Shaylee’s Birth Story

On the Friday 17th, I woke up at 2:30am with cramping, back pain and a wave of nausea. The pain felt like actual waves across my hips and back so thought I’d start timing them and gave the assessment unit a call. They just said take panadol and a hot shower and rest. Well, rest wasn’t happening so just relaxed on the couch and used the breathing techniques you taught us with every wave. I went to my OB as scheduled and my BP was borderline high so he said monitor for headaches and go straight to hospital if a headache develops.

I went about my day as usual, shopped for groceries to do my cook up, bought some smaller clothes for Bub just in case (thank god), and then headed home and washed those clothes.

The waves kept coming on an off so used a medicine ball and my breathing techniques when the waves occurred. I had a nice dinner, a lovely warm shower and headed to bed at 9:30pm exhausted.

At 11 I woke to what I thought was a need to go to the toilet and maybe a trickle of fluid on my leg. I quickly realised it wasn’t my bladder leaking and as I stood to go to the toilet, my waters broke in a big gush down my legs. We waited an hour and then the hospital told us to come in.

They monitored me and Bub and my BP was still elevated.

They told us we would most likely go home and come back the next day however when they called my OB, he wanted me induced that day which we were happy with due to my BP and the risk to Bub.

The midwives thoroughly explained the process of using the drip and asked us what things we would like to be accommodated with.

We set the room dark, I used my diffuser with oils that I had been practising the scripts with and the drip was started. I also requested wireless monitoring which they were more than happy to accomodate.

Once the contractions picked up, I jumped into the shower on a medicine ball and James used the water and anchor touch to support my breathing and relaxing. I’m not sure how long I was in the shower for but when the waves were getting more intense and at times rolling one into another, I decided to use gas. At this point the OB had arrived and the midwives asked permission to do their first cervical check in which I agreed and then they gave me the option of if I wanted to know how dilated I was. For my own mental state, I opted to find out. I was 4cm and felt so proud I had reached that without any pain relief.

The waves became more intense and started rolling one straight into another. With each wave, bubs heart rate was dropping so I kept moving and trying every birth position possible. As bubs heart rate wasn’t recovering as easily as before, my OB came in and discussed an epidural. He ran through what was going on with my body, what was happening to Bub and the pros and cons. He was going to leave me to have a think however James and I gave each other a look and we both knew this was the best thing for both myself and for Bub. I cried however I cried for the relief I was going to have, the rest I was going to get and for the relief of knowing I was doing the best thing for my baby. I laboured for an hour and a half before the epidural arrived and I went from 4-7cm. I imagined myself diving with waves. Taking a breath in and up and then diving deep below, riding each wave and pushing down. Pushing Bub down closer to meeting us.

Once the epidural was placed, I could still feel everything in my right side so I used a peanut ball to open my pelvis on my side, still using all my breathing and pushing Bub down until it was fixed.

An hour passed, I was able to have some quick naps and then it was time to push which is when we started to play some nice music to build up the energy. I had not been topping up the epidural so I was able to feel each wave come and push accordingly. The OB was called in once the midwife told me to stop pushing otherwise I’d birth bub without the OB there and bubs heart rate at this point was not recovering. He checked where bubs head was and stated that if I can’t push her out in the next few pushes, interventions will be needed such as forceps. Everything in my body and my mind said no they won’t and with one push, her head was out. I birthed Freya vaginally with no tears and both Bub and I being healthy and that was my ultimate end goal. I was able to grab Bub and pull her up onto my chest. Once the cord stopped pulsating and after a few minutes, the cord was clamped and James cut the cord. I did receive the shot to deliver the placenta which we decided was best for us and I spent an hour to an hour and a half of skin to skin and an attempt at feeding before Freya was weighed and measured. She then spent an hour having skin to skin with James while I had the chance to shower.

The hospital listened to everything I had on my birth plan (despite leaving it at home as we thought we were coming home). We remember everything and they accommodated everything we wanted, listened to us and we felt confident making decision for the health and well-being of both myself and Bub.

Your course allowed us to feel empowered and assertive in the way we wanted the care to be given and every request we had, was able to be met. We knew everything that was going on when we wanted to, we were able to tune everything out also when we wanted to. We felt so in control of the birth, to an extent due to the medical reasons, and for that, we are forever grateful. We will certainly be doing a refresher for when Bub #2 comes around.