Pauline James birth story
THE HYPNOBIRTHING OF LILLY
I started to be in labour on Monday morning. Gradually throughout the day, my surges became regular and stronger. Even though I started being in labour, I was still encouraged to have a chat about induction with the medical staff as I was 41+5 weeks then. But I kept on declining.
That evening/night, as the surges became stronger and more regular, I went through my surges on my birthing ball and monitored each surge that went from 5/6 mins apart to 3/4 mins apart by the morning, when we decided to call the triage at East Surrey.
The midwife we talked to asked us to carry on monitoring for an extra hour to get as close as possible to active labour with surges at around 3 mins apart. So we stayed put for another 1.5 hrs.
By Tuesday morning around 9/10 am, we were admitted to the birthing centre at East Surrey. I was then in active labour at 4 cm dilated. We were then moved to a birthing suite, where the midwife prepared the birthing pool while I was managing my surges with my breathing on my birthing ball. Bouncing on my birthing ball was the only position I was comfortable in going through each surge.
Once the pool was ready, I was able to jump in which helped me with the surges. While in labour, the midwife would check on the baby every 15 mins after each surge, which was not intrusive at all.
By 2.30 pm, the midwives asked me if it was ok for them to examine me. I said yes, I was 7 cm dilated then. I carried on working through the surges most of the afternoon until 5.30 pm when the midwife examined me again.
Unfortunately, I didn’t move much and I could tell the surges were coming much slower than before. The midwife offered to break the water. At that point, I was quite exhausted, not having slept for almost 30 hours. Once the water broke, I went back to the pool.
The intensity of the surges increased then much stronger. By around 9/9.30pm, I was still hitting the same surges, the same pain and felt that I couldn’t push further, and feeling absolutely exhausted. After a small chat with the midwife, I decided to come out of the pool. I could feel the baby being quite close but didn’t think I could push further. Once out of the pool, my husband asked me if I wanted to be on the ball, but at that point, I definitely didn’t want to sit on anything. I am not sure, how I made that decision, or my body made that decision for me but I ended up on a small mattress on the floor, on my hands and knees, working through my surges.
I was told by the midwives earlier on, that past midnight, I will need to be transferred to the labour ward, which I absolutely didn’t want to do. I guess this gave me more strength to get my baby out. So I gave birth by 22.04 on my hands and knees. The midwife picked up my baby and put her beneath me so that I could pick her up and meet her. What an adventure it was!
Once a bit more settled, I sat on the floor, and let my little girl crawl to my breast while waiting for the placenta to birth which didn’t take long. It was a long labour, almost 34 hours but the breathing techniques I learned with Yvette helped me to get through each surge. And the relaxation Affirmations were my go-to during the labour to re-centre myself.
Obviously, the support of my husband to remind me of my breathing was essential. I am very proud to have declined the induction so that I could birth to my baby naturally.
Yvette’s support throughout the course, after the course and building up to the birth, was so appreciated. I soo recommend the course and the support of Yvette.
To finish my birth story, once the baby was here, the placenta out, then my midwife realised that I was still bleeding from the womb. Unfortunately later on that night, I had to go to the theatre to remove membranes that were still in the womb. Nothing major, sorted in 10 mins but had to be done.
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