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October 2023 Babies 🇬🇧

Our beautiful girl 🤍

Our beautiful girl arrived at 38+3 on 29/09 via emergency c section weighing 9lbs 🤍

I can’t explain the love we have for her 🥰

Birth for anyone interested :

Labour started naturally (we had been booked in for a planned section at 39+4). I had the option to decide which way I wanted it and decided to continue with a natural birth since my body had started on its own.

From the get go, I contracted every 2-3 minutes, the first few hours were pretty painless, but ramped up very quickly. 4 visits to the hospital later (each time hoping to be more dilated), it didn’t seem to be working; and every time I was told I wasn’t yet at the 4cm threshold for my epidural in established labour and asked to go home, up to that point was only having paracetamol. After 36 hours at my 5th and final visit, they allowed me to stay in hospital, where I spent the next 4 hours screaming down the entire hospital. Honestly, it was the worst 40 hours of my entire life, I was in agony, being sick from pain and actually passed out because of the pain at one point. Little one wasn’t engaged, so alongside fierce contractions, she was putting pressure on my back, the back pain felt like I was being torn in half and there was no let up, no matter what position.

After seeing the doctor at 3am and being told I was still only at 3cm; I told her that I actually thought I was dying; the epidural option was given if I allowed them to break my waters for me. This was THE BEST decision I made. Two hours later I was given the epidural and the pain disappeared. They broke my waters, and alongside everything else, it turned out baby girl had taken a HUGE poo.

Baby was doing well on obs; so they let me continue to labour under the epidural (whilst I had a few hours sleep). They woke me at 8am for a dilation check, however I was still only at 4cm, they offered the hormone drip to see if that made any difference; but before we could make a decision, baby girls heart rate started to drop and rise, so she took the decision out of our hands 🥰 and it was definitely the best one. The c section, albeit emergency was the most amazing experience of my life, everyone was amazing, I got to see my angel being born in a calm way after 40 hours of trauma, laugh and smile with my husband and have special skin to skin time after birth.

Also as a separate note - she was measuring large from growth scans, and was born pretty much bang on for what they were predicting! So for me, the accuracy was pretty on point 🥰

Good luck to all October mums - we couldn’t be happier with how the birth came to a close and am loving being a mum ☺️