After doing the antenatal course- I was expecting a long birth for my first time and thought I would spend most of that time at home. However, it didn’t quite pan out like way.
My waters broke at 1am the day after my due date. I had no other symptoms but knew I was supposed to call triage. Due to some reduced movements earlier in my pregnancy they asked me to come in for some cautionary monitoring.
I arrived at triage at about 2.30am and was monitored for a while, as I didn’t have a lot of movements to start with. Whilst being monitored I started to have mild contractions. The contractions started to ramp up whilst I was waiting for a doctor to confirm my discharge. The doctor told me at 4am that I was 2cm dilated and should come back to hospital if I hadn’t progressed by 10pm. However, by the time I made it to the car- my contractions were back to back and I couldn’t face sitting in the seat- so we decided to head back in and speak to a midwife.
By the time we got to triage after a very slow walk- I felt like I needed the toilet and decided to sit in the toilet on the hallway outside triage whilst my husband got a midwife. As it was my first baby a number of midwife’s popped in and told me to remember to breathe through the contractions and asked me to head to the waiting room when I could. It was at this point I shouted to my husband to call our continuity midwife on-call number as I knew it was all happening a bit faster than I thought it would. After trying to get signal- he managed to get hold of Helen who told us she would be right in.
I somehow managed to make it to the hallway outside the waiting room in-between contractions and the midwife who was looking after me whilst being monitored saw my demeanour and told me to go back into the room I was in earlier. After heading straight to the toilet and telling the midwife I felt like I needed to poo, they promptly got me on the bed and told me I was 9cm dilated and needed to go straight down to delivery. This was at 5am (an hour after being originally discharged). I told them I wanted a water birth and was told by the time the pool had filled up I would have had my baby. I was offered gas and air- which after I was shown how to use it properly- I promptly told my husband was good stuff (although I used some more fruitful language). I was wheeled to a delivery suite where I was met by two lovely midwives, a student midwife and another lady who said she would look after me until Helen arrived. Helen arrived so quickly and it was such a relief to both of us to see a friendly and familiar face due to how quick everything was happening. We didn’t even have any bags. After only 30-45 minutes of pushing- our little baby boy arrived and was placed on me- screaming his little head off. Weighing a whopping 9lb 14oz.
We had skin to skin for over an hour whilst I was checked and stitched up and was shown how to get him to latch on. My continuity midwife then took over from Helen and brought tea and toast and helped me to shower whilst my husband got his first hold.
After having all of his tests we were out of the hospital by 12.30pm and home within 12 hours of my waters first breaking. The care we received during and after delivery was amazing and we couldn’t thank everyone enough. It was a very fast birth and is slightly a blur- but was such an amazing experience and the best day of our lives!