Welcoming our daughter, Bob – the birth story

If you follow me on social media, you’ll already know that the end of April was a whirlwind. We welcomed our new daughter, ‘Bob’ into the world, just over two weeks early. She was in an epic rush to come out and caught us off guard. Needless to say, she takes after her bigger sister. We’ve now started to settle into some kind of normalcy so I thought I’d share what happened whilst it’s still fresh in my mind. So here it is. Bob’s birth story.

The week of labour

The Tuesday before Bob was born, I lost my mucus plug. I remember being quite excited about this and wanting to share it with the world. Then I realised people on social media may not have appreciated me describing what a mucus plug was when eating their breakfast, so I kept quiet. I went into work as normal and nearly told my colleagues, but decided it would definitely be a case of TMI.I did share the news with a pregnant friend though.She was really excited, advising me that labour was impending. Of course, being super laid back, I shrugged it off and quoted what I’d read on the What To Expect app, which advised labour could be anything from hours to weeks after losing your plug. My luck would of course be that it would take weeks.

The day before birth

Wednesday, I stayed at home and it was pretty unremarkable. It was a busy day of work and the day sped by without any new pregnancy symptoms. This strengthened my belief that the loss of the plug wasn’t a sign of labour coming soon. I spent the evening writing my pregnancy update post and had a chilled, early night. Thursday was to be another work from home day and then Friday would be my last day at work and I was looking forward to driving into London to say goodbye to everyone before heading on maternity leave.

The day of Bob’s delivery

Thursday morning and I woke up really needing to pee. Like there was so much pressure that I remember just about making it to the toilet. With hindsight, that was my waters breaking. At the time, I just remember feeling a massive rush of liquid and remarking that it was a close call. Bear in mind I was half asleep at the time!

Within about ten minutes of waking up the pain started ripping through me with vengeance!

I remember being in Princess’ bedroom, asking her to get out of bed and ready for school. All of a sudden I was gripped with pain ripping through my abdomen and back. The kind of pain that takes your breath away. The kind of pain the midwife had described as being serious contractions. All of a sudden a curtain of denial fell over my face. Although I did turn on the contractions app on my phone and record the next few contractions. Although the contractions were showing as between 2 and 3 minutes apart, I still convinced myself that they couldn’t be the real deal.

I called The King, who was on his way home from work, letting him know that today may be the day but not to rush. With Princess, I was in labour for days. We had a false sense of security that we’d be in for the long haul yet again. Hubby came home, checked on me and again, I insisted it was likely just Braxton Hicks and not to worry. So of course he didn’t worry and decided to get a nap in before what was likely to be a busy day later on.

Fast forward another ten minutes or so and the pain was so extreme I was crawling along the walls. Launching myself from one item of furniture to another in order to move around the house. The pain was making it hard for me to think straight. I managed to fling on a gorgeous emerald green maxi dress with a lace back. I don’t know why. It made sense at the time. Organised childcare for Princess with our fabulous next door neighbours and screamed to The King that we needed to leave NOW!

Twenty minutes later, we’re in the car, making our way to the hospital and speaking to the midwife team on the phone. The birth centre was out of the question as we hadn’t had our appointment with the consultant midwife yet. That wasn’t for another week. Because our first pregnancy had been an emergency c-section we needed to be signed off for a VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesarean section) so we were asked to make our way straight to the main delivery ward to be assessed first. In a way, we’re so lucky that we were redirected there.

The journey to the hospital was made in silence with my eyes closed for the entire journey. I needed to push. So badly. By keeping silent and focussing on breathing through the contractions I was able to ignore the urge to push. I was able to keep the panic at bay. Of course, when we arrived at the hospital I completely lost my cool. All sense of composure went out of the window. You know when you really need to wee and you get to your front door? Suddenly you just can’t hold it in anymore. That’s how I felt, only it was a baby trying to escape!

The actual delivery

Upstairs on the delivery ward, we were met by some lovely midwives. The time was 10:34am. They already knew we were coming and why. I think I burst into tears the moment I saw their smiling faces. After using the loos for my last ever bout of pregnancy sickness and to give a urine sample to the midwives, we tried to get me into a room for an examination. Contractions were coming hard and fast now, rolling right into each other giving me no respite. The midwife was wonderful, rubbing my back and asking me to walk over to the bed the next time I had a break between contractions. After a few minutes, she realised there would be no break and decided it was obvious I was in active labour and to take me straight to a room on the ward.

I was torn. Part of me was really upset I wasn’t being sent downstairs to the birthing centre. Part of me was so happy something was happening and the opportunity to get some sort of pain relief was that much closer. I was rushed down the corridor to my birthing room, helped on the bed and strapped to a heart rate monitor. This is when everything went hairy and very fast

The midwives, Rosie and Rosy were immediately concerned and a consultant was called in. He too, seemed concerned and within a few minutes I was told to start pushing as hard and long as I could as Bob’s heart rate was perilously low. She needed to come out now. I was still in my Adidas Stan Smiths and emerald green maxi dress. It made for an interesting scene.

Uh-oh moment

Moments later the room was swarming with people. Fourteen in all, including members of a neonatal team and students, ready to look after Bob when she came out. The consultant could see Bob’s head but said he needed to help her along and would need to give me an episiotomy to make a bit more room. By this point I was delirious with pain and was screaming at him to just do whatever needed doing. I also screamed that nobody had given me pain relief, at which time I was handed gas and air as another doctor slipped a cannula into my wrist. They were concerned I would need a blood transfusion as I’d lost so much blood in my first pregnancy.

The cut was made and with one last massive push, Bob came out. The time was 10:58. We’d been in the hospital for all of half an hour!  My eyes were closed throughout the entire process. Sneaking a quick peak through one eye once or twice. It was just too much to take in. Rosy, the midwife, and The King, had to nudge me to open my eyes and see the sex of the baby. I just cried and said I couldn’t see and to just bloody well tell me!

After the birth

Bob was a beauty and needed no medical intervention. She just wanted to feed. I stripped out of my dress so we could have skin to skin and get her fed. As we nursed, the consultant stitched me up. The local anaesthetic was ineffective and no matter how many injections they gave me, I felt every single stitch. I had to apologise profusely for the screaming and bad words I directed at the poor consultant. He seemed to shrug it off and apologised more to me for not being able to stop the pain! Poor guy.

We ended up spending the entire day in the hospital. I was so dehydrated from months of pregnancy sickness. Of all the things that kept us in, it was because I couldn’t pee. Being able to pass urine is one of the factors you need to be ticked off on before they can discharge you. I’ve never had so many people interested in my ability to pee before. It took twelve hours and about 4 litres of water to finally do a wee and be discharged. Bob was chilled and she happily slept through her first twelve hours. The midwives, doctors, consultants and basically everyone we came into contact with in The Rosie Hospital were wonderful. It was still a relief to get home.

I thank you for sticking with this post. It’s pretty long birth story, I know. I think for me, the whole experience went by in such a flash and left me in a state of shock. Writing this was a form of therapy in a way. Getting it all right in my head.

If you have a birth story you’d like to share, I’d love to read it.