natural birth

Sep

2021

Maya & Sofia

I want to share my birth experience as my birth story is quite positive.

First I should say that when I was 36 weeks the doctors told me my baby was not growing as expected and they wanted to induce me as soon as I turned 37 weeks. I declined as was just feeling it wasn’t right. I went privately to a doctor in London and they said they thought there was nothing wrong and my baby was well. So I had daily CTG scans and another growth scan after 2 weeks. Then they said she was growing normally so I was put back to ‘low risk’.

So she decided to come when I was 39 weeks and 3 days. I woke up in the morning and had small weird sensation like a mild period cramp. This then started becoming more frequent and I started wondering what it was. My husband was in a long meeting so I waited patiently for the meeting to finish to tell him I thought this might be surges. His meeting finished at 1pm and he suggested I call the hospital. I called the hospital at 1:30pm to ask them if these were surges as they were not very strong. Although they were every 3-4 minutes apart. They said it probably was a sign of very early labour and can take couple of days. So I decided to do some work at home. However the surges became more intense and I asked my husband to prepare the TENS machine. The surges were much more frequent and intense so I asked him to call the hospital again. He did and they said to wait 1-2 hours wit surges like that before calling again. 10 minutes later my waters broke and I was feeling the urge to push 😳 I used the tens machine for few minutes only. We needed to get to the hospital. We arrived at 4pm and they said I was fully dilated and needed to push 😳.

My baby’s heartbeat was on the lower end so they moved me to the consultant lead unit. The midwives were absolutely amazing. They were motivating me to push and explaining how to breathe. I tried different positions as well. To be honest the final stage wasn’t that painful apart from the back ache. Finally Sofia was born at 6:30pm normally without intervention. I had level two tear which is healing well.

Jun

2021

Abi and Thea

We gave birth to Thea on 24th Feb at home and it was such an amazing experience!

As I was slightly overdue, I had a sweep in the morning, which found I was 2cm dilated and already. I felt like my body was very ready to give birth.

At about 1.30pm I started feeling waves of period pains, low down in my tummy. I monitored these for about 45min and they settled pretty regularly into a pattern of 30-45seconds of a wave and then about 5-10min of nothing. Each one was of a manageable pressure.

I told Ben (my husband) I was pretty sure I was in labour, called my mum and my midwife (mum would be looking after Effie, my toddler, when it came to it) . My midwife said it may be Braxton Hicks following the morning sweep or could be the real thing, so just to relax, take a walk and keep an eye on things.

Following a beautiful family walk in the sunshine with my husband, toddler and our dog, the contractions ramped up, so I called the midwife again at about 3.30pm to let her know and she said she would pop over to see how I was doing and start some paperwork.

By this point I was having to actively concentrate on relaxing throughout each ‘surge’. When my midwife checked me over at about 3.50pm I was 4-5cm dilated and warned me that once our toddler and dog were collected (mum and mother in law knew the plan so were coming to whisk them away) that my body would probably take note and things would happen more quickly. My midwife was not wrong!!

My husband was set to work filling the birthing pool and 2 other midwives joined us I think at about 4.30pm. My midwife and husband were both taking it in turns to rub my back as I was standing leaning over a table, waiting for the birthing pool to fill. As the surges built in power both my midwife and husband were reminding me to breathe through each surge and let the muscles relax and to breathe the baby down. I got into the pool as soon as it was full enough to cover my bump, with me lying down in the pool. Leaning into my husbands arms I let my body take more control and tried to allow my brain to let go, let everything relax so the surges could do the job they needed to do. At this point it was so helpful being able to picture what the muscles of my uterus were doing.

As my baby’s head began to crown, my waters broke which felt like a huge release of pressure and then in the next surge, my baby’s head was right there. Guided amazingly by midwife, just listening to her voice and allowing my body to be consumed and my brain to let go, I breathed (and swore) through my next 3 surges, actively thinking about letting the lower half of my body relax and stretch with Thea joining us in very quickly, at 6.15pm.

I felt so safe and well supported in the care of my midwives and husband. I felt safe in my environment and in control the entire time.

Wow, is the only way I can express giving birth to my second child. It was an incredible experience and so empowering. It was intense for sure, but I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as painful. With such a great experience of giving birth, I’d highly recommend hypnobirthing and a home birth.