The Birth of Baby Demelza

In the later weeks of my pregnancy, I scattered positive affirmations over the house and almost every night went to sleep listening to one of the relaxation playlists, most mornings I would practise mindfulness and imagine how my birth might go and what my baby may look like. I had people asking me if I was getting impatient and at what point I would be induced and to every one of them I replied, “she’ll come when she’s ready”. 

Little Demelza’s EDD was 3rd June 2022 which, as expected, came and went with absolutely no sign of little miss. When it came to my 41-week appointment and there was still no sign, the midwife began talking about induction which I declined. Protocol from that point meant that I was then booked an appointment at the hospital for 5 days later when they would again want to discuss induction (and probably try to persuade me).

The night before that appointment I woke up with an unfamiliar sensation in my lower back and pelvis. I wriggled around a bit, got comfy and went back to sleep, only to be woken by the same sensation an hour later. I continued to be woken hourly until around 7:30 when I rang triage to let them know I thought these were contractions. They told me to continue to monitor them and to attend my appointment at 12:30. I was still tried to be persuaded to be induced but as I was definitely having contractions (albeit very mild) I refused and so instead we checked in on baby’s heartbeat. A couple of times during monitoring her heart rate dropped, not drastically but enough to warrant a longer monitoring period. Another drop in heart rate was recorded and so I agreed to allow the midwife to do an examination to see if my cervix was starting to dilate which it was and so the midwife was happy that active labour was on its way. I was then moved down to the labour ward around 4pm where they wanted to break my waters to get baby moving. As my contractions were intensifying, I declined and mum and I got ourselves comfortable, got my labour playlist playing and lights set up and gave the midwifes my birth preferences. At 8pm the midwives shifts changed and I met the midwives who would be with me overnight, I also gave them my preferences and they were happy to talk through it and ask questions. I agreed at that point to have another examination and we found I hadn’t dilated any further. As my contractions were intensifying, I agreed to have my waters broken to see if this would help my cervix to dilate. My contractions intensified further and I used the up breathing technique to manage. Eventually they became too intense and I asked if we could get the pool filled to see if the water would help ease the pressure but as baby’s heart rate was still dropping occasionally the midwife was concerned that the water may slow my labour too much (in hindsight I wish I’d argued here and given it a go) so instead I started using gas and air which really helped. Around 2am my contractions were intense and close together but still not enough and so they began discussing the oxytocin drip. I was exhausted by this point and requested stronger painkiller.

On paper my birth story looks a world away from what I wanted but I had 2 main goals: 

1. A safe delivery of a healthy baby 
2. To be able to feel in control and make informed decisions 

The second goal was only achieved through the hypnobirthing training. There were multiple times where I felt the midwives used scare tactics to try and push my into making a decision but I had the confidence to trust my body and make the right decisions for me and my baby. Having my mum participate in all the hypnobirthing classes and be by my side throughout was invaluable, being able to discuss decisions with her too and having her reassurance that I was making the right decisions took all the worry away and so I look back on my birth experience without disappointment and instead see it instead as the start of my beautiful journey into motherhood.