Heidi’s Birth Story

 

 

Life will never prepare you for the adventure on bringing a second baby into the world… We brought our baby Daughter home exactly 12 weeks ago today! The past few months have been challenging, overwhelming and most of all filled will lots of love and happiness.

We planned on having a home water birth, we tried everything to ensured it happened and unfortunately not a thing went accordingly.

The last couple months leading up to my due date may 5^th (Mum's birthday) was extremely difficult for me suffering with Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) a condition in pregnancy where the pelvic joints become stiff or less stable, causing inflammation and pain. On more information on SPD please see below. Struggling to walk, sit and do anything with my 2-year-old son who I experience this with in my last pregnancy. Thankfully with physiotherapy and once baby was born this disappeared. https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy/complications/symphysis-pubis-dysfunction-spd

My birth story began on Sunday April 8^th when I woke up and felt a slight gush of liquid running down my legs and baby’s movements slowed down, so thought it would be best to phone triage and get myself seen to, was told to come in for a check so I did and was there the best part of 4 hours waiting to find out what was wrong… Midwife in charge put me on monitors, checked baby’s heart rate told me everything was fine and sent me on my way! The next morning this liquid happened again but I carried on my day as usual, as I had my midwife come to do our home assessment for our home birth… we put my birthing pool up and was told what was going to happen next, I did mention about being in triage the day before and she was concerned my waters were leaking so told me to get myself back to hospital to have more checks. We went to triage again they monitored me and kept me in overnight for heart rate checks, the next day doctors came around and told me baby’s heart rate was fine and if it happens again then to come back so I went home.

I got in contact with my Midwife, and she arranged for me to have a scan to check fluid levels around baby… Wednesday April 11^th at 15:00 I went in for my scan and to my concern they found out that it was of course my waters that were leaking and my levels were dangerously low.

I was taken straight up to the labour ward where they started an induction. I received a phone call from my partner who I thought was calling to check up on me, little did I know Westminster had called and said I parked the car in a closed area secured for the royal birth. With water still leaking I called for my mum to rush up to move the car and stay with me while my partner was looking after our son. I was currently 2 cm dilated, I was given the pessary gel which started a few mild contractions and had to wait 6 hours for that to take full effect so in that time my Partner, Mum, Nan and soon to be big brother Bradley went for a walk and got fish and chips and saw everyone camping out for the royal Louis’s birth! Midnight we were moved to another room but I had just fallen off to sleep when they called me, so was a little cranky! Sarah my midwife broke the rest of my waters at 03:30 and said I was still only 2cm. As soon as all my waters were out that was it… My contractions were in full swing! 1 min long and every 3 min, I thought great I can do this it’s not going to be long I don’t need an epidural, as I had to have it with Bradley as I was given the drip and it was too painful without!

By 6am I opted for gas and air as I was struggling a little with the pain, walking and

standing up made the pain worse so I tried to just keep bouncing on my gym ball. My mum joined us back at the hospital, so my partner Chris left me for 5 mins to get McDonald's Breakfast! The hours and minutes started accumulating and I started to become tired and fed up that it wasn’t going to end, Chris had been gone far too long and I’m sure he sat in and had a big breakfast all to himself!

8am midwives done change over which made me feel so angry and irritable from that moment onwards, having to get to know someone else just frustrated me! Mary placed me on the drip as I wasn’t dilating much more and contractions were slowing down. Feeling annoyed as I felt I had the same problem with Bradley's birth which was a very slow and painful birth! I needed to be having 4 contractions in 5 minutes for things to be really progressing but I was only having 3 in 5, so Mary topped up the drip again!

Being only offered sips of water at this point, as a caesarean was on the cards if I didn’t dilate anymore within the next few hours… Emotions running high, contemplating what to do next and not coping with the pain as much as I did in the beginning… I needed more drugs! Before any decisions were made, Mary checked my dilation at 12pm and I had only gone to 4cm which seriously devastated me! I requested an epidural, but we had to wait for an anaesthetist to become available… 2 hours later, a knock on the door and he was ready to make me pain-free… by this point at 2pm I was in excruciating pain and couldn’t sit still for him to put this massive needle in my spine… 4 needles later, crying hysterically the epidural was in. Expecting on my next contraction that I would be pain-free, I was most defiantly not! Mary told me it could take half hour for this to work and to try to calm down… I shouted ‘I’ve got another one’ through every contraction I had for some reason it helped me to just hold my breath, I was told to breathe but I couldn’t, as breathing or shouting hurt more. The Anaesthetist came back to check the epidural was working as it should be which I told him it hadn’t done anything, so he said give it another 10 minutes to see if it starts kicking in before he gives me another one.

The pain changed drastically at this point, I kept asking Mary to check my dilation, she refused and said I wasn’t ready… she was more interested in keeping the monitors on my tummy to listen out for baby’s heart rate… I felt she wasn’t listening to how I felt and what I had to say… it was so frustrating.

‘I need to poo, it's coming out!’ I shouted, Mary once again told me I wasn’t ready and I needed to calm down, because she couldn’t monitor baby’s heart rate.

A massive surprise, my midwife that delivered Bradley entered the room just as I spread my legs open, everyone else having a reunion talking about Bradley’s birth… not realising that baby’s head was actually out! By this point Mary took a step back and let my old midwife deliver baby.

Heidi was born at 2:45pm weighing, 6lb 5oz at 37 weeks… She was placed straight on my chest where I completely and utterly fell straight in love! All crying with joy that I had just delivered our second baby and Mum's 10^th grandchild.

A few moments later, Sister Kim, 2 kids and my little boy Bradley was the first visitors to turn up and see our new little addition, only not being allowed in the labour ward room with kids due to infections, I managed to get up and walk to the corridor to see everyone where I felt at my worst with blood and all gruesome stuff pouring out of me onto a puddle on the floor… I quickly said goodbye and needed to get some rest before the rest of the family turned up later.

 

 

Well that was the story of Heidi’s birth, I am now on my postpartum journey and bringing up 2 under 2… wouldn’t most Mum's agree the best feeling after giving birth is your first cup of tea with a slice of toast!