“It was not my easiest birth, but I was grateful my son was here, and we were both ok! With hindsight I wished I’d have taken our wonderful community midwife Marie’s advice and written a birth plan."
Around 3am after less than two hours in bed I was awake again, no idea what woke me but went to the loo and heard a very loud POP! My waters had broken and with that my contractions started and were coming every three minutes. This was my first baby, and everyone said it wouldn’t happen like it did in the movies, where your waters break and your contractions start, so I doubted myself at first. But then I headed up to the maternity assessment to be checked where the staff confirmed all the above. I was excited to meet my baby!
Whilst at the unit I was also examined. It was around 5:30am by this point and I was 1cm dilated but my baby was distressed. Fortunately, after some fluids he was fine, but this meant we had to stay in rather than head back home to progress, so off to the ward we went...
Around 9am I asked for some more pain relief as my contractions were becoming more intense but was told I was unlikely to be much further along and I wasn’t due to be checked again. When the doctor came along 90mins later they found I was fully dilated so off to the delivery suite we went!
I’d been standing this whole time leant over a chair gently swaying my hips and taking deep breaths in and out to cope with each contraction. I hadn’t had any antenatal or parenting classes, but it just came naturally, and I did what felt best with each contraction and it obviously helped.
Three hours later I was still pushing, my baby was back-to-back and looking the wrong way. I was on a hormone drip by this point which they’d hoped would help turn him but hadn’t, so a lovely doctor explained that I’d need some help delivering him, so off to theatre we went to be prepped for a caesarean, in case an assisted vaginal delivery couldn’t be achieved.
I was given a spinal and then an episiotomy. They tried ventouse first which failed but they managed to deliver my baby using forceps while Salt and Peppers’ song ‘Push it’ played on the radio!
It was not my easiest birth, but I was grateful my son was here and we were both ok! With hindsight I wished I’d have taken our wonderful community midwife Marie’s advice and written a birth plan and had the chance to have done some birth preparation leading up to the big day, to have known my options and to better understand the situations I found myself in as a first-time mum...
Thank you, Darent Valley Maternity team for taking care of us on our special journey of becoming parents! Special thanks to Marie who supported us so wonderfully throughout it all.”
Keeley, Dartford
