22. Nov
On the lead up to birth, I had been having consistent Branxton hicks from about 32 weeks pregnant. But they’d increased in frequency leading up to the birth and I had a couple of false labour episodes a few days prior. I lost my mucous plug a day prior to birth.
Kylen was mid cooking us burgers on the Thursday 24/10/24 when my waters broke at 1900, a full Hollywood style gush (it just kept coming and coming). We called the ward to let them know, who said to come in to get checked out. We also told my mum, who would be joining us for the birth. We finished our burgers and throughout dinner I started getting contractions, which then came on quite regularly. We arrived at the hospital at about 1915. From there, they confirmed that my waters had broke and hooked me up to the CTG monitor to check baby. All was well and the machine was monitoring irregular contractions. However, I swore they were regular and were happing quite close together. Maybe every 4-5 minutes. We weren’t really tracking them at this point and I could still talk through them, so we went back home.
We got back home at about 2100, where I had some more food and walked around for a while. Kylen turned all the lights off and made us more comfortable, in preparation for a long labour. The contractions were increasing with intensity, but being my first baby, I didn’t know really what to expect, but definitely felt like I needed relief. So we tried the use of our acupressure points, which helped a little. I then tried getting some sleep, which lasted about 5 minutes because I was too uncomfortable. So I hopped in the shower, which was amazing. At that point, the contractions started coming about every 3 minutes apart, so Kylen called my mum to come to our house to help. I then felt this sudden pressure, like I needed to open my bowels and the impending need to be at the hospital. So Kylen called the hospital, who said to come in straight away. Prior to leaving, we put the tens machine on.
We parked in the car park and I walked up, on the way up, I vomited. We met my mum at the front entrance and ran into our midwife at about 2315. As soon as I got to the room, I went straight to the toilet where I sat for about 30 mins because it was so comfortable. My midwife didn’t check how many centimetres I was the whole time, on my request. She trusted my instincts and let me take control, as I was in the zone. I breathed through each contraction like we practiced at calm birth. I then felt like I needed to go on all fours to push, so they set the bed up for that. I then changed out of my track pants and put my birthing gown on. Someone handed me the birth comb, which was amazing. Kylen and my mum were regularly putting wet towels behind my neck and on my forehead to keep me cool. We also had a mini pram fan, which was a game changer! I was regularly sipping on water throughout. I still had the tens machine on, which was really effective for me and I found to be a good distraction from the pain, working out the intensity toggle. We didn’t have time to set the room up or use anything else that we’d bought. I didn’t give any other pain relief a thought, I was very focused on being one contraction closer to meeting our baby!
I started pushing at around 0030 on the Friday morning. In between contractions, I would totally relax and lay down in a diagonal standing position, with how the bed was set up. At first, my midwife let me do my own thing. At one point she said reach down and feel your baby. Which is when I could feel their head! This motivated me even more! My midwife then coached me into more effective breathing for pushing phase, as I kept pushing and the as I’d breathe out, baby would go back up into my birthing canal. This was confusing at first, but I quickly got the hang of it. I was pushing for about an hour, then our baby was born at 0126. I couldn’t believe how quickly it had all happened. Our baby was passed through between my legs, where I held then finally held her. Kylen announced the gender to be a baby GIRL and then cut the cord when it went white. We were all over the moon! I then turned around onto my back so I could stare at my baby in awe and the midwife could assist with the delivery of the placenta. Our baby girl was unnamed for a couple of days, but we later decided Lottie Lynea.
The placenta then came naturally which felt like 5-10 minutes after, but I can’t actually recall. I was bleeding quite heavily, so they gave me a syntocinin injection post this to slow the bleeding down. My midwife got the doctor to come in because she could see no obvious tear, my Perineum was in tact. The tear, they discovered was internal because of the way Lottie came out on the side and both of her hands up near her face. So they had to cut my Perineum to fix the internal tear. To which I had local and gas for. I needed a cannula at that point too, for transaemic acid to stop the bleeding and IV fluids. I hardly knew any of this was happening though, as I was so happy and focused on our little love bubble and was absolutely thrilled with our baby.
Lottie latched on well, with the guidance from my mum. We were able to have a couple of hours to ourselves with her chest to chest. I then had a shower while Lottie got checked over. After this, I had another anti-d injection at birth and our she had her hepatitis and vitamin K injections.
We absolutely loved our birth, it was so calm. Everyone in the room was absolutely amazing and so helpful. We are so thankful for the Calmbirth classes. As we truly believe it helped set us up for a successful, calm birth.
Kind regards,
Catherine, Kylen and Lottie Broad
Photo by Bare by Elle