Independent midwives in Kent supporting women's choice

My Birth Story - by Andrea

I woke up on the morning of my estimated due date with period like pains, similar to those I had had the week before. I didn't think too much of them as they had come and gone last time with no progress. I made a trip to the bathroom and found that I had spotted a bit of brown blood - I wondered whether this could be a show, but it didn't really look like a mucus plug so I decided this could mean anything from labour being imminent to it starting next week! I seemed to need to empty my bladder a lot over the next hour, did that mean that the baby had moved down further? My husband decided to put off leaving for work for another hour to see whether anything speeded up but in the end we decided it would be silly for him not to set off for work. Things seemed to be slowing down rather than going anywhere.

I stayed in bed for a while to get some rest and then got up to get on with the day and tried not to think about things. Whether it was a nesting instinct, or something similar, but I decided to clean the house out, bedrooms, toilets etc just incase something did happen. I was still getting period like pains but nothing that I couldn't ignore or that were any regular distance apart.

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I finished cleaning the house, had some lunch and decided to sit down and watch a film for the afternoon. I was still getting period like pains at this point but not really with any regularity. I hadn't attempted to time anything at this point. I was still spotting brown blood and this was beginning to worry me at this point so I decided to give my independent midwife, Virginia Howes, a call. It was now around 4pm. I wasn't really thinking anything was imminent at this stage but thought that it would be good to put her in mind that labour might be starting in the next day or so. I also wanted some reassurance about the bleeding as I thought a show just came and went and wouldn't have been there all day long. Virginia was interested that things appeared to be starting but neither of us was worried that anything was going to happen immediately. Virginia was not concerned about the bleeding, which reassured me. I mentioned that my bowels had been loose the night before and we wondered whether this might mean things were about to happen.

I started to feel I should time contractions, just to see how close they actually were. They didn't seem to be that regular and were lasting from 30 to 40 seconds. However, by 5pm things had started to pick up quite a bit and it felt like the contractions were coming every 5 minutes or so, still lasting around 40 seconds. I decided to call my husband, who works in London, at about 5:30pm just to see when he would be coming home and to, I suppose, give him a bit of a hint that I would like to see him sooner rather than later. He asked me how often the contractions were coming and whether I had spoken to Virginia again. I didn't really want to tell him how often, given that I knew that at 5 minutes they were really a lot closer! He made me promise to phone Virginia again before his train got in at 6:35pm. For some reason I still felt the birth wasn't necessarily going to happen for ages and had felt a bit silly ringing Virginia again so soon. I promised that I would call Virginia and rang her at 6:10pm. I could still talk quite normally through a contraction, which surprised me as off the phone I think I had found it harder to speak.

Virginia reassured me that even if I did get to second stage before she arrived I would have a few hours to spare (she was an hours drive away). She said I should ring her again when contractions had been 5 minutes or so apart for 2 hours and were lasting around a minute. I agreed to do that as it made sense that, if she arrived at our house tonight, we might not need her till the following day and then she would be tired.

My husband arrived home at around 7pm. I went to the toilet again at 7:10pm and this time I definitely lost my mucus plug with a slight tinge of blood in it. The brown spotting seemed to have subsided by this time. We started timing the contractions, with me shouting yes when one began and no or gone when the contraction had finished. I found it quite hard to determine when one had actually finished, as they seemed to fade away rather than just stop. They now seemed to be lasting anything from 30 seconds to 60 seconds and were varying from 3 minutes apart to 5 minutes. They were more regular but still not in a set pattern. At this point I mentioned to my husband that we didn't have the pavlova that Virginia had always joked with me that she wanted in for my labour. My husband asked if I wanted him to pop up to Waitrose for one and we decided that he should, with me continuing to time the contractions in his absence. It was now just after 7:30pm and contractions were coming roughly every 2 to 3 minutes and lasting from 30 seconds to 55 seconds. I still felt able to cope with them really well and it didn't panic me that I would be on my own for a brief period, I still didn't really think things were going to happen that quickly. However I was finding it incredibly difficult to sit down on anything, including my birth ball and found that the only way I could cope was by standing and rotating/swaying my hips with each contraction and using my breathing. I also tried to relax the muscles around my cervix with the contraction as I had heard that that would help.

In my husband's absence I decided to cook some cheese on toast, one of my favourites. I did two slices but only managed to eat half of one slice; my appetite wasn't quite what I thought it was! My husband came back and we carried on timing the contractions together, they were still wavering at 2 to 3 minutes apart and lasting for just over a minute. We sat down to watch Holby City. I couldn't concentrate and we had to turn it off! At this point my husband decided that we should call Virginia again as things were definitely picking up. Virginia suggested that we go for a walk for an hour. I was dubious that I could manage an hour so we settled on a half hour walk. We left for our walk in the dark and luckily didn't bump into any neighbours. We walked along the flat rather than up the hills, it is quite hilly in our area. I was now finding it really annoying if my husband talked to me during a contraction and eventually told him so. I just found that I couldn't answer him and had to concentrate entirely on the contraction. I could still walk through a contraction, but most of the time found it easier to just stop and sway my hips a bit and breath through it. I felt like I was going to be sick a couple of times but just had that taste in my mouth, I was never actually sick.

We came back to the house. Virginia rang to say that she was on her way anyway and suggested that we start to fill the pool. It was now around 9:30pm and we started to time contractions again.

