Laura and Leah - positive hospital birth
Answering a few of our questions:
What was the best bit of the birth for you: “I felt in control at all times even when unexpected things cropped up. I felt I had the knowledge and power to make the right decisions for me and my baby..”
How did Hypnobirthing help with your birth: “It gave me the power and confidence to make decisions in difficult circumstances, a few of my friends said I should do the course - they were right!”
The birth story
On Sunday 18th December, noticeable surges started at 9am. I remember us phoning my partner’s parents to say we’d be dropping our dog round at some point that day as labour had started. One of the things I remember Katie saying on the course is the early stages of labour can be long so we weren’t in any rush to drop him off as we wanted to stay at home as long as possible - I thought I’d be able to enjoy the lights on the Christmas tree, cuddle Ralphy (my dog) and pop a Harry Potter film on whilst waiting for labour to progress but it turns out Leah had other ideas.
I was timing my contractions and by the time I got out of the shower about 10am they were about 3.5 minutes apart. Katie had said I’d know when it was time to phone the hospital and she was right - my partner phoned the hospital and they told us to come into ADAU to get checked out.
We got to hospital about 11.30am - we left all our bags in the car as we fully expected to be sent home once I’d been checked over as we didn’t think things would be progressing this quickly. I was 5cm dilated when I was admitted to ADAU so they started getting a room ready for us on labour ward. During this time, they were concerned about my heart rate and baby’s heart rate as my contractions were back to back and I was getting no respite. They gave me a medication alongside some fluids to slow down my contractions - I was informed at this stage if there wasn’t any improvements in both our heart rates in the next 20 minutes that they’d be sending me for an emergency caesarean. I was so grateful to Katie and everything she covered on the course in this moment as whilst a caesarean was not my birth plan A, it was something I had given some thought to, just in case it happened. I focused on my breathing, remaining calm and used gas and air to help with the pain whilst waiting to see what happened over the next 20 minutes,
Thankfully, things improved so they took us to labour ward. They were struggling to find baby’s heart rate clearly so I consented to a foetal scalp monitor. The next 3.5 hours are all a bit of a blur - I spent a lot of time pacing around the room, squatting over the bed and on the bed trying to get comfy. I eventually found some comfort laid on my side with a peanut ball between my legs. My waters broke in hospital whilst the midwife was doing a vaginal examination - there was meconium in my waters and combined with a spike in my temperature they were worried about a possible infection.
I reached a point (the moment or transition) where it all became a bit too much - I remember telling my partner I’d had enough and I wasn’t doing it anymore and it hurt too much. He was so great at keeping me calm and telling me how well I was doing.
It came time to push and Leah got a bit stuck - I couldn’t quite give that final push to get her head our. The doctor who was in the room was calm but very clear that the baby needed to come out (she was concerned about baby’s heart rate). They wanted to do an episiotomy to help baby out and I consented. Leah was born at 4.40pm. They immediately placed her on my chest and it was the most magical moment. All the pain in that moment was forgotten as our little girl had arrived.
It all got a bit chaotic after that - after delivering my placenta, a doctor came into to stitch up my episiotomy but she was concerned about the number of clots and level of bleeding so pressed the emergency alarm and lots of people came running. They were able to get the bleeding under control in the delivery room and then we were left alone to enjoy our first moments together as a family.
Both Leah and I had to stay in hospital for 5 days for a course of IV antibiotics as we’d picked up an infection. We were finally discharged from hospital on 23rd December, just in time for Christmas.
We couldn’t have got through it all as calmly as we did if it wasn’t for everything we’d learned on the course with Katie. Several of my friends who had babies before I did had said how worthwhile it was doing the course and they weren’t wrong.
