birth story Archives - A Baby on Board blog

Express delivery – Florence’s birth story

Gillian — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 12:45:00 +0000

“Wake up, I’m having contractions.” I whispered into the darkness at my husband. He sat straight up “So this is it?” “Yes!” I paused “I think…” I’d woken at 12am from a vivid dream with a burning sensation in my stomach. I was four days overdue at that point and had been impatiently waiting for something, anything to happen. But if it was contractions they didn’t seem very regular. Could it be a false alarm? I had a couple more after that, but distracted myself with messaging the only person still awake, my friend in the US. Just before 2am I timed the contractions at six minutes apart, then immediately after at four. Four minutes? That sounded…promising. They were also becoming breathtakingly uncomfortable. So I woke up my sleeping husband. Alex timed a few at just under four minutes apart; we rang the labour ward and on hearing it was a second baby they told us to come straight in. We called for a taxi and got my hospital bag ready, and I woke my parents to be on Eliza alert. It all seemed to be happening quickly. My contractions intensified, and we went from ’20 minutes wait for the taxi is fine’ to ‘Where’s the taxi?!’ pretty fast. And after that? I went to kiss sleeping Eliza goodbye, then the taxi finally turned up and I remember the quiet and rainy ride through the empty streets to the hospital, I remember the radio playing a song I’d heard shortly after Eliza was born, and I remember having a huge contraction and gripping Alex’s hand as tight as I could to avoid shouting out (although it was surely very obvious – what else would be happening to a heavily pregnant woman and her husband, on the way to the hospital in the middle of the night?) The hospital was deserted and we made it up to the maternity ward at 3am, but even at this point I still thought it might not be established labour and they could send us home (looking back I have no idea why). It turned out to be a busy night for babies and the only spare delivery room was being cleaned, so we had to wait in reception. But after a contraction that was so painful I was bent double on the floor, the midwife rushed us in. “I really hope this is it and I’m not wasting your time” I remember saying, which made her laugh. “Don’t worry! You are definitely in labour” she said as examined me “…and 8cm dilated.” I shouted out “Is that ALL?!” Which, of course, everyone thought was hilarious. It was surreal, strange and lovely to think that we’d meet our baby so soon. The lights were dimmed and we put on my labour playlist. The next hour was all at once both blurry and crystal clear, but I remember the following: * Asking for gas and air – ah, lovely lovely gas and air – which made it all better and let me breathe through the rapidly intensifying contractions * Making interim small talk between about the midwife strike, the amount of accidental Coldplay on my playlist, and my previous birth experience * Not giving a single thought to changing into my ‘giving birth’ top, but staying in the one I was already wearing, then just wearing my bra * The midwife leaving the room “She clearly thinks it’ll be ages!” I said to Alex, just before she came back in with a delivery trolley and a second midwife * Thinking it would still be a while before anything happened as my waters hadn’t broken… * My waters immediately breaking (same as with E, right at the end) * The gas and air not working, biting the mouthpiece instead * The contractions piling up and my body starting to push by itself * Being totally consumed by the pain and the moment and telling myself to just get the baby out * The midwife telling me to listen to my body and do whatever felt right * Pushing, the head being out * And then pausing… Then with one final push, Florence was born, opening her mouth with a loud wail as she was placed upon my chest. I’ve been thinking about what made it so much better this time. It wasn’t just that it was quick (although it was quick last time, this time my entire labour was officially timed as an hour and 18 minutes, starting from when we got to hospital) or that this made it any less painful – it really hurt! Especially as she came out with her hand by her face – the stitches, ouch. It helped that I wasn’t induced, that it was a different and less chaotic hospital, and that I didn’t get to 10cm on a ward with bright lights and panic, and there were a couple of other things we did differently. But this time I also knew what was happening, knew I could do it, my body took over and I felt far more in control. Our delivery midwife was also amazing – kind, calm, funny, supportive – said all the right positive things, and was really conscious of what we wanted. Post-birth I had to almost immediately go on a drip for four hours due to the blood-thinning injections I’d been taking, but she delayed cord clamping for as long as possible and gave us the option to delay the baby weighing for an hour so we could have extended skin-to-skin. After the rush of the birth, it felt like the world was on hold just for us. I held the baby, she breastfed, then Alex held her. We chatted about everything and nothing while we watched the dawn creep up and the sky turn golden on Florence’s first morning ever in the world. Afterwards we were taken to the ward where we stayed for the rest of the day, and where Eliza met […]

