At 38 weeks, 4days and after a gruelling 24hour labour we welcomed our beautiful son Roman into this world on the 1st June.
We attended Calmbirth Class in March with Cherie and both really enjoyed it. It was so informative and gave us the confidence we needed for the big day! We went away feeling prepared and had the tools we needed to get our baby earth side safely. Thank you to Cherie, who was so welcoming and warm and made the experience so worth it.
My contractions woke me up at 2.30am (31st May) which felt like a really intense stomach ache, and I thought it was just that, but the pain didn’t go away and it was not the slow build up of period pain I was expecting and was constantly told it would be like. Fast forward a few hours, a 50minute commute (done in 40) and surprisingly no speeding fines, we made it to the hospital with all intentions of having a unmedicated birth. However, after labouring in the bath, on the ball and standing up for hours and hours the pain was getting unbearable and I was incredibly exhausted. I decided to get the epidural so I could rest for a few hours which was great but for some reason I was sensitive to it and started to felt nauseous and my blood pressure started to drop. They turned off the epidural and planned to lower the dose when I recovered. But when it came time to push the lower dose hadn’t kicked in in time so I had to continue without the epidural.
Our little man was suspected to be posterior so the amazing midwives coached me through the pain which I could feel it all down the left side of my spine. My partner was coaching me through my calm breaths and using the essential oils to help relax me. It was game time, I told my partner to put on Beyoncé and an hour of pushing and our little man was out.
I had the syntocinon injection for the third stage of labour, but they couldn’t get my placenta out. It was essentially stuck and I was just about to go into theatre until a senior midwife came along and did some old school manoeuvre on my stomach to get it out. After a lot of tugging it finally came out but unfortunately then I haemorrhaged and lost 2L of blood… this was the least of my concerns at this stage because the pushing pain was over and I had my beautiful boy in my arms. In my mind, the hard part was over. It was all hands on deck to stop the bleeding and finally after numerous injections of drugs they controlled the bleeding.
We were met with more challenges after birth with painful breastfeeding, recovery and an infected umbilical cord which was more serious than we thought. But after a week in hospital we got the help we needed and are all going really well at home now and are smitten with our little man.
Our birth was captured by the amazing @taylorpaigephoto.film. She was so professional and it felt so comfortable having her in the room with us. She captured the love, pain, emotion and support throughout the whole birth. The biggest and best day of our lives, which we will treasure forever.
Mila & Freddy