A positive natural labour: Charlie’s birth story
We had Charlie at Homerton Birth Centre, they were being careful with visitors but nothing really out of the ordinary.
I was going for a natural birth as I’d been practicing hypnobirthing and my contractions started late evening and were about 40 minutes apart. They ramped up quickly and were about 3-8 minutes apart, so we got to the hospital about 10pm, the midwives checked me over and kept me in.
The midwife helped me put my TENS machine. I was coping ok up to that point, but then the pain changed and it was quite a lot worse. The midwife examined me just before 1am and I was 8cm dilated! She then got me in the birth pool, my waters broke and a few hours later I was fully dilated and started pushing. I spent two hours pushing with just gas and air, the midwife had glimpses of his head but he wasn’t budging. We decided to move into a delivery room as the baby was showing signs of distress, I was examined by a doctor who found he was back to back. They decided the safest thing was to get him out as soon as possible, so they prepared me for a spinal. From that point, my body was like, - the baby has to come now - and I started pushing, which they tried to stop so they could give me the epidural for the section. My body was in full push mode all the way down to theatre, my contractions were coming really quickly and everything in my entire body was telling me to push, it was uncontrollable. The doctor examined me and found that my baby had moved again so we could try delivery with forceps. I had an episiotomy and forceps and he was out really quickly, the first push his head was out and the second he was here!
I wanted immediate skin to skin and delayed cord clamping but there were so many wires, so many people dealing with me that it wasn’t possible, but I did get skin to skin with him within five minutes of giving birth. It was a shame we didn’t get the delayed clamping and my husband didn’t get to cut the cord, but it was more important that they checked over Charlie and less than five minutes later he was with me. He fed straight away while the doctors stitched me up and he was with me the whole time after that.
Although the labour and birth was completely opposite to how I imagined it to be and some people may think it sounds hard, but for me I don’t see that at all. It was the most magical thing and I would do it again next week. I just remember having him and that’s the only part, none of it scared me whatsoever. Looking back, now I feel incredibly lucky my husband was allowed to stay for the whole time.
The team were incredible and my doctor who delivered Charlie was amazing. I was really delirious and was making her promise that nothing would happen to him during the delivery - she massively put me at ease and that was lovely.
It’s amazing having Neil at home, he’s really fortunate that he’s in full time work but he can still be really hands on. He has his own little bond with Charlie whereas if he’d have gone back to work, he would only have seen him in the morning and evening after work.
I really look forward to the simple things, I get to have a daily bath which helps heal my episiotomy and the fact I can lay in there as long as I need is such a positive. It’s taken about 4 weeks to recover and we’ve been for a few walks, we don’t take any risks but we do get some fresh air when we can.
Breastfeeding is fine now, it was hard for the first few weeks as I found it excruciating and cried every time he latched on. No way was I giving up, I’d prefer to take the pain for him to be able to breastfeed. My nipples cracked and healed around 4 weeks, but it was about 5 weeks when I couldn’t feel any pain. There’s a breastfeeding expert in Bethnal Green who has really helped. We Zoom called and she’s been checking in, it’s so nice to have someone to talk too.
Attending the HPHB course was so useful. The Hypnobirthing where we talked about BRAIN (Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Intuition and Nothing) the way parents can look at the alternatives and ask questions to caregivers - was so helpful. Throughout my labour I asked questions, asked for alternatives, weighed up the benefits and the risks and what was best for the baby - I found it all so beneficial. The Obstetrics chat with Dr Will plus the baby health and first aid sessions with Dr Andy were really helpful - having someone talk to you in your language but from a Doctor's perspective with honesty was brilliant. When Will told us about interventions, he told us that forceps are better for the baby but worse for the Mum in terms of recovery during labour. So when they told me they were going to try forceps, I relaxed even more knowing that my baby would be safe and that's all because of what I remembered Will saying.
Neil’s perspective
During Laura's labour, I listened to what the midwife was saying and followed any instructions she gave. All our plans went out the window in terms of our birth preferences, because the labour was so quick and instinct took over.
Laura going into theatre was scary, but overall I did enjoy it and it was an amazing few hours. I’m really enjoying being at home, I’m so lucky to be able to spend extra time here and I’m really cherishing it. We’ll use the hypnobirthing breathing and the music when we do it again..... if it’s a slower process!
The reason why we chose this over NCT is because the groups at NCT are so far apart in location and they don’t seem to take into account similar interests so we would probably find it hard to connect with people going forward. For me, part of wanting to do the course was to meet other like minded mums. I looked over the Happy Parents Happy Baby website - it was really effective, great pictures and information, it appealed way more than NCT.
Top Tip:
If you can, rent a private room for a small cost. Our ward was quite noisy so it was really nice having the quiet and privacy for us.
You can read lots more Positive Birth Stories here. We have positive birth stories from all types of births, including homebirths, water births, induction of labour, instrumental deliveries and Caesarean section births.
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