I was very lucky to share my third pregnancy experience with my two sisters, with my older sister who was due just 13 days before me and another sister due just three months later.
My older sister had gone almost a week overdue and decided to try Acupuncture to bring on her labour and thankfully it worked and she gave birth the next day!
As I had gone over 41 weeks with my two previous pregnancies, I was desperate to give birth on time! I booked myself in for acupuncture in the morning of my 40-week checkup as it had obviously worked for my sister.
At 11:30am I had acupuncture and at 3:30pm I had a 'stretch and sweep' at my checkup and was told I was only 1cm dilated.
Following these appointments, I went home and tried to move things along by expressing colostrum and bounced on the fit ball. This started some mild Braxton Hicks, however, I’d been having these for weeks leading up to this, so I wasn’t convinced I was going into labour.
A few hours passed and I started to get quite uncomfortable with the contractions and found myself needing to focus and breathe through them.
I decided this was probably the real thing and thought I should try to get some rest.
I hopped into bed to listen to some hypnobirthing I had downloaded and expected the contractions to ease as they had done previously. An hour later at 11pm they had ramped up and I decided to wake up Mitch, my partner, to get our bags ready while I called the hospital.
The Midwife asked me if I’d lost my mucus plug or if my waters had broken - I explained I hadn’t and she seemed hesitant to allow me to come in as my contractions were also only lasting 30-40 seconds, however, they were quite frequent and only 2 minutes apart.
After explaining that this was my third child and I had previously had quick labours, she allowed me to come in.
I was lucky my mum had decided to stay the night in case I went into labour - so we didn’t have to organise our older boys to be cared for.
We arrived at the birth suite at 11:30pm and I was placed on the CTG machine for monitoring and as it all looked fine I was taken off to labour however I wanted.
My midwife Chantelle and the student I had were fantastic! They encouraged me to make the space my own and do whatever felt natural to me.
My second son was born 1.5 hours after my waters broke at home, so because my waters were still intact at this point I thought I’d still have at least a couple hours of labour, so we decided to start filling up the bath.
For pain relief, I used a comb and squeezed it in my palm during contractions. It worked as both a pressure point and a distraction from the pain. The other thing that worked for me was something called “horses breath” where you breath out of loosely closed lips making a horse sound. This helped to keep me calm and regulate my breathing.
After walking around the room labouring for maybe 10 minutes I started to feel the slightest urge to bear down, although I could resist it and continued to breathe through contractions.
As that urge increased I let my midwife know and she suggested I get undressed. With the next contraction my body involuntarily started to push, I’d remembered this happening with my first two births before I was fully dilated.
A couple of minutes before midnight Chantelle checked between my legs with a mirror while I was standing next to the bed to see if she could see anything - as I get another contraction, there is a pop and a HUGE splash on the ground and my poor midwife was covered!
This was new to me as I’d only ever experienced a leak rather than a flood in my previous two labours. I was clearly further along than I thought, so the bath was turned off. I would have loved to birth in the bath but unfortunately, my hospital's policy didn’t allow it.
The two main things I had in my birth plan were for Mitch to catch our baby and to have a physiological third stage (where you allow the placenta to birth naturally without the use of the Syntocinon injection).
I decide to get on the bed and kneel rather than stand to make it easier for Mitch to catch Leo.
I asked Chantelle to check my cervix as I didn’t want to actively start pushing if I wasn’t all the way dilated. After she checked, she suggested I breathe through a few more contractions as I had a small “lip” in my cervix that was in the way.
As I got back onto my knees the urge becomes too strong and I can’t help but push!
After a couple of surges, Leo started crowning and I gently breathed him out with some guidance from My midwife. This helped slow his head down to allow for stretching and to avoid tearing.
His head was out but his shoulders became a little stuck. Fortunately, after repositioning my legs and pelvis Leo was born at 12:12am into dads arms - less than 45 minutes after arriving.
I fed Leo for an hour with no sign of the placenta.
The obstetrician arrived and asked me to try and empty my bladder, which I wasn’t able to do. She then administered Sintocinon and Ergometrine and tried some cord traction.
Still no placenta.
I start to panic slightly as they start to discuss the possibility of going to theatre to have the placenta manually removed. Chantelle was fantastic and reassured me this wasn’t due to my decision to have a natural third stage, and likely would have happened regardless.
A catheter was placed to relieve my bladder and the Ob tried again with some cord traction and uterine massage. Finally, the placenta was delivered and I was flooded with relief!
After being sutured for a borderline 2nd-degree tearing, I was finally able to get warm in a nice hot shower.
Leo weighed in at 3635g and dad dressed and wrapped him up.
I am so thankful for my midwife who was so supportive and really advocated for me when other staff members would suggest something I didn’t want such as cutting the cord. Thanks to her we got an awesome photo of Leo still attached to his placenta with a true knot in the cord!
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