I finally have a chance to tell my birth story!

After reading everyone else’s I thought ‘I can’t wait to tell mine!’

Well l can tell you one thing. EVERYONE I know has heard about my birth because it lasted forever!

Warning! This is a long one!

Day 1:

It all started on Saturday 21st July 2018. I was 8 days overdue and was starting to get really agitated because the temperatures in the UK were soaring and I was hot and fed up. So my OH and I decided at 8am to have a lovely spring clean to make the house all lovely incase the baby arrived anytime soon.

That night around 2am I started getting little period type pains. I wasn’t quite sure whether it was BH or contractions but whatever it was kept me up all night. This being my first 24 hours of no sleep!

Day 2:

We decided the next day to go into Triage and see exactly what was happening as I had now lost my mucus plug. They told me I was 1cm dilated and to take some paracetamol and have a hot bath ( there is NOTHING more annoying than being told this about 4 times in a row over the following 2 days!)

Day 3:

Back to triage as contractions are now every 5-6 mins. Only 2 cm dilated ( I was sent home for bath and paracetamol 🙄🙄) and told that there is a chance I will be back that night. ( This is now 60 hours I have been awake. So by this point I am absolutely exhausted!)

Day 4:

Contractions kicked in big time at 5am every 2 mins so we raced off to the hospital thinking YES! This is it! We go straight to the birth centre and the contractions are picking up! When they check me I am 4cm! Things are finally moving along! I’m doing it with just gas and air and a TENS machine.

At around 2pm they check me and I am 6cm so they burst my waters to get things moving! By this point I’m ready to get into the birth pool.

I was doing brilliantly. I had stopped taking the gas and air and was breathing through every contraction in peaceful harmony!

My OH is on stand by with gas and air and I’m only taking it for the really bad ones that make me feel that I need to push!

By this point I am EXHAUSTED! I have been awake nearing 72 hours and was just running on empty!

At around 6pm I was checked again and I was still at 6cm however my cervix had now started to swell!

I was moved to the delivery suite and told I would be put on a hormone drip. But I just couldn’t take anymore!! So I had to swallow my pride for all my hard work trying to do it naturally and asked for the epidural because I really needed to get some sleep! There was no way I was pushing out a baby after all of that!! At 9pm I was given the drip and was told I would be checked in 6 hours if nothing had happened!

I managed to squeeze in about an hours sleep and my god did that feel amazing!

Day 5:

I was checked at 3am as nothing had happened in the time so they wanted to check what was going on.

My cervix had swollen so much I had gone back down to being 4cm!!

As you can imagine by which point I had had ENOUGH! That’s when I was told i would require an emergency c-section and that I will be going into theatre within the next 30 mins!

The feeling of relief was amazing! Although I was gutted I wouldn’t be able to give birth to my baby i welcomed the c-section with open arms! 5 days in labour had completely destroyed me and I was ready to get this baby out at any cost!

So off we went into the theatre. It was freezing and I was shaking uncontrollably due to the antibiotics they had given me that I was sure I was going to pass out!

Finally a small cry was heard as they pulled our baby girl from my womb and brought her into the world!

Willow Ava Jones was born on 26/07/18 at 3:56am weighing 8.7lb!

After such an ordeal it was an amazing experience!

I had so many midwives coming to see me to tell me that I was a legend on the ward and they had nicknamed me ‘ the girl who went through the wars and carried on smiling!’

Even family’s in the waiting room who had been speaking to my family through the whole thing had come to tell me how well I had done and that I deserved a medal!

I’ve never felt more proud of myself! Knowing that I had literally given this birth my all and in the end was rewarded with the most beautiful baby girl I could have ever asked for!

Baby Willow is now 6 days old and is just growing beautifully!