Labour Story ❤️ water birth

I love reading these so I thought I would do my own 😁

my baby boy was due on the 31/10. On the 18/10 I was having contractions and lost my mucus plug. But they died off and nothing happened.

On the 22/10 i had a bath using radox muscle soak as I had read that the clary sage in this can induce labour. I also ate a bar of chocolate in the bath, the logic was chocolate releases oxytocin which can bring on labour lol

I went to bed that night and woke up at 1am on 23/10 having contractions about 6 minutes apart. My husband works 3 hours away so I phoned him to come home. By the time he got home the contractions were 5 minutes apart.

I called the on call midwife who came to the house and checked me and I was 2cm dialated. I wanted to labour at home as long as possible so she told me to call again if the contractions got closer together or more intense. At 1am on 24/10 the midwife came back and checked me and I was still 2cm. I was so disappointed as I had been having good contractions every 5 minutes for 24hours and felt I should have progressed more. I also hadn’t slept since they had started so that probably played a part in how emotional I was. The midwife arranged for me to have 30/599 cocodamol in the hopes it would take the edge off and allow me to sleep. They made me feel spaced out but I still couldn’t sleep. The county were bearable but I think all the adrenaline was just keeping me going.

At 4.30pm on 24/10 my own midwife cane to see me at home. Still 2cm 🙈 she suggested I go to the hospital and get a diamorphine injection to allow me to try and rest due a few hours and let my body relax and recover. She also scheduled a induction for the 26/10.

I arrived at the hospital and had the injection and was told I had to stay 4 hours after it. Oh what an amazing medication! I passed out for 3 hours, I woke up and felt sick so was sick in the bin and my waters broke at the same time!

Was checked and was at 3cm so I got another lot of diamorphine at 11am and was left to sleep. I woke up at 2am and the contractions were much stronger and 3 minutes apart. I called the midwife and got bouncing on the ball in the meantime. I was checked at 5.30am and was at 5cm. Yippeeeee!!! Off to the labour ward we went!

I decided to try the birthing pool for pain relief along with gas and air as by now the diamorphine had worn off. This was a winning combo for me. I love the water so I felt really relaxed, plus the gas and air more than took the edge off!

Almost 3 hours after being in the pool (felt like 30 minutes to me) I felt like I needed to push. The midwifes told me to just do whatever cane natural to me. What an experience, your body just kicks in and pushes for you. I felt down and could feel his head crowning. At that point I lost my cool a little as I wasn’t convinced he was getting out of there and I didn’t want to hurt him. After a talking to from the midwives I got it together and after 9 minutes of pushing my son came into the world. It was so surreal.

He was born at 9.34am on 25/10 and weighed 7lb6oz ❤️