool and I delivered the placenta not long after.
She was weighed quickly and put skin to skin with Luke after feeding whilst I got dried and comfortable on the sofa. She weighed a very healthy 9lb and promptly went back to the breast and fed whilst I had a cup of tea and mince pie whilst reflecting on the fact that only a couple of hours earlier my waters had just broken!
An amazing experience, I swore more than I thought I would but mostly I kept telling everyone how happy I was because we were going to meet our baby ? No pain relief and Kerry the midwife was able to see my little one enter the world just as she was finishing her shift, we didn’t need that phone call the next day. With a quicker labour than I anticipated the box of snacks and drinks were consumed during the following nights whilst I breastfed my little one.
I definitely think positive thinking and trusting my body helped and this was empowered by the mp3s ? An amazing labour experience to start our new journey ❤”
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