Where did you plan to have your birth, and why was it your chosen place?
We planned to have our birth in the midwife-led unit at the local hospital, about a 45-minute drive away. Since this was our first pregnancy, I was initially quite anxious about childbirth so I wanted to be at the hospital.
How did you prepare yourself for the birth? What challenges did you encounter, and how did you handle them?
The first step we took in preparing for the birth was hiring a doula. Having told a friend that I was terrified of giving birth she said a doula really helped her and suggested we look for one.
The antenatal sessions with our doula taught us a lot about childbirth itself, and helped us understand that everything that happened in the hospital was a choice, our choice.
One challenge we encountered arose during a scan at the hospital. Because we had recently moved back to the UK and had had all our antenatal care abroad, we were considered “unrecorded” to the NHS. For this reason and this reason alone (the scan showed everything as ‘normal’), they wanted us to have our birth under obstetrician care rather than in the midwife-led unit (MLU). I was adamant that I wanted to be in a birth pool in the MLU (the obs. unit was just next door anyway in case anything happened that required a doctor), but I still had to insist for the doctor to agree to it.
In the run up to the birth I did lots of reading, particularly about induction. I also read a series of positive birth stories which restored my confidence in women’s ability to birth children. From 36 weeks I used a birthing balloon to strengthen my pelvic floor and get familiar with the sensations I would experience during childbirth.
Where did you actually have your birth? Tell us the details of your birth.
I started having contractions at around 2pm. I was initially in disbelief because it was five days before the due date and I was convinced that the baby would arrive late. My partner started timing my contractions; they were regular and getting stronger, and we soon realised it was the real deal. Disbelief turned to excitement.
I took a bath which slowed things down a bit, but by 7pm my rushes were about 4 minutes apart so we called our doula and left for the hospital. I used a Tens machine in the car, which helped with the contractions and made the long journey tolerable.
We arrived at the hospital at about 8pm and went straight into a private room on the midwife-led unit, as planned. However, despite us calling ahead, the water bath was empty when we arrived. This panicked me a bit as I felt sure that the baby was coming soon. I asked the midwife to start running the pool before she examined me. I think she was surprised to find that I was already 8 cm dilated, and I hastily got into the pool. The hot water felt amazing; instant pain relief.
I focused on my breathing, and made a low guttural noise during contractions like the doula had showed me. It wasn’t too long before I entered Transition phase; I remember resting my face on the side of the pool and my partner stroking my hair during this brief moment of calm. Then a fleeting “I can’t do this” moment, before I felt my body start to push.
I moved into the middle of the pool onto all fours. As my body contracted, I couldn’t help but push with it - it seemed involuntary, as if my body had transformed into this baby-birthing machine and I was just going along with it. It felt amazing. I could feel the baby moving down the birth canal, and then the burning sensation as they crowned. I heard the midwife say “I can see a lot of hair!”.
With one more big push the baby was out - I looked down between my legs and suddenly there she was, under the water, looking up at me. I grabbed her and pulled her out of the water and onto my chest. I remember thinking how familiar she seemed and how beautiful she was.
She was born at 8:50 pm. About ten minutes later my partner cut the cord, and I stayed in the pool holding the baby and feeding her. But as time went on I became more and more distracted; I knew that I needed to also birth the placenta but nothing was happening; it felt like my body had switched off.
After an hour had passed, the midwife suggested I get out of the pool and try sitting on the toilet to see if that would help. I passed baby to my partner and slowly made my way to the loo. Sitting on the toilet didn’t help and the midwife was growing concerned about my cervix closing and the placenta getting stuck, so she suggested I have some of the induction drug to encourage my body to push the placenta out. Although in my birth plan I’d said I didn’t want any Syntocinon, I agreed, feeling by this point that I just wanted to get the placenta out by whatever means necessary.
The midwife asked me to lie on the bed and called a colleague to come and help her. They managed to grab hold of a small part of the placenta and told me I had to push as hard as I could. It was a wholly different type of pushing; it felt forced, unnatural, and distressing, and the drug made me feel dizzy.
After what felt like ages and nearly passing out, the placenta emerged. Sometime later the midwife stitched me up; and after some paperwork we were allowed to go home, at about 1am.
How did your birth experience impact your life afterward?
Other than dealing with physical discomfort from the stitches in the weeks after the birth, I felt really good about my birth experience. I now look back on it as this amazing, mind-altering experience, one of the best of my life.
Message for mothers/parents currently expecting and those aspiring to have a baby.
Prepare yourselves by reading as much as you can about birth; what it entails, the various stages etc. If you are having your birth at a hospital, make sure you know what to expect, what options you have, and what hurdles you might come up against. Write a birth plan but understand that events might steer you off the plan, and that that’s ok; you can still be in control of your birth.
Try to forget about the horror stories of birth that you have probably heard, and instead look for some positive birth stories and read about those. That really helped me feel empowered and excited about what I was about to do.
Don’t be scared - Know that there are loads of women who enjoyed childbirth, and you could be one of them!
If you can, hire a doula. Our doula not only helped us prepare but was also a reassuring presence during the birth itself. This is partly about continuity of care – with the NHS there is no guarantee that the midwife attending your birth will be one you’ve met before, so having a birth mentor there that you know and trust is invaluable.
2024
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