“…after both of us getting the shakes & turning quite pale I said ‘get Suzy on!’…”

This weeks Birth Story of the Week comes from the lovely Sophie – thank you for sharing Sophie!
 
My Calm Birth Story
 
“When I became pregnant with my second child I immediately felt scared about giving birth again. I didn’t feel any fear with my first born, having had no experience and no idea as to what to expect, I think I was able to go into it much more calmly than the second time round. I wasn’t entirely happy with the way my first birth had gone – there were people at my birth that I didn’t want there, there were no rooms available and no midwives around to greet me or to see me through the birth consistently and calmly due to staff sickness. I ended up after a calm 6 hours at home being wheeled around the hospital with midwives around me saying they had no rooms!

 

My son was eventually born (partly in the hospital corridor) by assisted delivery (ventouse) and a lot of staff shouting “push harder!” at me. I struggled to look at my birth than nothing more than a traumatic experience. As soon as I got pregnant again I knew that I had to do something about this fear as I couldn’t spend the next 9 months scared or go into labour feeling as negative as I did; in came Suzy Ashworth! I researched different hypnobirthing classes locally but found with my 3 year old around the online course suited us perfectly.
 
I went into labour with my second child at 23.30 on my due date (8.6.17). I was just about to turn the light off to go to sleep when I experienced what felt like a massive kick from the baby and my waters breaking in bed. My partner and I were a little worried as this was completely different to how it had happened previously and I hadn’t had any surges so was a bit concerned that this would mean a possible induction. After both of us getting the shakes and turning quite pale I said “get Suzy on!” We put the ‘relax for birth’ MP3 on as we got the hospital bag ready and called my mum to come and take care of my eldest, the hospital requested that we go in as soon as possible.

 

We were able to ‘calm everything right down’ and order a taxi. I put my earphones on in the taxi and continued to focus, at this point my surges were coming every 3 minutes and were causing quite a bit of discomfort. I turned to my partner and said “this baby will be here in an hour” – this was at 1am. You can imagine how I felt when the midwife told me I was 2cm! I was shocked but remained calm and positive. My surges got stronger very quickly and as I listened to the first track on my play list (recommended by Suzy) I continued to use the breathing techniques to help me get through the discomfort, I couldn’t believe I was only 2cm when the surges felt so intense. I wasn’t entirely happy with the greeting I got from the midwife and she spoke to me like I had no idea what I was doing “is this your first child?” she asked in a patronising way.

 

I remained calm – this would go how I wanted it to go, I promised myself. She told me that I couldn’t move from the assessment ward (I wanted a water birth) or have any gas and air until I reached 4cm but as I had requested no vaginal examinations after the initial one I knew I had to make do with the assessment room for now. My partner tried to make the assessment room feel as homely as possible – he dimmed the lights and got me a birthing ball and Suzy was on in the background. At around 2am I began to feel a bearing down sensation – like I wanted to poo!

 

As my noises became more primal midwives began to panic and bring in towels and mats etc. As I was on all fours they couldn’t find the babies heart beat so they wanted me to get on the bed – I did this in stages but I did not want to go into the labour ward as they requested at this late stage, I was having this baby now. My partner was amazing at guiding me through ‘breathing the baby out’.

 

Baby girl Dylan came into the world at 2.17am without any pain relief in the triage unit. I told my partner it would be an hour and I wasn’t far wrong! Follow your body ladies, it knows, you know! Thank you Suzy for teaching me to trust my instincts, for enabling me to let go of the negative responses from staff around me, making it possible for me to give birth to my little girl in 2 hours 50mins with no pain relief. THANK YOU!”