John's Birth Story

Pre-read warning: This is a long one!

It was literally a last minute decision to go to aqua natal on Wednesday (11/01/2012). I’d been out of town with my mum and sister, visiting my Aunty, and only got in 20 minutes before the class was due to start. I decided that since Kathryn - one of the girls from my antenatal classes - had been in touch to see if I was going, I’d make the effort. Plus Iain made the point that it could well be the last aqua natal class I went to.
The class itself was great. Busy - every other time if been there was 4 girls max, but this time there was close to 20. It was walking home though, that the braxton hicks started. And they weren’t stopping!
By Thursday morning I think I knew we wouldn’t make it to the 20th but wasn’t wanting to jinx it.
I spent the weekend on mission ‘get-baby-out’ which involved lots of walking, bumpy car rides, curry & chilli for tea, spending my life on my birth ball and having some time with Iain in the mornings. Out of all of those things I honestly believe it was the walking that really helped - gravity on my side and all that.



Come Monday morning I was in agony. My back was killing me and the pain was moving to the front now. I’d barely slept a wink the night before and after managing a glorious hours sleep in the morning after Iain went to work, I decided it was time to get up and start the day. I went to the Post Office, supermarket, chemist (in hope of some extra pain relief, but no joy), did the ironing, hoovering & dishes and it was only after I spoke to my Mum on the phone I thought I should time the rhythm of the pain I was having.
5 minutes apart, lasting 40 seconds at a time.


Oh shit. This was really happening.

On the birthing ball I went.

At this stage the pain was like the worst period pain I’d ever had but I could deal with it. At around 4pm I thought I’d try my TENS machine out but couldn’t reach my back to stick it on, so powered on until 6pm when Iain got in from work. By this time the pain was increasing so the TENS was a relief but the intervals were still varying - 4-7 minutes apart, lasting 40 to 70 seconds.
We decided to phone triage. They asked me questions (waters intact, baby ok?) and decided that since I was still coping to call back when the contractions were 4 minutes apart or if anything else changed.
I watched some telly, bounced on my ball and phoned my Mum.

It was 10.30pm when my contractions got to 4 minutes apart so we phoned triage to let them know and they told us to head on in.
I was still very calm about the whole situation - why threat over the inevitable? Iain however, was starting to panic. Suddenly everything became very real.

We arrived at triage for assessment at around 11pm and by 11.20pm they’d checked me over - 3-4cm dilated and the midwife sweeped my cervix to encourage things to progress. Iain ran to the car to get our bags and we were admitted to the Birthing Centre.
I was so happy! My dream all along was to labour in the Birthing Centre. Brand new rooms, all with their own pool and little medical intervention. I was so convinced it’d be too busy and we’d be turned away but here we were; in the room I’d meet my baby.

My Mum arrived not long after midnight to which Iain let out a huge sigh of relief. Someone who knew what was going on!
The midwife read through my Birth Plan and over the next few hours checked in on me and babies heart rate at 15 minute intervals.
By 3am I was exhausted. I decided to have a lie down, which the midwife said was fine as she’d just check me where I was. This time however I knew something was up. So far she’d listen to babies heart rate for a few minutes; usually through one contraction and that’d be it. This time though she had the Doppler on me for a good 10 minutes, through numerous contractions.
She went to get another midwife to double check everything. They agreed babies heart rate was a little odd (even now I’m not entirely sure what the problem was…) but they wanted me to go to the labour ward for monitoring.

This was my nightmare. I wanted to be in this beautiful, relaxed atmosphere, not in a hospital ward strapped to a machine. I started shaking at the thought of it. Everyone reassured me not to worry and that if all was fine I could come back down to the Birthing Centre. I knew they were lying but we gathered up my things I headed up to Labour Ward.

Walking along the corridor there was doctors and medical equipment everywhere. I hoped none of this would enter my room as I worryingly rubbed my bump.
The room we ended up in was tiny. Hospital bed, wires and tubes all over the place, drawers of equipment and the heart monitor.
The midwife wasted no time in strapping me up.
“1 hour on this just to check the baby.” She explained that one sensor was for babies heart rate, the other for the contractions. She also ran through the graph that was slowly printing off and explained again why they wanted to monitor baby.

An hour came and went and as they contractions intensified, the midwife gave me gas & air. My god! That stuff is gooood!!

