Positive Birth Story: Sophie

This positive birth story is with first time mum Sophie and the arrival of her little girl Isabelle. Sophie delivered her girl at 39 weeks and 3 days using gas & air for pain relief. Sophie used EBRAN during her labour to help herself make informed choices and says she felt empowered and fuelled with knowledge. Love reading positive birth stories? You’re in the right place!

I’ve been inspired by so many different birth stories on this page (The Bump to Baby Chapter Facebook group for those doing the course) and I’m so happy to be able to share mine. Thanks to this course I felt empowered and fuelled with knowledge. 

The Start of Labour

I started feeling what I thought were light contractions on the Monday and Tuesday evening. They felt like very mild period pain and were about 12 minutes apart and lasted only 30 seconds and were not hurting at this point. I was booked in for a sweep Wednesday and when I had it the midwife was delighted as the baby was engaged and I was already 2cm. She was positive that this was going to get the ball rolling. About 1 hour after my sweep the contractions began, 4 minutes apart for about 30 seconds. They continued throughout the day but didn’t change intensity or duration so I went to bed on the evening as normal. 

I couldn’t get much sleep that night as I was too excited and the contractions were waking me up. At 5am on Thursday 5th August, the contractions began to get stronger and lasted for a minute every 3-4 minutes. I decided to get up and take a few paracetamol and go get showered and ready. I rang the hospital to let them know that I would probably be coming in today and that I planned to stay at home as long as I could. My contractions continued coming every 4 minutes so I practiced my breathing from the course, kept active by bouncing on my birthing ball and standing up swaying side to side, and even managed to take the dog for a 30 min walk. 

Waters Breaking and Heading to Hospital

At about 13:00 (whilst eating a sandwich) I felt a sudden gush of liquid and ran to the toilet. My waters had broke! With that the next contraction was extremely strong and the intensity had increased, I knew it was time and I needed to get to the hospital. (A lot of people had said to me that you’ll know when you need to go to the hospital and they were right!) I shouted my husband and we grabbed the bags and made our way to the hospital. I kept calm in the car by playing spa music and breathing through the contractions. 

After sprinting up 6 flights of stairs at the hospital to the maternity ward (I was not waiting in the queue for the lift), I went to the reception where they could see I needed attention immediately. They put me in a room for an internal examination. I quickly went for a wee and saw a lot of blood, this along with the intense contractions made me go in a panic, and I lost control of my breathing. The HC assistant calmed me down and reassured me this was normal. I began using my breathing techniques again to keep me calm and in a positive frame of mind. 

Gas and Air

I got onto the bed where the midwife asked me about my waters breaking and began the examination. After a few minutes and to her shock, I was 8cm (no one believed me I was ready to deliver when I came in to the hospital because I was so calm and not screaming). She quickly grabbed me the gas and air, to which I said I feel like I need to push and she said go ahead. 

I wanted to give birth on all fours so I started pushing this way but the heart rate monitor kept loosing the babies heartbeat so the midwife asked if I could lie on my back. I was a bit unsure at first as I wanted to avoid tearing but after using EBRAN I agreed that this would be the best way to make sure baby was okay.

Hello Baby: My Positive Birth

After 20 minutes of pushing, an amazing midwife guiding me, my husband fuelling me with Lucozade sport and gas and air, our beautiful baby girl was born and placed on my chest! Then not long after having the injection the placenta too was delivered. I only needed one stitch as had a very minor tear, so it wasn’t long before I was tucking into the tea and toast whilst enjoying having skin to skin with our beautiful little baby. 

It truly was an amazing birth and I will be recommending this course to future mums.

Click the link 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.