When birth doesn’t go to plan

No pain relief even with a drip

A wonderful experience even though plans changed.

Becky’s birth story

When I thought about giving birth it absolutely petrified me, to the extent that I was asking around to see if I could choose to have a c-section. When I went to the hospital for the first time to talk about my pregnancy I burst into tears saying I was so worried about giving birth, the pain and all the things that could go wrong. To go from that to at the end of my pregnancy wanting to try no pain relief and a home a birth is an absolute miracle to me and it was all thanks to Sandra and hypnobirthing.

It was my boss at work that told me about hypnobirthing and it was the best thing I could of ever done. All I thought was I will try anything if it helps me with my anxiety and worry of giving birth. I was 5 months pregnant when I started my classes and after the first class I already felt a lot more confident, I learned a lot. By my end class I had decided I wanted a water birth at home!! Something I thought I would never say and I was actually excited to give birth.

On the 28th may (17 days before my due date) at 5 in the morning my waters broke. Definitely not like how I imagined it to be and not like you see on the tv!! I didn’t know if it was my waters breaking but throughout the morning it kept happening. I started getting contractions at around 12 dinner time but nothing to major. Two of my friends helped me get the pool ready and one of them had prepared me loads of food and snacks (the food was actually meant for my surprise baby shower I was meant to be having in 2 days time, opps). Throughout the day my contractions started to get a bit worse but nothing unmanageable I was just breathing through them like I’d learnt at hypnobirthing. As the night went on they did intensify a bit so I put the TENNS machine on and that helped me through them. When that started to not work as well as it did in the beginning I was on my ball and in and out of the bath all night and listening to my hypnobirthing tracks on my phone which really helped. My contractions intensified but were never becoming regular enough to ring the midwives to ask them to come. so at about 5am on the Friday morning I rang the hospital for some advice and they told me to come in just so they could check me Over as I was now over 24 hours after my waters had broke. My best friend Thalia who lives with me drove me to the hospital and came in with me (I had a different birthing partner but as you will read not everything went to plan) When I got there they strapped me up to a machine to see how baby was and to keep an eye on he regular my contractions were. My contractions started to get a lot worse but just not anymore regular!! I then asked if I could go back home but the midwives said they would rather me stay in, so I asked them if I could go into the Fatima Allam birth ward as that is where the pools were but they said I couldn’t as they wanted to carry on monitoring me. At this point I started to panic as I hadn’t even thought about not having a water birth! I didn’t mind having at the hospital but I still wanted a water birth. The senior midwife asked me if I was okay having a student midwife take lead on my birth as this would be her qualifying birth!! I always said I wouldn’t have a student midwife but at that moment in time I did feel differently and was more then okay. They then told me they were going to put me on a hormone drip to see if they could get my contractions more regular but after an hour of being on it they decided to take me off it because they thought the baby’s heart beat started to drop (it hadn’t they later realised) they told me at around 10am I would probably be in here at least another 5 hours taking me to at least 3pm which upset me because I was starting to think I couldn’t go on for much longer, I still hadn’t had any type of pain relief and I wanted to wait as long as I could to start with gas and air just so it didn’t wear off to quickly and I felt I needed something stronger so I just kept going. About half an hour later I go the biggest urge to go for a poo so because I was all hooked up to a machine they had to bring in the commode all self dignity had gone by this point! Anyway I got up to sit on it and I got the weirdest feeling like I needed to push, I know it probably seems obvious what was happening but it wasn’t to me. As I was sat on the commode I was telling them I needed to poo but just couldn’t and when I got off I could not move! The midwives were telling me to get back onto the bed so they could check me but I just couldn’t move, it took me about 3/4 minutes to get back onto the bed, when the student midwife checked me over she said “oh wow, I think you’re at 10cm but let me just get the senior midwife to double check” When she came through she had a look and was very surprised but confirmed I was so I asked quickly if I could push!! I can’t even describe how weird the feeling was I got and all I kept saying was I can’t do this, I can’t so this!! Thalia came and held my hand and kept telling me “YOU CAN DO THIS!!” And all I kept saying was I can’t! The senior midwife then came to top of the bed as I was on all fours looking over the top of bed and she said to me “look at me! I can see the head, you can do this” it is just what I needed to hear, to carry on and really try my hardest to do this!! At this point they gave me gas and air, which did nothing and I accused them of not turning it on. I followed the midwifes instructions and breathed like I’d been shown how too by my best friends mum who was also a midwife and now a health visitor, and then pushed when she told me too. I was pushing for about 20-30 minutes at 11.13am I finally pushed out my precious little baby girl. I was in utter shock at what I had just done and was so unbelievably overwhelmed. I held her in my arms and just stared at her!! Just wow. She weighed 6.3lbs and was just absolutely amazing. It was funny because I didn’t cry until a few hours after and then didn’t stop for a few weeks (bloody hormones) and Thalia as soon as she had watched me give birth cried and just couldn’t stop!! Such an emotional, overwhelming and amazing moment. I had second degree tears but didn’t feel a thing and getting stitched up I didn’t feel a thing either!

I never thought I’d say this but I absolutely loved the whole experience from start to finish even giving birth with no pain relief!! I would do it all over again in a heartbeat and I would say for me, it was all thanks to hypnobirthing. It made me so excited and so ready for anything and everything that came my way, I went into it knowing so much more which made me feel so much more at ease. The anxiety I had was completely gone and all that was there was pure excitement! Sandra was so lovely and amazing. I would recommend her to anyone that is pregnant, especially first time mums!! I didn’t realise how much I didn’t know!!

Thank you Sandra for making the birth of my beautiful Bella so amazing..

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