During my second pregnancy I read more positive birth stories and birth plans than I had prior to my first birth. The main reason was, on reflection of my first birth there were a few turning points where I wished I’d made a different decision. Not that it had been a traumatic experience the first time but as my first baby had been in a less optimal position for birth and due to the length of labour and possible foetal distress I had opiate drugs and then a forceps delivery under a spinal block. This time I hoped for less intervention and a clearer memory of the birth.
I read about and practiced excercises and stretches for best chance of baby engaging head down and being their back to my front. I joined yoga classes at around 32 weeks and I was also told from around 32 weeks that baby was head down and engaged which helped boost my mindset going into the final phase of pregnancy.
I wrote a more detailed birth plan with details such as “if this happens, then my first preference is x, second y…” and so on. This was mainly informed by my first delivery but was also influenced by the birth plans I’d been reading which prompted me to include things I might not have considered otherwise. Things like preference for mobile monitoring if monitoring was required, not back lying for delivery, no opiates ideally and minimal staff members (ie one midwife!) were included but I was open minded that in some situations that might be the most appropriate thing.
With both pregnancies I was quite relaxed about going over due. In my family all babies are overdue and my first was born on 41+10. I had a few episodes of vomiting and diarrhoea in the final couple of weeks then on 40+3 I had a bloody show. I began to feel excited that things were going to get started soon. I spent the last few evenings doing gentle excercises on my ball - rotations and figures of 8 - and child’s pose/polar bear stretching. I tried to get an early night on 40+3 expecting things to ramp up in the dark which is what had happened for my first labour.
Around 2 am I woke up with period cramps, I knew this could be the start or it could come to nothing. I did calming breaths to relax my mind and fall into light sleep. Around 4 am I was waking regularly and the pain was increasing. I sneaked downstairs and started timing surges on the Freya app. They were 8 minutes apart and only 40 seconds long. I knew from my first labour that this could go backwards or forwards or stop altogether so I did my best to relax and get back to a sleepy state and snoozed on the sofa on my left side with my right knee across and over to hopefully keep baby in the best position. I slept pretty comfortably just waking a little for surges until about 6.30am when I text my mum asking her not to go to work that morning as I was sure I’d be needing her to watch my older child later. She turned up half an hour later when I probably still didn’t need her yet, but I guess she was as excited as me!
My son and my partner woke to find me and my mum downstairs. I went for a shower and had breakfast. At 10am i was suddenly so tired I went back to bed. I started timing surges again throughout this nap but still felt I got a decent sleep. They were varying between roughly every 5-10 minutes but getting longer. I stayed left side lying, knee up position the whole time. By noon, pain was increasing and I got sick. I asked my partner to call the birth centre and at one point the midwife asked to speak to me on the phone. Although I would say the pain was becoming unbearable and the vomiting had left me a bit stressed, the midwife on the phone calmed me and put me off going straight in. We took our time getting organised and didn’t leave our house until 1330. We got to the birth centre at 1400 and met our midwife. She carried out checks and informed me I was 3 cm and cervix not fully effaced. I was disappointed as surges were now 4 minutes apart and over a minute long and I expected the work to have been much more productive than only 3cm! As the midwife left the room my partner and I discussed our next steps assuming they weren’t going to admit me. We agreed to going somewhere nearby for a coffee rather than all the way home but to our surprise when the midwife came back she told us they would admit us to the room we were in in the birth centre because it was my second baby and things might progress quickly. However, she recommended we went for a walk within the hospital and came back to check in hourly. I think we were lucky that it wasn’t a very busy day!
So around 1430 we left our birth suite for the M&S coffee machine at the main hospital entrance. To say this walk was challenging is an understatement. I could only walk slowly and had to stop every few minutes or so to breathe through a contraction. As awkward as I felt to be in public like this I was focused on the challenge of the hour and determined that more work than 3cm would be done by the time I was back in the birthing suite.
As we returned to the birth centre it was clear to my midwife that things had progressed and I managed to jokingly say that I wouldn’t be going back out for another walk. I changed into a nighty and the midwife got me a birthing ball, she carried out checks on the bump and everything was still normal so she said she’d be just outside but keep intervention to a minimum.
Something that happened after my first baby was I lost the sensation of needing to urinate and I had since learned that I should try to empty my bladder regularly while in labour. During contractions I kept having this urge to wee but when I went to the loo I couldn’t pee. I discussed this with my midwife and she suggested doing an in and out catheter if I still felt the same way in an hour. When an hour approached she asked if I still wanted the catheter, I said yes. For the procedure I got onto the bed and lay on my back. It was difficult to site the catheter and I kept getting contractions during the procedure so it was not a pleasant experience but it was quite quick. After it was sited my bladder proved empty anyway! When she removed it I lay on my left side to recover. The feeling of needing to wee urgently was increasing. I felt a big contraction and pressure in my bladder and bum then suddenly my water broke. I suppose the sensation I thought of as needing a wee was actually pressure of the waters bulging.
From here contractions intensified and I started to make low groans during out breaths. I tried to think of down breathing but I couldn’t believe I was at this stage of labour already. When I caught eyes with my midwife she asked me if it felt pushy. I nodded and she offered me gas and air. She talked to me about continuing to breath through the surges saying she would talk me through it all and that at some point I’d feel my body takeover and pushing would be automatic. My first labour had been so long, I couldn’t believe I’d reached this point within 3 hours of admission! I asked her “is it really working” and she said she could check my cervix again to confirm if I rolled onto my back. This was a moment of clarity for me. I did not want to try to deliver on my back. So I turned down what would’ve been the second cervical check and got help to stand on my feet leaning over the bed.
In this position and with my partner alternately handing me gas and air and my water bottle, I had my final contractions. I focussed on down breathing through each of them until I felt my body taking over and the baby moving down. I heard my midwife coaching me through pushing and within about 4 pushes my baby girl was born. They passed her up to me seconds later and I could not believe she was here and that I had done it! Delivered her almost exactly as my birth plan had hoped. It had been only 3.5 hours since I’d arrived at the hospital and only 30 minutes since my water had broken. The best thing was there had been effectively no intervention or invasive checks at all. I did need stitches - along the episiotomy scar from my first delivery - but there felt like there was no rush and my midwife took her time and care with all of the checks finishing everything before her shift handed over.
After enjoying a few hours as a trio in the lovely birthing suite, I was up and in the shower. Due to it all being so straightforward I was admitted to the birth centre postnatal ward for the night too. It was far more spacious than the main post natal ward had been and I was the only patient in there overnight. My partner was able to stay as long as he liked and so the 3 of us had a quiet little evening just enjoying the newborn glow. The next day I was able to be discharged and we were all home as a family of 4 by dinner time
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