So I’ve read people birth stories and to be honest I didn’t think I would bother to tell mine cause I just thought I’ll give birth and that’ll be it. And even though nothing exciting or different happened during my labour I figured I would still share it ❤️ so I can relive it!

On Wednesday the 20th Feb I realised I hadn’t felt my baby girl move all day and I was used to her wriggling all the time. I had also experienced Braxton Hicks contractions a lot over the previous week or so. I phoned the hospital and they said to go in for a check. Went in that afternoon and everything was fine, heartbeat, scan, everything looking good! Thank goodness!! They then continued to say that we had 2 options...1) we continue with the pregnancy and wait till I go into labour naturally (my due date was 2nd March) or 2) they could induce me 😳! Well we weren’t expecting that option!!! My husband and I spoke about it and my main concerns were if we continue to feel reduced movement any other days then we would always be worried and maybe have to go back to the hospital to get checked and also the fact we live 40 mins away from the hospital and as this is my first baby I didn’t know what to expect, what happens, how I would be when going into labour, how long it would take us to get to the hospital...all sorts of things were worrying me. After talking we decided to go ahead with the induction!

We got our appointment to go back on the Friday 22nd at 8.30. I was so nervous!! Labour had worried me for a while, the element of not knowing what was going to happen stressed me out! Needless to say me and my husband didn’t sleep well on the Thursday night 😑.

Friday morning we got to the hospital and told what was going to happen. We got taken to our room and settled in. They put me on a monitor to hear baby’s heartbeat and gave me an examination, I was 1-2cm but my cervix has a lot of thinning still to do. They put the pessery in which was to be in for 24 hours (it was not comfortable and made it difficult to pee without it falling out 🙄). My cramps started pretty quickly and lasted all day. They were going to check me the next morning and if I needed another pessery they would put it in for another 24 hours.

Saturday morning after about 21 hours of having the pessery in it fell out 🤦🏻‍♀️. They did another examination to see if I needed another one. I was 3-4cm dilated so they went ahead and put another one in. I thought this was going to be a long weekend 🙈. My cramps started again and my the evening I was in a lot of pain and was having contractions but not often enough so they didn’t want to take out the pessery incase I wasn’t far enough along. I continued getting cramps and contractions and then about 10pm I felt water 😬 I had to get up to go to the toilet but I was sure it was my waters breaking. I buzzed the midwife and they confirmed it was my waters. Things start to get a bit blurry here but I think they left the pessery in me at that point because my contractions were still not frequent enough. My husband was at home cause we have a dog so he never stayed in the hospital with me. I was keeping him updated through text and was to phone him to wake him when I needed him back. I was in agony! I had mentioned about getting an epidural but said I would try the bath first to see if that helped at all. At about 2am my contractions were more frequent and lasting a good amount of time so they took the pessery out and examined me. I was 6cm and was about to get taken to the birthing suite 😬😳 oh my god it was happening!! I phoned my husband and he dropped our pup off at parents and got to the hospital ASAP. I was in the delivery suite when he arrived. I was on gas and air and having terrible contractions, all of a sudden they got unbearable 😖. I felt like I needed to poop so bad!!! They kept asking if I wanted to change position but I felt like I couldn’t move. They helped me rearrange and I just had to cope through the contractions for an hour. They then checked me again and I was 10cm!!! This was it!

I started pushing and gave it all my might, I wanted her out ASAP!!!!! I’m not sure how many times I pushed but I think maybe 4 or 5. My husband said i was only pushing for 15 mins or so! When they could see her head the stinging sensation was so painful I didn’t want to have to wait till my next contraction to push again 😩 I just wanted to get her out. The midwife at one point said she is coming out fast, I had to stop pushing so she didn’t come out too fast! Then that was it, all of a sudden she was here! A baby had just come out of me 😬 what the heck!!! I’m a mum!!!!

I’m very proud of myself for getting through it and only on gas and air (which I felt like did absolutely nothing for me 😒 it was painful!!!) now I think back the experience doesn’t seem as bad as I know it was haha!! I didn’t feel like I had a snow labour, I didn’t feel like it went on forever, I thought it was quite quick from start to finish to be honest (although if you asked me that when I was in labour I probably would have told you different!)

Sorry, I was planning on keeping that brief but that didn’t happen!! If you made it to the end, thank you for reading 😘

My baby girl Harper born 24/02/19 weighing 8.9lbs!