Jayde’s Birth Story

Being my second pregnancy very early on I could tell something felt different, it was confirmed that I had Placenta Previa, so I had to mentally prepare myself that C-Section may be my only option. At about 37 weeks we found out that the placenta had moved enough that it was safe to proceed with a vaginal birth. YAY!

Three days before my due date I had an appointment with my doctor he checked baby’s heart rate, position and size. We were comforted in knowing that baby wasn’t completely posterior (as I had been told previously), but was sitting on the side so not quite where we wanted them to be. My doctor confirmed that baby wasn’t yet engaged, however he did an internal check and could feel baby’s head right there so did a gentle stretch and sweep as I was already 1-2cm dilated. I went about my day as normal. Around 7pm I started getting cramp (period like) feelings just underneath my bellybutton. I didn’t think any of it, and thought that maybe I was going to have to poop in the not too distant future.

My first birth I was induced so I didn’t know what to really expect early labour to feel like. At around 11pm we got into bed and I could feel that they were getting a little more uncomfortable. From 11pm-1am I was in and out of sleep, it got to the point where each tightening was waking me up. I rolled over and said to my husband that if it was infact labour I wanted to get up and walk around as I was uncomfortable laying down, couldn’t sleep anyway and wanted to help move things along if that was the case. At 2am I messaged my mum to say I think I was in labour as I had started timing and they were getting closer together and were beginning to last longer. Funnily enough, my mum had woken to go to the toilet and saw my message and ended up coming over. At 2:30am she started properly timing the surges for me, it started at 4 contracts in 10 minutes, each lasting about 20-30seconds long. As time went on the surges started becoming stronger and lasting longer. By 4:30am they were lasting 40-50seconds. My mum called my midwife to let her know. I woke my husbnad and we packed our final things and headed to the hospital. It was an uncomfortable drive to the hospital to say the least, 35mins being stuck sitting down was not fun!

We arrived at the hospital and my surges had slowed a little, we went into the ER and they insisted on a wheelchair but I wanted to walk to try and encourage the contractions to pick up again. I felt like I was on a scene in a movie as I had to stop in the middle of the hallway, grab the hand rail and breathe through each surge on my way to the maternity ward. We arrived to the birthing suite at about 5:30am where we met my midwife. She checked my progress and I was now 4cm dilated. Our student midwife arrived not long after. I continued to labour and breathe through the surges as they began to get stronger and stronger. Majority of the labour I was more comfortable standing/swaying and then would bend over and lean on the bed when a surge came, I did use the fit ball on occasion but didn’t find it overly comfortable. My midwife & student midwife tried different methods to try and turn baby to get them in a better position (more forward) ready for birth. One position was I got on my hands and knees and they had a towel under my belly and each held an end and pulled back and forth rocking my stomach. At about 7am I moved into the shower and labored in there for about an hour.

By 8am I had thrown up a few times and had the shakes, the contractions were getting longer and stronger and I was iffing and butting about getting checked to see my progress as I was worried that I would not have progressed much and didn’t want to be disheartened. (I was stuck at 5cm for 9hours with my first birth – so these fears were running through my mind). I started to experience a lot of pain in my back, to help my midwife showed my husband the pressure points to target during a surge and also a towel method to help baby engaged and move down and possibly to help break my waters. I was standing, had the towel wrapped around my belly with my husband standing behind me holding each end of the towel, and during a surge my husband would lift the towel up to lift my belly, it was actually a bit of relief.

By 9am I was very tired and the surges were becoming overbearing. I had not been checked since my arrival, I asked my midwife when I could get into the bath, as I had considered a water birth, and I knew that it was best to wait until the last moments to get into the bath. She said I could get into it now, they just had to fill it up. I was a little shocked and asked if she thought I was ready, she said by the surges she thought I was she was, and was just waiting for me to tell her that I was feeling pressure. I wasn’t sure if I was feeling a pressure down there or not yet but I was starting to get the erge of needing to push.

Around 10am I moved to the birthing room with the bath.

It was an instant relief getting into the warm water, but that didn’t last long as surges were long and strong. I noticed myself making a moaning/mooing noise, a little embarrassed but by this point I didn’t care I needed to let that noise out in order to relax my muscles. I did ask about the gas and whether that would help ease the pain, my midwife said she could get it ready but by this point it probably wouldn’t do much so I powered though.

I started to feel the pressure and urge to push, I began to give in to the surge and my body took over. It became hard to breathe through the surge at its very peak. I then began to feel the burn, my midwife then announced that the membrane/waters were breaking. After a few large and strong surgesI could feel that baby’s head was there and ready. I tried my best to give into the surge and let my body push, in two strong and quick surges out was the head and almost immediately out was the body. I remember seeing my baby in the water, I scooped up my baby and pull them in to my chest. I remember our student midwife rubbing my back saying “well done you did it! You did it!” While I was bringing her to me, my husband said “It’s a girl”, I was shocked and asked “is it really?” I was still experiencing surges and baby was slippery so I didn’t want to move to check. After a minute or so I checked, and our beautiful blessing was a baby girl.

After a few minutes in the bath, there was discussion about the injection for the birth of the placenta and the possibility of birthing it in the bath. The decision was made for me to hop out. My midwife and husband helped me out and I began waddling back to my birthing suite. After only about 1-2 steps a surge occured and the placenta fell onto the floor. Still in the bathing room, they sat me down on the toilet (lid closed obviously) where they clamped the Umbilical Cord and my husband was able to cut the cord. Baby was then handed to my husband to carry back to our birthing suitefor some skin on skin contact.

Back in the birthing suite they popped me on the bed to do some checks, while doing that I held baby. She was very content and rather alert, not crying just observing. She then made her way for her first little feed. They began prepping me for theatre for some repairs, meanwhile they weighed and measured our baby girl, weighing 7pound 14 ounces/3.650kg, measuring 51cm long and a head circumference of 34cm. She was perfect! They asked us her name, my husband and I looked at each other and confirm it was to be Peyton Narelle Glass. The best blessing and addition to our family we could of ever asked for.