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Eliza’s birth story – an unexpectedly quick induction of labour

Gillian — Sat, 05 May 2012 22:02:19 +0000

I thought I’d post my induction of labour birth story (a propess induction story) today to coincide with International Midwife Day. I received such amazing care from midwives, both in the hospital (despite it being incredibly busy) and from the community midwife team at my doctors surgery (who came out to our house for three weeks after we’d taken Eliza home from the hospital after our induction of labour). I’m lucky that I had access to such great care, as I know that so many people aren’t so fortunate. “I have to tell you; you’re already 10 cm dilated, and your baby will be here before your epidural. You are going to have to deliver her without it,” the midwife said to me to my horror, mere minutes after we finally made it to a delivery room. “Now, do you feel ready to push?’ But before we move on to Eliza’s imminent – and unexpectedly speedy – arrival, let’s rewind back to the start. It actually began with a false start, on my due date, with an propess induction story that progressed as far as the King’s College Hospital labour ward waiting room. At this point I’d had two sweeps and everyone was convinced I’d spontaneously go into labour. But she stayed stubbornly put, so we went in for a propess induction of labour as planned – but were then sent straight home due to an unprecedented south London baby boom meaning there were no free beds. “You didn’t expect to actually have a baby on your due date did you?” a midwife said wryly. The next day we were back, although I was convinced we’d be turned away again, right up until Alex and I were ushered into one of the beds in the induction bay. After monitoring, they gave me the induction of labour drugs via propess and told us to expect a long wait as nothing was likely to happen for at least 24 hours. Yet the early evening dinner brought with it back-ache and stomach cramps. “Sounds promising!” said a midwife when I mentioned it, although she was soon contradicted by the doctor, who said it was too soon to be anything more than pre-labour pains and Braxton Hicks. The pain quickly got so bad that I couldn’t get comfortable at all, and nothing – lying down, walking, my long-practised labour breathing – seemed to help. Alex tried using the contraction timing app we’d downloaded, but as there was no start or end point to the pain, we figured I couldn’t possibly be in labour. Wrong, wrong, wrong, as it turned out. The midwife gave me some paracetamol and hooked me up to the monitor; the delivery ward was still so busy that she was needed elsewhere and left us alone until midnight. After one look at the monitor printout she called the doctor back, as it turned out that the pain was actually off-the-scale back-to-back contractions with no gap in between, and I was now 3cm dilated. We all had a laugh about how I was a ‘difficult’ patient, as the doctor said that due to the method of induction they wouldn’t have expected anything to happen until morning. It stopped being quite so funny when she told me even though I was in so much pain I couldn’t have an epidural until I was 4cm and a delivery room was free; however, they said they’d check me again in four hours and let me have gas and air. This really helped, and encouraged by the tantalising promise of imminent proper pain relief, I lay on the bed feeling blissfully relaxed. Alex even had a brief amount of sleep on a special ‘dad mat’ on the floor. This didn’t last long. At about 2am I realised that I was no longer feeling any relief from the gas and air and the constant pain was getting worse. There were still two hours to wait until my next examination, but the midwife reluctantly checked me, and was as surprised as we were to find that I’d actually dilated to 6cm. Epidural time, at last! However, at that point there were still no available labour rooms as the hospital was so busy, so we had to wait. By the time they moved someone out of a room – one of the longest hours of my life later – I was pretty convinced I was going to give birth then and there, on the induction ward, with three other women in the beds around me (sorry! to these women, I was you a few months earlier). As they finally pushed my bed down the corridor I started feeling the most intense physical pressure, and my body started automatically pushing. My waters broke in dramatic fashion as we got to the room, and I was pretty sure this didn’t bode well for any more pain relief. I was right; the doctor swiftly checked me again and it turned out I’d gone from 6cm to 10cm in an hour and would just have to get on with it. So push I did. I was so focused on getting the baby out that I don’t remember this part being anywhere near as painful as the lead-up (even though they took the gas and air off me, to my absolute horror). Pushing took either five minutes or five hours in my head; Alex says it was more like half an hour. Towards the end the midwife was concerned as the baby’s heartbeat kept dropping off the monitor and she calmly instructed me to “get this baby out NOW.” So just before 4am I gave the final push, and, with both hands by her face, out flew Eliza. It’s funny, I had planned and prepared so much in the weeks leading up to the birth; all the usual first time mum worry about random things like what to wear and what songs would go on my pushing playlist. However, when it came down […]

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