Birth story #1

In celebration of my eldest's 5th birthday I thought I'd share my first birth story! :)

On the 11th August at 9 days overdue and 2 unsuccessful sweeps later; my husband and I and our friends decided to take the dogs and go over to a local country park for a picnic. I was uncomfortable and fed up at the idea of a c-section and quite frankly thought that she was never going to vacate on her own. Our friends who came for the picnic were also expecting but were due two weeks after us and at this point I was sure their baby would arrive before Miss H made her appearance. 

It was a lovely sunny day so we'd taken our beach tent to sit under and as we were packing up I bent down to pack up the tent when I got my first contraction (OUCH) thinking that it was just a stomach ache from the food I carried on and didn't say anything. I had another two pains walking back to the car and still ignored it. Anyone whose been in labour will understand this, but I actually thought that I just needed the toilet. I waddled over to the toilets before getting in the car to go home. Waved goodbye to our friends, got in the car and told hubby that my contractions had started but was okay. At this point I was in denial! 

We got home, called the hospital who informed us as a first time mum it would be a while. Their words were "put a film on, maybe titanic". Safe to say I lasted half an hour before we were back on the phone to the hospital who agreed for us to come up and have a look at me. At this point I was having contractions every 5 minutes but the hospital were still very unconcerned but still agreed to look at me. The midwife took one look at me and grabbed a wheelchair and took me straight into a delivery room. I was 10cm dilated and her head was in the birth canal! 

I was so lucky the midwife that looked after me seemed to understand straight away that I didn't want any fuss and I wanted to do as much as possible on my own. By this point it was getting dark and I was able to get into the birth pool with the lights out and just relax (as much as I could anyway). I remember clearly asking for drugs so many times and being told that it was too late for anything apart from gas and air, which I loved it was so relaxing and after 20 minutes of pushing my beautiful baby girl was born! 

My midwife was very no nonsense and as we were in such a rush to get to the hospital and they were so convinced they would be sending me back home, we hadn't brought any of our bags up so she sent hubby back to the car to get them; then gave me baby and started stitching me up! Honestly the stitches were the worst thing about giving birth. I'm there lying on the bed clutching baby in one arm and the gas and air in the other! By the time hubby got back (because obviously he'd been calling everyone we knew haha) stitches were done and I was showered and dressed like nothing had happened! 

I love reading birth stories, so thought I'd share mine! x