It eventually hit 5am. I’d asked when we arrived when they’d consider breaking my waters.
“5.30am,” they told me.
Time was drawing near. The midwife then decided that they’d go ahead and break them now in hope of speeding things up a little. She first checked how much I’d progressed.
Still 3-4cm dilated.
My heart sank. 6 hours we’d been here and nothing. I could have been at home in my bed instead of in this place.
She went on to break my waters. I sooked on my gas & air whilst squeezing my Mums hand (Iain had to leave the room to prevent himself passing out) and tried to ignore what was happening. It took the midwife a good 5-10 minutes to actually break my waters, and according to my Mum, she was crawling onto the bed trying to force them to break.

Straight away the contractions were worse. Each one stronger than the last. At around 6am the midwife asked if I wanted to consider any other form of pain relief. She even said, “you’re coping extremely well and I don’t want to offer you it if you don’t need it.” Iain and my Mum thought I should, as they know I’d wither in pain for god-knows how long until it was completely unbearable.
I was given the option of diamorphine or an epidural. Both Iain and my Mum knew how much I wanted to avoid an epidural but my Mum still felt the need to give me the ‘you wont be failing if you have one’ speech. My birth plan stated I’d want to try diamorphine before considering an epidural, so diamorphine it was.

My midwife left to organise my diamorphine and came back with another midwife 10 minutes later to give me my jag in the bum.
Within minutes it was taking affect.
Have you ever read/seen Trainspotting? I’ll tell you this; they have it spot on! Everyone in the rooms conversations went on loop, I kept hearing my name and date of birth in my head(?!) and I could feel the out-of-control grin appear on my face. No wonder people get addicted to this stuff!
As for it in the form of pain relief? Well, I honestly don’t think it stopped me feeling the pain at all but what it did do was stop me dreading the next contraction and feel like I could deal with the pain much easier. This was a god send as the contractions were getting stronger each time.

I felt like things were progressing at a good rate but when my midwife said, “I think we’ll have a baby by lunchtime.” we were all a bit devastated. That was still at least 5-6 hours away.

My midwife & Mum told Iain to try and get some rest. That he’d need his energy for later. I agreed. My midwife went to find him a bean bag so he could try and get 40 winks. I was exhausted too but despite my attempts I, couldn’t sleep. Instead I drifted in and out of naps, waking every few minutes to check on the monitor that nothing had changed.

Iain buried his head into the beanbag and the next contraction came over me. MY GOD! I’d heard people talk about the urge to push but this was unreal. I was about 7.30am at the point - not lunchtime.
I shouted, “I feel like I need to push!” Iain (only just settled) shot up. My midwife looked at me and said, “ok,” clearly not believing me. The contraction went and so did the urge.
The next one came and the urge to push became stronger. “I wanna push!” I shouted. The midwife decided to check my cervix. “We’ll have a baby by the end of my shift!” she announced. Iain asked when her shift finished; “8am.” Thank god.

“If you want to push, Amy, go ahead.” Ha, I already was! Another midwife was called and I was asked to bring my legs right up to my chest and push everything into my bottom with the next contraction. I was convinced I was going to empty my bowels all over the bed but I did as they said.
Iain stayed up at my head but my Mum went for a closer look. “You can look too, Amy.” the midwives said. “NO!”
I was told the head was coming but I had already guessed that. I never thought my lady bits could sting so much! Especially since my contractions were still up to 5 minutes apart, meaning I had a head sitting there, unable to push for up to 5 minutes at a time, whilst the midwives frantically rubbed my belly to try and bring on the next one.

After a few agonising pushes the head was out. A couple more pushes and that was it.
The relief!
“Well, Daddy, what have we got?” the midwife asked. (The most important part of my Birth Plan was that I wanted Iain to reveal the sex to me.)
He choked on his words. “Oh my god. It’s a boy!”

My boy. My son.

He was passed up to my chest for skin to skin contact. They gave him a rub with a towel and he let out a cry.
“Maaam!!”
“It sounds like he’s saying ‘Mum’!” my Mum said. Clearly a Mummy’s boy already!
The midwife cut his cord and delivered the placenta. Iain cried and my Mum beamed with joy. He was here. My perfect little boy was here. And already rooting around on my chest, looking for his breakfast!

“Does he have a name?” the midwives asked.
I looked at Iain; “is he?”
He nodded.
“John." I replied. "John Scott."