Here goes, my long awaited birth story! (Sorry in advance for the length🤣)

At 1:30am on Monday, July 1st I found myself feeling the start of mild contractions for the first time. I was simply laying in bed, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race when I realised that they were beginning to come quite frequent, so I decided to time them and they turned out to be 1 minute long, 7 minutes apart. This continued up until 5:00am to which I fell asleep, yet woke up every 10 minutes to have another contraction - the pain had began to get more the worse as I got more, and more.

I awoke properly at around 9:30am, extremely tired and restless as the pain continued every 7-15 minutes, seeming pretty irregular. The toilet was my best friend for the majority of the morning, clearing out my entire digestive system — I completely blame the spicy curry I had the night before, which I also believe helped encourage the entire process! By 11:00am, I ran myself a bath and got in to try and ease the pain. This most definitely helped as my contractions slowed down and then pretty much stopped! For a while afterwards I found myself thinking, ‘Great, false alarm.’ I was truly fed up by this point, hence why I had spent the week prior trying to bring labour on early. I gave up on my ball for the day and decided to take it easy while the pelvic pressure and lightening bothered me.

At 8:00pm that evening, that’s when things began to kick up again - contractions back to lasting 1 minute and 7 minutes apart, painful as hell. It was at 11:00pm that I decided it was time to take a trip up the hospital with my sister and fiancé to see if it was the real deal or truly false labour. On arrival (11:20pm) I was greeted ever so kindly and put in to one of the rooms where they began to assess me. Blood pressure was absolutely fine, contractions continued to be painful yet still not regular enough - still, they did a cervical check to realise that my baby girl was extremely low, waters bulging and I was 2cm dilated. Reality began to kick in, my little girl was going to be with us soon. Although I was 2cm, anyone else who knows the process of labour knows that hospital’s tell you to go home and await for the contractions to come as close as every 5 minutes, so that’s what I did, regardless of the pain causing me to moan and cry aloud.

So by 1:30am on the 2nd of July, again I had snuggled up in bed, breathing through each tightening as they came. I tried to sleep, I really did. It was ever so difficult because the contractions were getting so bad that I was literally waking up to hear myself moaning and crying out loud and it was getting so intense. I kept getting up to go to the toilet, my bloody show had finally made its appearance (and this continued up until I fully gave birth). By 4:15am, it was time my mum and fiancé took me back up to the hospital to see if anything had progressed because I simply couldn’t cope much longer at home and I seriously needed some pain relief. We got to the hospital for 4:50am where they placed me in the same room before, with the same midwife prior who assessed me once more before her shift finished. By the end of the assessment we came to the conclusion that I was 4cm dilated and in no fit state to go back home. I was having my baby that day. I was fulfilled with excitement, adrenaline but also slight anxiety. I asked for the epidural in advance but the midwife explained that I couldn’t yet have it as the contractions still weren’t regular enough to go through with the procedure. Instead for the meantime I settled for a shot of Diamorphine which made me feel woozy yet at peace enough to finally get some sleep.

After the midwife’s shift change at around 8:00am, I was greeted by two midwives who were assigned to me, believe me when I say that they were AMAZING and I had nothing but pure trust in them to look after me while I needed it. — It was 9:00am when they decided to move me to another room until there was a sign of my waters, otherwise one of the ‘higher qualified’ doctors may have gotten themselves involved and wanted to rush the birth along. The midwives didn’t want that for me and to be fair, I didn’t want that neither. So, as soon as we were in the side room I had some time to relax some more before the Diamorphine had completely worn off for around 2:00pm. As I was still only 4cm dilated they advised me to walk around the hospital, take the stairs, head up to the cafe and come back - which I did and the pressure was even more unbelievable than before. It had got to a point where the pain was unbearable, so I sent my mum to look for the midwives. Once they came to check me over they did another cervical check where they told me I was officially 6cm! I had began to beg for an epidural, the pain was simply too much for me to handle. They escorted me into the room where I was to have my baby girl and they got me all prepped to break my waters as they were bulging and ready to go.

At 3:20pm they officially broke my waters and the contractions grew instantly more agonising. I was sucking on gas and air through the majority of them, squeezing my eyes shut as I moaned and groaned for them to stop. I asked for the epidural again, they said they would ‘go and get the equipment in a minute’, but in reality it was WAYYY, too late. It was more intense than ever, coming 3 minutes apart for the next 20 minutes and that’s when I began to feel the urge to push. They checked me one final time to see how far dilated I was and well, I was 10cm and not far off whatsoever from crowning!

The ring of fire was exactly how they described it to be. Painful, absolute AGONY. I was crying and screaming through each contraction and I was pushing as hard as I absolutely could. Everyone told me that it feels like you’re having a giant sh*t, sorry if this is TMI - but THAT IS EXACTLY HOW IT FELT! My personal experience through the pain is that it really is what people make it out to be and to trust each and every word of advice given in preparation to labour. Yes, it’s going to get worse and worse, but keep on fighting on and on because the only thing in your mind is: “it’s almost over.”

By 4:19pm on July 2nd, after biting my fiancé multiple times, getting him in a headlock and having my legs held open by my two amazing midwives and mother, 8 pushed later; she was here, my beautiful 7.2lbs gorgeous little girl was finally here. No pain relief but gas and air through contractions at the start, no stitches required; the perfect birth.

Ever since my little girl was born I have been adapting to motherhood as each day passes and I have never felt luckier in my entire life. I was someone who never personally pictured themselves to have children, but now that I have, I couldn’t imagine my life without her - not even for a second. I am eternally grateful to have such a healthy and happy bundle of joy and I am nothing but BLESSED! Thank you to all the Glow mamas who I have spoken to over time and have supported me through my pregnancy and I also want to say good luck to anyone who is soon to be!