Mama S says: “Because I was upright and forward the waters going caused baby to spin and drop in the most magical way (like a corkscrew or a flush!) moving her off my back and straight down into my cervix. 20 minutes after being 5cm dilated I wanted to push and so was examined again 10cm dilated and ready to push!”

Hi Claire,

I’m pleased to say that our beautiful baby girl arrived on Monday after spontaneous labour and no intervention (during the birth!). It was very positive experience this time round and I think the Hypnobirthing techniques helped 🙂 So thank you x Here is my birth story x

Baby Girl (I knew she was a girl but my husband didn’t!)

Due 8th September 2021

Born 13th September 2021, 8:44pm

40+5 weeks 

8.7lb

Planned Birth – midwife unit pool birth

Actual Birth – labour ward dry land birth (midwife unit closed due to covid)

Pain relief – gas and air (but didn’t really work for me)

Established labour – 1 hour 

Trigger Warnings –  PPH, episiotomy, reduced movements due to anterior placenta, difficult first birth (induction, epidural, forceps, 3a tear, meconium)

First birth 

Dec 2018, induction at 42 weeks leading to epidural, hormone drip, 17 hours to dilate, posterior baby, forceps, meconium and a long hospital stay on antibiotics for both of us. Recovery was fairly slow and I was anxious about my daughter for a while afterwards (she was fine!). This time my priority was avoiding induction if possible, less intervention, smaller / no tears for a quicker recovery for a less anxious start. 

Latent phase 

I had dull cramping and backache from 7.09.21 (39+6). Also had monitoring and a scan due to reduced movements. RM were most likely due to an anterior placenta but because it was my fourth episode I was told I would have to be consultant led. I questioned this with my midwife who said I didn’t have to do anything. Instead I had a conversation with a lovely consultant who offered induction, I declined but agreed to a sweep at 39+6, and I continued to be midwife led. 

At the sweep my cervix was favourable, 3cm long and slightly posterior but midwife performed the sweep successfully in the day assessment centre. 

9.07.21 (40+1) I went to the cinema and ate out twice while my daughter was at nursery all day. I also went for a second stretch and sweep involving five rotations of the cervix which was favourable and 1-2cm dilated. Had a contraction during sweep so my midwife had to stop and wait. I then lost my mucus plug later that day! Tried not to get too excited. 

I felt a bit  anxious that day as I’d had not been sleeping well but slept so well night of the 9th and felt much better. The good sleep continued until Labour day which meant I went into Labour feeling strong. 

Labour Day

13.09.21 (40+5) my daughter went to my in-laws for the day and I went for a coffee. At 10:30am I had a definite, defined cramp low in my belly. Another one came 30 minutes later and I got excited. I started timing them at 12pm and the time between them ranged from 17 to 5 minutes. I was kneeling on the floor by our bed, watching a film and eating Pringles, doing up-breathing through surges for four hours, this bit was nice 🙂 By 4pm surges were coming every 3/4 minutes and the Freya app said I was in established labour! Unfortunately my mother in law rang to say my daughter had a fever and I had to sort out a GP phone call then covid test for her while in labour! Had to keep hanging up to have a surge! 

My husband was working from home so I asked him to ring the midwife unit. It was shut due to COVID but the labour ward midwives said to come in. This didn’t bother me as long as I had my own room, I was just happy to have gone into Labour naturally. 

We arrived about 4:30pm and I was given a lovely room with a bed and ball. The surges were getting stronger by then so I was putting my fingers in my ears to block out questions and chat between midwives and husband as they happened. Kneeling on the floor on a pillow leaning against the bed. The midwife examined me and I was 3cm 🙁 Absolutely gutted I said ‘that’s terrible!’ But the wonderful midwife said based on her experience of second babies and the intensity of my surges that she’d let me stay (phew!). 

I laboured in the kneeling position by the bed or standing with arms around husband’s neck from the examination at 5pm until about about 7pm when the surges changed from being in my lower belly to being in my back. These back surges were much more difficult to manage and I started losing my cool. The midwife shift changed and my new midwife came in just as I was shouting ‘for fuck’s sake’ on my hands and knees on the floor, which with hindsight makes me chuckle. She examined me at 7:50pm and I was 5cm (again a bit disappointing but at least I was now in established labour). She confirmed that the baby was now posterior hence the intense back surges. With another of these surges and the knowledge of being 5cm I asked for the epidural. The midwife reminded me of pethidine but I wanted the big guns! I also asked for the pool at that point but she explained that it would be harder to control any tearing in a pool and that it would not help the posterior pain. Also that it would take a couple of hours to be available and clean. 

So, and this is the magic moment where hypnobirthing came into its own, the anaesthetist came in and was explaining the epidural and it’s risks to me while I was standing up by the bed swaying and trying to turn the baby and suddenly with a pop my waters went all over the floor. Because I was upright and forward the waters going caused baby to spin and drop in the most magical way (like a corkscrew or a flush!) moving her off my back and straight down into my cervix. 20 minutes after being 5cm dilated I wanted to push and so was examined again 10cm dilated and ready to push! I could feel it! To me this is the power of being upright, mobile and forward and the need not to fixate of the number of cm’s dilated you are. The anaesthetist stopped explaining the epidural and left!

I was on my back in the bed now as the midwife had just examined me. My body started to push, it really wanted to push! I was shouting but so happy to be pushing. A second midwife came in and tried to get me on the gas and air, which just wasn’t working for me (it did with my first daughter). She explained that they would need to do an episiotomy as the baby was not coming through, I felt the ‘ring of fire’ and kept pushing. I’m a bit hazy on the detail but I know I was pushing for about 20 minutes then her head came through, one more push and her body came! It was amazing!! I held her on my belly as the cord was short and we had delayed cord clamping.    

Third phase 

This was more difficult. While I was cuddling Mabli the placenta took an hour to come even with the injection. When it did it was a bit raggedy and the midwife was a bit concerned. 20 minutes later I’d lost around a litre of blood and a lot of people came into the room. The midwife was pushing down on my stomach to encourage my uterus to cramp and close but it wouldn’t. This bit was hard, I’d given birth and it had gone so well, but now someone was effectively pummelling my tired, sore uterus and I kept saying ‘I want it to stop now’ and crying a bit. A consultant came in who said I would have to have a spinal tap so they could see what was going on and they gave me second injection to slow the bleeding. I was not worried as knew I was in good hands and the bleeding slowed. I was also really pleased about the spinal tap as it would make all the pain stop with no impact on my baby who was now born, happy and healthy -win win. I handed my beautiful, perfect girl to my husband and was wheeled to theatre where I had a spinal tap – quite a relief after all the pain – and a D&C which removed some leftover membranes which had caused the bleeding. They also stitched up my second degree tear. I lost 1,350ml of blood in all but felt ok and recovered well. The general recovery was incomparable to my first birth where I wore a catheter for four days, this time the catheter was off next morning and I was walking around and peeing fine. They kept me in another night to check my iron levels and I came home on the 15th September- 2 days after birth. 

I badly wanted a natural birth, minimum tearing and a quicker recovery for this birth and I got everything I wished for. I was, and am, on cloud nine, enjoying every minute of my beautiful daughter and her beautiful sister now, with no cause for anxiety this time 🙂