My first baby was a spontaneous birth at 37 weeks in a birthing pool – pretty much a dream delivery so I was pretty devastated to learn that I had gestational diabetes and would most likely need to be induced this time around.
I saw my midwife at 37 weeks and had a stretch and sweep – I was told I was already 2cm and 80% effaced which was a big confidence boost that I might not need the drip to get contractions going as I had heard this could be quite intense and painful. Induction was recommended at 38 weeks but I had a long chat with the consultant and went over the pros and cons. Ultimately I decided to be induced as planned rather than wait another week but it was great to be given options. I spent the week before my induction bouncing on my yoga ball, taking lots of walks and doing everything I could to get my body ready for labour.
I went in at 9:30 am on the day of my induction. I was a little nervous as, due to covid, my husband couldn’t be with me for the first part of labour and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had all the normal scans and tests etc to make sure baby was happy and in the right position, had a covid test and then waters were broken at 10:30.
I was moved to a private room after about an hour and introduced to my midwife who was lovely but extremely chatty. The room was very bright and I found the noise really interfered with my labour – the surges decreased whenever the midwife came in which was very frequently. I had spent quite a lot of my pregnancy looking into hypnobirthing and techniques to keep labour progressing and I knew that the situation wasn’t really conducive to this. My husband arrived just before 12 and we discussed my concerns – I had discussed it with him beforehand so he could help me to make decisions if I was in too much pain or too focused on labour to chat. He spoke to the head midwife and requested we change to someone a bit more laid back which they were happy to do. I got on a birthing ball and closed my eyes and the contractions started up again and became more regular.
Always worth having a birth partner who knows you well and can advocate for you! The new midwife was fantastic and left me to labour without interruptions (apart from the occasional check of the monitor).
At 3pm I felt the urge to push. My instinct was to be on all fours but the baby’s heart rate kept dropping in that position (I suspect the monitor just couldn’t pick it up as well rather than the baby struggling – drawbacks of continuous monitoring!) so I ended up on my back. I found this part really hard and started to lose confidence – my husband recognised that I was in transition and that baby was imminent so encouraged me to use the gas and air and keep going. I pushed for 30 mins and baby was born at 15:29 – almost exactly 5 hours from waters breaking to baby being born.
I delivered the placenta while my husband had a cuddle with baby and then we had an hour of skin to skin and started breastfeeding. Baby’s blood sugar was fine so we were cleared to go home around 11pm that night.
It wasn’t the birth I had imagined but by going over my wishes in advance with my birth partner I felt like I got the best experience I could have.
