This is going to be a long one! But here’s the story of my first pregnancy and my daughter, Autumn’s birth.
My pregnancy with Autumn was incredible, I was 20, happily married and really excited to be a Mum. I had the usual morning sickness which disappeared around 11weeks and a bit of PGP, but other than that I was just happy to be pregnant.
At 25 weeks, (4 days before our wedding! Eek!) I had a small bleed. I feared the worst and we were told to go straight to the nearest big hospital. The bleeding had stopped by the time I arrived (it was only light spotting at the start) but they still wanted to check everything. They found baby’s heart on the doppler straight away which instantly calmed me down. They then performed a test to find out if I was at risk of premature labour. It said I was (although one nurse said that it’s not very accurate), so they kept me overnight and gave me steroid injections (OUCH) to help baby’s lungs develop faster. After one night in hospital they decided all was well and sent me home.
Everything went smoothly from then until her birth. I was 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant, I woke up at 7am to wave hubby off to work and I noticed the bedsheet was DRENCHED! My first thought was “jeez that’s embarrassing, I’ve wet myself” but on closer inspection I realised it was, in fact, my waters. I rang the BC (birthing centre) and they asked me to come in to be checked over. They agreed that yes, it was my waters and as contractions had started I could go home to wait it out.
We got home around 8:30am and I rang my mum (she was my second birthing partner) and she came straight over to help out. I sat on my birthing ball timing contractions for what seemed like forever. At 3:30ish I stood up to get a drink and there was an almighty gush! Turns out only my fore-waters went in the night and the lovely warm liquid filling my dungarees was my hind waters. GAME ON! From this point contractions got INTENSE, I tried the TENS machine but it just made me feel like I was going to vomit; so I gave up with that pretty quickly. Come 4:30 I had really had enough, I told my husband to ring the BC, they asked to speak to me and decided I didn’t sound like I was in enough pain to come in (thanks love). 10 minutes later I really couldn’t cope anymore and we made our way in. They reluctantly checked me and I was 6cm dilated. HA! It wasn’t all for nothing!
I rocked on the birthing ball and asked them to fill the birthing pool for me. By 7:30 the pool was full and I jumped in as quick as I could. My husband got in with me (mainly to hold my head so I didn’t drown myself) and my mum sat on the other side of the pool and held the gas and air pipe for me. After what felt like forever I told the midwife I needed to push, she told me I wasn’t ready but there was no stopping me! I pushed and BOOM! I pooped!! (Told you I had to push) a few minutes after that the feeling came back again, this time MUCH more intense. My body did the talking and I listened, 4 pushes later and at 8:24pm On March 21st 2017, my beautiful girl was born, weighing 7lbs 15ozs! I was finally a mummy! My husband and I held her in the pool for a while and then off I went to be stitched up (2nd degree tear).
It almost feels like a fever dream now but it was the greatest day of my life. Seeing how happy my mum and husband were made it even better.
If you’d like to see a post about the first few days with a newborn let me know.
Thank you for reading and stay strong muma’s!
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