Big baby, vaginal birth, precipitate labour (very quick)

At 39+1 weeks pregnant, I woke up one morning with tightenings. Having gone into labour the same way with my first, I knew what was happening. What I didn’t know, was that 1.5 hours later I would have birthed my baby and be holding him in my arms! I thought after a 14 hour labour with my first, that I would be in for the long haul. Although, I was painlessly walking around heavily pregnant and about 4cm for two weeks before I went into labour.

I progressed quickly, contractions soon came on every few minutes. I was walking around at home non stop. I couldn’t sit down. I even managed to down a smoothie. I rang the hospital and because my contractions were so irregular they said not to come in just yet, despite coming on every few minutes. I live literally 2 minutes from the hospital so I wasn’t panicked by being home.

The pain got unbearable so we jumped in the car anyway (luckily), we fluffed around finding a car park (all while I’m having screaming contractions), walked to the hospital (had more contractions while crossing the road and holding traffic up), got to reception - and as soon as they saw me contract they knew baby wasn’t too far off. We got into our room, I went to the toilet and then started pushing as soon as I got there (while on the toilet). 20 minutes later our (not so) little boy was born. 4.4kg and 56cm long.

I was high risk for shoulder dystocia as I was measuring way ahead, and had a shoulder dystocia birth for my first born. The midwives made me birth on all fours (not an easy task moving when in such extreme pain), after the head came out nothing happened so they got me to lunge with one leg forward and baby came straight out. I highly recommend this position for birthing big babies!! Something to consider when deciding on an epidural as this position is not possible with one.

I got whisked away almost straight away due to some pretty bad tearing and bleeding. After a little stitch up in theatre I was back holding my baby a couple of hours later. Not ideal, but I was just relieved my baby was here safely.

The photos are a bit gruesome, but not all births are pretty unfortunately.