So I'm posting my birth story as I was always searching the groups reading other before my little lady came!

15th July I had a membrane sweep, right away I had some bleeding and later that afternoon had cramping, just felt like period cramps though. Woke up on the 16th and all pain had gone but I was still bleeding.

16th July 10pm I had what I thought was my bloody show.

18th July (due date) 2am I woke up to go to the toilet, went to the toilet and there was a lot of blood. This was definitely my bloody show. Rang my maternity unit and they said it was normal. After getting off the phone with them I had cramps which kept me awake until 7am. They then disappeared and I had nothing else the rest of the day.

19th July I started getting some cramping again around 4pm. I tried to go for a nap but couldn't so just watched TV. Then went and got dinner at my mum's and they got slightly worse, they were the sorest they had been. So I started using my contraction timer app, they were roughly 45 seconds and coming between 4-6 minutes. I went home around 7.45pm and got on my yoga ball. After around 45 minutes of being on there I decided I would go take a bath, so I walked up stairs and went to sit on my bed and my waters broke! They were everywhere and wouldn't stop🤣 rang the maternity unit and they said to come over but I may be going home depending on how dialated I am.

Got over to the hospital, by this stage the contractions were so sore, I had also no pain relief at all at this point. Had a cervix check done and I was 4cm so I was took to the delivery suite.

Got to the delivery room I was in absolute agony with my back even with gas and air that I asked for the epidural. Oh my god, what a life saver!!😍 I got the epidural around 11pm and was like a different person when it started to work!

Another cervix check at 2am and I was 9cm but my baby was still quite high and was back to back hence the agony in my back earlier. So they said they would check me again at 6am to see if she had moved round into the right position and had come down any.

6.30am I was checked again and no change in positioning but I was 10cm so they gave it another hour before starting to push.

7.30am the doctor came in and wanted to wait for another hour as I had the epidural so wanted to give baby another chance to move.

8.30 I started pushing. The midwife wasn't happy with my contractions as they were too far apart at this stage and not strong enough to move baby so put me on a hormone drip. This did nothing. As I was pushing the midwife was feeling baby's head and could feel she wasn't moving down as much as she should with every contraction.

Around 10am Doctor then came in again checked baby's positioning and explained that baby was too high to perform an instrumental birth so the safest option right now would be an emergency C-section. From here I was gowned up for surgery, signed a consent form and was took to theater. By this stage I was so exhausted I just wanted my baby here and for the whole thing to be over with.

11.18am my baby girl was born into the world weighing 6lb 13.5oz. I was then in theater for around another 40-50 minutes being stitched up. By now my partner and baby had been took back to the delivery room. I lost a lot of blood during the surgery but thankfully they stopped it before needing a blood transfusion.

Overall, I would do it again in a heartbeat to have my baby here. The only regret I have is that I didn't get skin to skin contact with my baby after birth because I had lost a lot of blood, I was actually falling asleep in theater as they stitched me up. But having my baby girl here was worth it all!

Before I had my baby I was torn between going for an elective C-Section or going for a vaginal birth due to previous gynecology problems. I am glad I let my body go through labour and try to bring my baby here myself. But unfortunately it didn't plan out that way.