I was feeling really frustrated that I wanted to get things out from my labour bag in the upstairs bedroom but was finding it really hard to get there and take things out with the contractions. I managed to find myself a fruit and nut bar, which I only half ate. Virginia rang again to tell us that she was nearly with us. I asked my husband to find my bag with my aromatherapy oils in and we put on some rose oil in a vapouriser. We carried on timing the contractions until about 11pm when Virginia arrived. She apologised that she had not got there sooner; I hadn't even realised that it had taken her longer than the usual hour! Apparently there had been a pile up on the M25 and she had been stuck in the traffic. She had rung the police to tell them that she was a midwife attending a woman in labour and they had told her to use the hard shoulder with hazards flashing. The police then escorted her off the motorway.

The pool had taken a bit longer to fill than when we had had a dummy run at the weekend. We had been quite glad of the practice run as on emptying the pool we had flooded the kitchen - an undiscovered overflow pipe in the kitchen sink that we now know about! Virginia checked my pulse and blood pressure and the baby's heart rate; thankfully she didn't suggest any vaginal examination. It was really difficult for me to lie on my back so she carried out her checks as quickly as possible. All was normal and she told me I could get into the pool. I got in and waited, at her suggestion, for a contraction to begin so that I could get under the level of the water and see what pain relief it gave. I didn't really notice much difference in the pain but it did feel good to have the water all around me, quite comforting. The water temperature was 36 degrees at this point. Virginia suggested that I get on all fours and get into moving with the contractions so that it was automatic. The contractions continued to come thick and fast but I was no longer timing them at this point. They did seem to be even more frequent though than before. I was really surprised that each contraction now seemed to end in my lower back, which I had assumed only happened with a posterior presentation. At one point I felt an involuntary pushing down sensation, which I noted but ignored really as it felt too early to be pushing. I had planned lots of music that I wanted to have on for the birth but it didn't really seem to be necessary or needed when the time came - we put on one CD, Peter Gabriel's 20 Greatest and then forgot about the music.

At 11:50pm I felt my waters go, a feeling I will always remember, a pop and sudden gush into the pool waters. Virginia checked the fetal heart rate, which was fine at 147bpm. Soon after my waters breaking I felt that I wanted to push. Virginia said that that was okay to do, which I hadn't been sure about as I remembered you shouldn't really push until confirmed fully dilated. I found that I was calm and felt fine between contractions and just knew that I had to concentrate and go with the contractions when they came. I found that I could deal with the pushing by yelling through the contractions as I pushed, something I didn't quite anticipate I would do before the event. I don't think I felt any real panic about the labour though at any point! Virginia checked the fetal heart again at 0:10am, 0:20am and 0:30am and it was still fine. Both my husband and Virginia were by this point taking lots of pictures.

The head was now beginning to crown. I had been pushing for a while thinking that the baby was making no progress at all, as I expected to be able to feel more tension as she came down the birth canal than I actually did. Virginia suggested that I move to sit on the edge of the pool step for the birth. As the head crowned I wondered whether the head was going to be able to come out without me tearing badly. Virginia encouraged me to feel the head, which I could slightly feel. I carried on pushing with the contractions and yelling my head off and suddenly the head came out. I was able to sit and wait for the next contraction with my hand feeling my baby's head, which was marvelous. The shoulders were born into the water with the next contraction. Not as painful a sensation as the head being born but definitely an experience, as I could feel the baby twist round to bring one shoulder out after the other. My husband had been prepared by Virginia to catch the baby, which he did, although she tried to slip out of his hands in the water. He brought her up to me saying it's a girl. She spluttered for a few seconds and then howled, it was 0:48am in the morning and my daughter was born. She was beautiful and plump with lots of brown hair covered in mucus. It was really amazing to see her at last and I was particularly fascinated by her little feet and hands, on which she seemed to have really long fingers and toes. The cord was quite short and we could just about get her to my breast whilst waiting for the placenta to arrive. She had an initial feed whilst we waited for another contraction and then looked around to see her new surroundings, she was very alert. The contractions didn't seem to start up again as they had before, not in the same way anyway. Virginia suggested that I stand up and try to push down and I felt something shift within me. The placenta was then delivered into the pool at 1:20am with a small amount of blood, which Virginia estimated to be about 300ml. Once the placenta had been delivered my husband cut the cord and Virginia tied it with dental floss. I was then helped out of the pool with my baby for both of us to be wrapped up. Virginia checked me to see whether there was any tearing that required suturing. We decided that as I had only a small tear that this could be left alone. The Apgar scores were recorded for my daughter as 10/1 and 10/5. She had arrived with a grand weight of 8 lb and 2 ozs and measured 52 centimetres in length.

I definitely didn't think a first labour would be as quick as it was for me, 8 hours and 20 minutes from start of active labour to end of third stage. I really think that it helped that I was upright and active for most of the day and that I really wasn't worried at any time during the labour, which must have meant that I relaxed a fair bit. Hiring an independent midwife was definitely the right way for my husband and I to have gone as we had total confidence in Virginia on the day and it was so good to have someone helping us that we knew and trusted. I have come out of it feeling that I had exactly the birth I wanted, even though I couldn't quite foresee in advance how it would be on the day as it was my first birth. I was really hoping that I would be able to avoid any drugs and possibly even the gas and air and am really glad that in the end all I needed was my breathing and the water. I am still waiting to find the perfect recipe to cook the placenta stored in the freezer though.