A positive birth centre labour: Amelia’s birth story
I was really lucky and had a very straight-forward and easy pregnancy. I didn’t suffer from any morning sickness and only started to feel uncomfortable in the last few weeks when we had some really hot weather.
In terms of preparing for the birth, I had learnt about perineal massage on the course and had been using an Aniball. I had also been able to do some hand expressing, which I didn’t really know too much about, before the course - but I decided to give it a go and after visiting a local breast feeding clinic for some additional support I was able to collect about 2.5 ml of colostrum.
Amelia was born one week early, I hadn’t even officially left work, in fact she was born on what would have been my last day before maternity leave!
I woke up in the morning with some discharge although it didn’t look like the mucus plug. I actually had a midwife appointment that day – so was advised to pop in a pad and keep an eye on things. For the remainder of that day I had some light aches, similar to what I experience at the beginning of a period but nothing more than that. I debated not going into work the next day for my last day, but had planned to go in…however that wasn’t how things turned out!
That evening, I had a bit more discharge and wasn’t sure if my waters had broken and so after calling the hospital we popped in to get checked out. The midwife who examined me suspected it was my hind waters that had gone and so an induction was booked in 24 hours later.
We went home and got organised, I sent a few emails, popped my out of office on and washed my hair – as I didn’t know when I would next get an opportunity! I went to bed about 11.30pm, but by midnight it felt like things might be starting and by 1am the contractions had definitely started. I spent quite a bit of time bouncing on my birthing ball using the hypnobirthing breathing techniques that we had learnt on the course, whilst we used the contraction timer apps to monitor things. The contractions got very strong pretty quickly and by 3.30am both the apps were telling us to go to hospital! Over the phone, the midwife advised that being a first time Mum I should try and stay at home for as long as possible, however after waiting an additional 45 minutes I really wanted to head into hospital. 5 minutes into the drive we realised that we didn’t have our hospital notes, I’d only written my birth plan that morning and I’d left the notes on the kitchen table! So we had to go back and grab them!
Once I was back at the hospital and examined, I was told that I was 10cm dilated!! We went up to the birth centre where the midwives were amazing and really supported my birth plan and within an hour and a half Amelia was born very calmly. I felt elated! It was amazing to meet her after she had been inside me for 9 months.
The baby care session that was part of our course was really useful – we had an idea of what to expect once we got home with Amelia; I’ve heard from friends that other antenatal courses focussed heavily on the birth but didn’t really prepare them for looking after a baby. The breastfeeding session also helped us to have some idea of what was coming and it’s been amazing to give Amelia the colostrum. It’s also been lovely and helpful having the support from the other Mum’s on our course.
Top Tips:
My number one tip for anyone about to have a baby is, trust your instincts. Whilst my labour was progressing at home, I really felt that things were ramping up and I was starting to feel the urge to push. The midwife on the phone suggested that we might have to head home again after being checked out as I hadn’t been experiencing contractions for very long but my body was telling me otherwise!
My other tips are:
Definitely take a plastic water bottle with you to use when you first go to the toilet after birth to ease the sting!
Take nipple cream with you into hospital
Take good, thick maternity pads with you into hospital
I found still Lucozade a life saver during birth and a Coke for after!
