Deanne’s Birth Story

The birth of Rupert: Written by Deanne

I was 40 weeks + 3 on the New Year’s Day and we went to bed as normal. I couldn’t get comfortable in bed and started to get what felt like strong period pains as well as alot of pressure. From 12 I kept getting up to go toilet as I felt the need to urinate but nothing came out! I woke my husband up at 3am as I couldn’t sleep, at this point I didn’t think I was in labour. We lay in bed together whilst he held my stomach, then we both felt and heard a massive pop like a balloon exploding which was my waters breaking! 

We were told to go to bracken, when we got there my contractions were minutes apart and quite strong. Unfortunately my blood pressure was high, I had to be transferred to labour to be monitored. 

I agreed to be checked and I was already 4cm which was amazing! I used gas and air which really helped with the breathing technique I used at hypnobirthing. I also asked the midwife to turn the lights off and have our own music playing instead of the tv that was on. 

At around 8am the pool was available, I didn’t know labour ward had a pool so I was really happy about this. I felt instant relief when getting into the water. However I was having ‘cluster’ contractions where I was having 3 in a row without any break and knew I couldn’t continue without more pain relief. My midwife was amazing and stood back but comforted me when appropriate, we agreed I would have another exam before going further with pain relief. I hadn’t progressed and was still 4cm. Therefore I decided to have the pethidine injection as I knew I was exhausted and not coping. This helped massively with managing the contractions, I felt calm and could still concentrate on the music we had playing. 

At around 12 a doctor came in and explained baby was unhappy and we needed to start thinking about a caesarean, the baby was also not moving into the right position. I weighed up my options and my birth plan was to avoid vaginal interventions such as forceps, therefore decided a caesarean was the right thing to do as I didn’t want the risk of a traumatic labour. 

As a category 2 it all happened quite quickly but everything was explained to me and my husband. We got to theatre and I asked for our music playing, the lights down and for baby to be put straight on me (if healthy). 

Rupert was born at 12.54pm, as soon as we heard his cry me and Sam both cried our eyes out. It was emotional with the music playing too, all I could hear was the music and I felt so calm! He was brought straight to my chest and stayed there whilst they finished the surgery. Once transferred back to the ward we had our peaceful golden time. I thought the initial recovery would be awful but I was out of bed that evening and we managed to breastfeed too which has been amazing. 

Although we didn’t get the labour we planned, I’m completely at peace as we used everything we learnt at Mollies Hypnobirthing class. Mollie gave me knowledge on all my choices and made me feel empowered to ask for what I wanted, even in an emergency situation! I would recommend Hypnobirthing with Mollie to every pregnant couple!