A Calmbirth® story.
Elliott Steven arrived on the 21st September 2019 after a long but relatively uneventful labour that went for 3 days.
On the morning of Wednesday 17th I woke with cramping in my lower abdomen & knew this was early labour – id been having some cramping etc in the days preceding at random. Over the course of the day my cramping continued at random & I made a conscious decision to relax & go about my day. By 6pm that night my cramping had started to increase in intensity and frequency to more regular contractions. I put my TENS machine on and again tried to go about the evening as casual and calm as possible. By 2am Thursday morning my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart so we headed into the LGH. At this point I was eager to meet our baby but completely calm. By 9am my contractions hadn’t progressed further so I went down to the maternity ward for some sleep with medication. This continued over the day. In the early evening my contractions began to ramp back up and I used the tens, massage from Lee & a shower to manage the pain. By around midnight my contractions really began to intensify and I went up to the labour ward around 2am with contractions around 2-3 min apart. By this time I had intense back pain, felt like I needed to go to the toilet but nothing was happening, felt sick and was shaking. I was certain I was in transition. Upon examination however I was only 1-2cm dialated so I had an epidural. The pain was unbearable. I had tried using my breathing, a shower and gas and air for some time but could no longer manage. I was able to then have a bit of a sleep after finding out that Elliott had turned to be posterior with his chin tilted up not down. We decided to put me on the sentocin drip to try and get my uterus contracting more intensely to turn Elliott, and get me dialated given how long it had been already. My waters had already broken naturally before the epidural. After being on the drip all day and night I got to 9cm and wasn’t progressing to 10cm by around 2am Saturday morning so we made the call to go to theatre. When we got to theatre I had dialated fully so we attempted to deliver Elliott with the use of the ventouse and me pushing. This wasn’t successful with the 3 pulls so he arrived via c-section at 3.41am on Saturday 21.9.19
I felt in control and calm for the majority of the time. I had faith in my body and as though I knew what was happening thanks to calmbirth. Lee was able to support me with massage etc and walked the corridors with me trying to get things moving. Thanks to Calmbirth he also knew what was happening and had the tools to support me. 
Crystal