My Positive Water Birth - Hypnobirthing (The Positive Birth Company)

My Positive Birth Story

⭐ FTM
💗 Elaya Lees Bromley-Hunt
🤰🏼 40+2
📆 Thursday 4th June 2020
🕒 23:32
⚖️ 7lb11
⭐Water Birth
⭐Tens Machine, Birthing Pool and then Gas and Air for the last 15 minutes
⛔️ Use of the words pain and contraction
⚠️ Manual removal of placenta

It all started at 5am on a Thursday morning, I went to the toilet and noticed my mucus plug on the tissue after I’d wiped. I was excited but tried to contain my excitement as I know that it didn’t necessarily mean labour was on its way!

I couldn’t fall back to sleep and I started to get some dull aching period type pains in my lower stomach. I had been having Braxton hick contractions for a few weeks but I noticed they increased a lot and they were accompanied by some pains - normally they were completely painless!

I spent the day increasing oxytocin, I had a lovely walk with my my sister and nephew in the park and we visited my other sister for lunch in her garden. My contractions were coming quite regularly by this point and I breathed through each one calmly and quietly. I still wasn’t convinced I could be in labour because I really didn’t feel like I was in much pain - I’ve had period pains far worse than this!! My sisters started to notice that my contractions seemed pretty consistent and suggested I started to time them - I thought this was pointless as there is no way I was in labour... I still thought this could be a false start!

We headed home from my sisters and the car journey is around 7 minutes long, during that time I had 2 contractions. As soon as I got home I ran a lovely bath with bath salts, essential oils and lit the candles around the room. I set up the Freya app on my IPad and fully relaxed, I also began to time my contractions and the app was telling me I was in established labour and to head to hospital! I still couldn’t believe this as I felt like I wasn’t in enough pain.

After my bath I lit candles in my bedroom and sat on my dressing table stool with my legs straddling the stool either side.

During each contraction my sisters massaged my hands, my back and my feet. I found this extremely helpful as it gave me something to focus on (as well as listening to Siobhan counting me through the breathing exercises on the Freya app).

My room was very calm, my sisters were great at talking between themselves during my contractions so that I could just go into my own quiet zone to breathe through the contractions.

I decided to curl my hair and do my make up at this point as I was finally convinced I was in labour and would be heading to the hospital shortly! This was roughly 8pm and by 9:15pm I was making my way to the labour ward in the hospital.

During the journey to the hospital I did find I lost control of my breathing and the contractions were a lot more uncomfortable - I also threw up a days worth of food 😅

Once I was in the hospital they confirmed I was 4cm dialated so I immediately called my mum and she came to the room. I was still throwing up a lot at this point and they offered me an injection to help with the sickness but I decided to wait and see how I felt once I was in the pool.

As soon as I stepped into the pool I instantly relaxed, I really went into a zone and I felt like it was just me, the water, my baby and the Freya app! Very very quickly I progressed and within 2 hours of getting to the hospital, I birthed my beautiful girl!

My body completely took over and I found the intensity of the contractions absolutely INCREDIBLE! I felt so strong and in awe of how amazing our bodies are! I feel like I didn’t even have to consciously push, my body did it for me.

There was a big gap between contractions after Elaya’s head had made it through and I remember worrying at this point and desperately waiting for my next contraction, the midwife recommended I rubbed my tummy and that’s when the next contraction came and with one final ‘push’ Elaya was born.

I had incredible skin to skin and I couldn’t believe I was finally holding MY baby, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.

That’s the end of the labour however after a while in the water my placenta still didn’t come, they then tried to give me the injection and it still didn’t come out. Then I got out of the pool and the midwives tried to assist but the cord snapped from the placenta that was still inside of me. I was still cuddling my girl through most of this and after 10 minutes a consultant came to see me and tried to remove the placenta but told me I’d need to go to theatre if it didn’t come out by itself.

I spent the next ten minutes quite anxious but I just focused on the fact that my baby was safe and that the actual birth was perfect.

The placenta didn’t come out so I was taken into theatre and they had to give me an epidural, they then manually removed my placenta while I cuddled my little girl. I couldn’t see anything as they put up a screen. (Thankfully!)
😂