Birth Story

It’s been a hot minute since I was last able to post on here and that is just because life got a little crazy towards the end of my pregnancy AND baby Webster arrived as well! So I thought it was only right to update everyone and finally nearly 3 weeks later share my birth story. 

Disclaimer it’s a long one and not one for the faint hearted.

On the 5th of November I ended up in hospital with reduced movements from baby so went to get him checked out, everything was fine as soon as the hooked us up to the monitor he started wriggling like mad but because I was 37 + 6 days I was advised that if it happened again they would need to think inducing me. 

Jump to the 9th of November I went to my 38 week midwife appointment and once again we had reduced movements (little monkey) so off we went back down to the hospital again and wouldn’t you know he started wriggling like mad again! At this point we’d had two episodes of reduced movements in 5 days we where at the point where induction was our safest option. I was given a sweep and booked in for Thursday the 11th of November to be induced. 

I can’t lie things got very real very fast once we knew by the end of the week he would be here. 

We had a few chilled days with Cody then the big day arrived: induction day! I was filled with all kinds of different emotions between excitement and nerves but Alan was right by my side as cool as a cucumber. I was booked in at 1:30pm so my parents came and collected Cody for us and me and Alan packed the car and off we went ready to have this baby. 

At 2:45pm I had the balloon popped in and was told it was just a waiting game for it to do it’s thing. I had no clue how any of this would work so we were told the balloon would be there for 12 hours and if I didn’t go into labour during that time it would be removed and I would have my waters broken. 

At 10pm Alan had to leave the hospital until he got the call to say I was officially in labour, this filled me with all kinds of dread as I REALLY didn’t want to be in hospital on my own but off he went to try and get some sleep before the big event. 

During the next few hours nothing really happened but I could not sleep a wink mostly down to the heat in the hospital but nerves as well. At around 1:30am the balloon came out on its own (wooohooo) this is when the cracks started to show, I made the midwives aware and was told I’d be getting taken down to labour ward soon. 2:30am I called Alan and told him to come back down as I’d be going to the labour ward soon and he was allowed to be there. 

Two hours later still no word on being moved so asked the midwife only to be told that there wasn’t space for me and I should have been told at 1:30am. Poor Alan was sent home again as no point in him waiting in a car for god knows how long. At 5:30am we got the news we’d been desperately waiting on…. THERE WAS SPACE!!! Another phone call made to Alan to come back down again but for real this time. 

6:30am comes around and we are all settled in our room and just waiting for my waters to be broken, this happens without any issues and very quickly do I start contracting as I was already at 4cm dilated as well. 

For the first few hours I managed everything really well with no pain relief needed then all of a sudden they started to get worse so got myself on the gas and air (I forgot how good that stuff was) unfortunately this did only help for a short period of time as my contractions where getting closer and stronger so we upgraded to diamorphine once again this worked but only for a little while. 

My contractions where gradually worse and I was running out of energy FAST so we called in the big guns to try and give me a break and asked for an epidural. This is when everything started to go really wrong really fast! They get the doctor in to give me the epidural all the while I’m still contracting this guy is trying to talk to me and give me the stuff, I was in ALL kinds of pain but eventually it was done and I could slowly feel it kicking in and the pain easing off. This lasted a grand total of 10 minutes! Yes just 10 bloody minutes was all it lasted before i needed to get second dose, now you would think with two epidurals that i would be fine and feel nothing but my friends you would be WRONG!!! The second one just like the first did not take at all so i went through the whole ordeal of getting them for them not to work. 

At this point as you can imaging i was done in, I’d been up all night and no amount of pain relief was helping so it was back to basics of just getting this baby out as naturally and safely as possible. I was so tired at this point i genuinely felt like i had nothing left in me and could not go on pushing.  During this whole time i was totally unaware that all of a sudden things had started to go wrong and we went from there being 4 people in the room to 9! All of a sudden i had a doctor telling me they where going to need to help me and baby out by cutting me “down there” and using a suction cup. I had no idea what was going on but agreed as Alan explained that baby was starting to get distressed and we needed him out ASAP. 

So the doctor done what she had to do and it was all on me to get him out and get him out fast, now little did i know at this point i was 20 minutes away from them pressing that big red button and putting me to sleep for an emergency c-section but Alan was as he was listening to everything that was being said. We obviously did not want this to happen so Alan used everything he could to encourage me and help me with this last final stretch. 

15 minutes later i hear those magic words… i can see his head and i knew i had done it our baby was just one push away, i gave it everything i had left in me and the next thing i knew i had our beautiful baby boy up on my chest healthy and safe! We where so happy that FINALLY after 9 long months and 2 days in hospital that Noah was here. Everything else after that was a bit of a blur but i just remember looking at Alan ugly crying and thinking two things: our family is complete and that I could not have done any of it without him. 

So there we go people that is our birth story, it was traumatic to say the very least but worth it to have our little family complete now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this read and I haven’t scared off too many mummies to be. 

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