Angharad’s Birth Story

I’m so unbelievably happy to announce that my beautiful daughter Freya Joy was born on 06.12.2020 (due 10.12.2020) after a successful sweep at 39+1. Weighing 7lb 13oz and born calmly and quietly into the MLU pool after a 4 hour labour from waters breaking to delivery.

Pool birth, quick labour, tens machine, gas and air, hypnobirthing breathing techniques.

Wishing you all the best for any remaining Christmas and 2021 babies that are due ????

POSITIVE birth story below:

I went to see a consultant on the Friday for suspected polyhydramnios however it was decided I was was on the upper end of normal. While I was there he offered me a sweep as I said I’d lost my plug. I accepted because I knew due to Covid I would only get one sweep offer from my midwife instead of the usual three, I’d had excruciating PGP for weeks and I really felt like she was going to be late!
He checked me and I was already 3cm before the sweep ?. I started contracting pretty much straight away and had early labour contractions Friday and Saturday, using the tens machine but stayed home watching films and eating pizza with my partner, bouncing on the ball! The contractions completely stopped both nights which was annoying but allowed me to rest all night.

Sunday I woke up to no contractions feeling a bit disheartened, my partner said he was going to pop out for 10 minutes and I said that’s fine nothing will happen! Typically my waters broke while he was out ? that was at 11am, contractions started back up and were back to back, so close together I wasn’t getting any rest and it took me an hour ish to just get in the car to go to hospital as had to walk through contractions downstairs and outside. I’d fully planned to use the app to help with my counting but my phone had failed to charge that night and was almost dead ? it didn’t matter though as I managed to practice a lot during the two days before and used up breathing with my tens machine the entire time until I was able to use the pool.

At hospital they wanted me to go in and up to get examined on my own due to Covid, but I couldn’t even open my eyes I was just breathing through the contractions to try and stay as with it as possible, my partner had to run in and shout at people to get a wheelchair ??? he took me up to the labour ward whilst I closed my eyes and concentrated on up breathing. Once there, they told us to go to the midwife led unit next door and into our private room right away. I was examined and was 7cm. By this point my midwife had read my preferences which said I was happy to receive gas and air and when she offered I quickly accepted. I got in the pool at 1pm and used gas and air and my hypnobirthing breathing, we didn’t get chance to use any of the other stuff I brought like oils, playlist, candles and tbh I didn’t care!! The breathing was all I needed along with my partner’s support.

She was born calmly and quietly into the pool at 3.01pm and those two hours honestly felt like 10 minutes! The midwife made the room dark and I just held my partner’s hand while on all fours and she let me get on with it. Using a mirror silently and checking with a Doppler periodically as per my preferences. She mentioned once that I was doing well and to just carry on doing what I was doing. After a while she said ‘here’s the head coming’ and I honestly couldn’t believe it. After letting my body take control and using my down breathing, I pulled her up out of the water myself and couldn’t stop shaking after from all the adrenaline! It was honestly amazing looking back thanks to the hypnobirthing techniques I was able to stay calm in a situation that could have 100% made me panic and go completely the other way.

I was fine for about an hour after birth but then lost more blood than they’d have liked to have seen and went quite lightheaded, shaky and faint. I had a catheter to empty my bladder and they gave me another blood clotting injection to slow the bleeding. We stayed until I was feeling better and we had successfully breastfed, and at 12am we then went home with early discharge! We are so besotted with her we can’t stop staring at her ??? thank you to this course and community for my little family’s amazing experience welcoming our firstborn into the world ? Thank you to this lovely FB support group for all the advice and positivity throughout my first pregnancy ❤️

For more information about The Bump to Baby Chapter’s Hypnobirthing and Antenatal Online Course. Know what you can do to stack the odds in your favour for the birth that you want. Videos, checklists, audios & a support group all created by a midwife to get you feeling excited, prepared and confident for birth.