This week’s birth story comes from a lovely lady Rosie who attended a TCBS Hypnobirthing Course with Lucy Baraona of Bare Birthing covering Sheffield, Yorkshire UK.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful surprise birth of baby Maeve!!
“My 1st pregnancy & labour was very straightforward – a hospital water birth and I hoped for the same for this 2nd pregnancy. I wanted to take the hypnobirthing classes again to refresh my knowledge of labour & remind myself that I can do it!
I was then shocked to be diagnosed with gestational diabetes & also hepatic cholestasis at 37 weeks pregnant which then led to conversations about being induced early. I couldn’t help but feel really disappointed & nervous that my birth was seemingly not going to be as smooth as my first and things started to seem out of my control. After listening to the consultant & considering the reasons being suggestion for early induction I decided to accept, and a date was set for 10am Christmas eve – I would be 39 weeks pregnant.
Thanks to the hypnobirthing classes and information I had learned I was able to refocus my thoughts onto my new birth plan – induction – & set about reading as many positive induction stories as possible. I was determined to still make it a positive experience.
In the week leading up to the 24th I accepted 3 sweeps from my midwife and was told that I was already around 3cm dilated, had a favourable cervix & the baby’s head was very low. I felt really positive after hearing this & she told me they would just break my waters at the hospital and see what happened from there.
After my 3rd sweep on the 23rd my waters broke at 21:30 whilst I was sitting on the birthing ball, it wasn’t the gush I expected, more like a trickle and I wasn’t sure what it was to start with! I was so excited that things were starting spontaneously!
By 22:30 I had started with mild occasional period pains and decided to try get some rest. I was in and out of sleep – but by midnight the surges were too strong to sleep through & I started tracking them on the Freya app- this quickly said I was in established labour- I was surprised at how quick it was happening!
I continued my up breathing through the surges in bed laying down and eventually woke my partner up at 01:20 and made a plan to ring my partners mum to come and look after our toddler & us go to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital at 02:45, I was feeling very nauseous the entire car journey and vomited as soon as we arrived – I thought at this point the baby wasn’t far away from arriving as I remembered this happening with my 1st labour.
At the birth centre they took me to an assessment room, and I was stood up leaning over the bed trying to control and focus my breathing through surges which were about 2 mins apart by this point, but I’d stopped tracking them.
The midwife was getting some things ready to check my blood pressure etc and whilst I was waiting for her, I felt the urge to push coming with my surges – I told her as soon as she came back in the room and she quickly did a vaginal examination, said “yep, you’re fully dilated” and took me on the bed to the delivery suite. I felt quite emotional at this point, when I look back this was probably the transition stage!
I climbed up on the bed & was holding onto the back of the bed on my knees and the midwife passed me the gas and air. The urge to push was so strong now as soon as I was in this position, quickly I could feel her head ready to come and my partner watched once she was crowning. They were saying she was crying & looking about! I couldn’t wait to meet her and was completely focused on that thought.
The midwife was so good, she coached me through birthing her head just doing small pushes to avoid a tear, maybe 3 or 4 surges with pushes and her head came out followed by her body in the next surge. She passed the baby through my legs, and I picked her up – so cute my gorgeous girl with so much hair! Born 3:50am Xmas eve. I was so proud of myself!
Labour was 5 hours 20mins from when surges started, I couldn’t believe how quick, and she was born just hours before my scheduled induction! Delayed cord clamping, physiological management of placenta (came away in 10mins) skin to skin, first feed & had a couple of stitches for a small tear. Me and my partner were able to stay in the delivery room for the rest of our time in hospital and were largely left undisturbed.
Me & baby girl had to have some monitoring of blood glucose levels due to the G.diabetes for 12 hours but we were home by 5pm Xmas Eve ready to spend our Xmas together as a family of 4!
I really cannot recommend hypnobirthing enough, and I do to everyone! When my birth plan changed it was paramount in preparing me for what to expect & maintaining a positive mindset! Thank you so much to Lucy & Bare Birthing for providing me with the tools to have this incredible experience once again!”
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