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Positive Overdue Birth Story - first time mum on the high risk ward

The days after my due date and leading up to our daughters birth I tried everything to help start my labour. Raspberry leaf capsules, pineapple, clary sage baths, long walks.. I became really quite disheartened to be overdue as I was so excited to meet our baby and I wanted as little medical intervention as possible. Three days overdue, I started to have very mild but regular contractions at home which we eventually timed. These progressed steadily from 4pm-11pm and just before 12am we drove to the hospital as they were much closer together and the midwife in triage advised I best go in for a check over. The beds in triage were full and I was 2cm dilated so I was sent home and advised that my contractions may last another week!

I was so upset to be sent home as the contractions were pretty intense and getting harder to breathe through. Four hours later I went back to triage with reduced movements and after being checked I was 4cm! I was sent up to the ward as a high risk pregnancy (I had been low risk right up to this point) and continued to labour in our birthing room. At this point my boyfriend was allowed to come into the room wearing a mask. I had skimmed through two hypnobirthing courses in my second and third trimester, and I used the breathing techniques to help me through my contractions. (Calling them surges didn’t help me.) I found the contractions painful but manageable despite being strapped up to the monitors, only being allowed to sit in one position on the bed due to the wires and sick the entire labour. My waters broke at 8cm! Due to my daughters positioning, I had really intense pressure and pains in my pelvis and it honestly felt like she was trying to come out of my bum! (Nothing is TMI to me anymore.) After an hour or so I was 10cm and it was time to push which truthfully I found excruciatingly painful. The midwife offered me gas and air but advised that at this point nothing would take the pain away apart from birthing my daughter. She was born with my legs in stirrups at 8lb 3oz. I had two labia tears *major ouch* and one small perineal tear. I had the injection to help birth the placenta and luckily we had immediate skin to skin.

I was not prepared for the immediate situation of my body after giving birth. Despite my midwife being absolutely amazing, my hospital were short staffed and I was very much left to get on with it once they had done the initial checks on baby and helped to tidy the bed up a little. I fed my baby - she luckily latched straight away which I am so grateful for as I was too exhausted to concentrate on anything else at that time, attempted to shower myself, fed her again, took some paracetamol, got her dressed and went straight home just a few hours after labour.

Then I began my postpartum recovery journey which I really don’t think is given enough recognition or credit as having a baby is hard but postpartum recovery is something else! Nothing prepared me for the weeks I’d spend crying trying to go to the toilet with tears or haemorrhoids. My Peri Bottle was my bathroom best friend along with huge postpartum nappies covered in Sprits for Bits.

I feel really positive about my daughters birth and despite the constant monitoring, it was the natural drug free birth that I had hoped for and I’m immensely proud of myself. I found the experience empowering and I have a new appreciation for my body!

That is my birth story. I hope by sharing this I can help another pregnant woman preparing for birth and for any mamas out there thats labour didn’t follow their ‘birth plan.’ No matter what your labour looks like, you’re amazing.