A positive vaginal labour: Valentine’s birth story
Frances’ waters broke at 3am; she hadn’t felt any contractions beforehand and so after contacting the hospital, they asked for us to come in so that they could check Frances out.
The contractions started to ramp up quite intensely from the start and Frances was contracting every four minutes or so. We arrived at the hospital and I was asked to wait in the waiting room. After the examination and, as expected, we were asked to go back home and wait for things to progress. During the car journey and once we were then at home, the contractions became even more intense. I stayed in touch with the midwives and at the point where she really couldn’t speak through the contractions we decided to return to the hospital. This time, when she was examined, we were told that she was fully dilated! We were taken straight into a labour room. The pushing stage then lasted about two hours. Everything until this point had happened so quickly, to be honest, Fran wasn’t quite ready, mentally, to be at this stage! There’d been no time to watch Netflix!
After quite a while of pushing there was a review with the doctors to potentially look at next steps. Frances was asking for an epidural, however the midwife advised that it would really slow things down – so I really tried to encourage her that she could do it – by this point she’d only had paracetamol – the gas & air didn’t seem to have any noticeable affect in reducing the pain. As the doctors were arranging their equipment Frances was able to find the strength for those final pushes and Valentine was born! She did amazingly well. I had taken a photo of the baby crowning to show her and Frances also touched her head, which really helped her to believe that it was happening. It was a very, very special moment.
Since we have been home we have been able to focus 100% of our attention on ourselves and our baby which has been really healthy. Thinking of it as the fourth trimester was great tip from the course – we are in womb mode most of the time! Valentine loves sleeping on us, which is so magical.
Coming on the HPHB course really helped us to prepare for Valentine’s birth. The course was expertly run by a really friendly team and gave us lots of valuable strategies and a positive mindset building up to the birth and first few weeks of parenthood. We are glad to have met a network of local like-minded people.
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.
Download our free birth plan template and other resources for your pregnancy here.
Find out more about our antenatal and hypnobirthing classes in London, Essex and online and book your place here.
Access free hypnobirthing relaxations and videos to support you through your pregnancy on our Instagram TV page here.
