My Positive High Risk Birth Story At Pinderfields Birth Centre in Wakefield.
The Birth Of Lucy
A high-risk pregnancy but a beautiful birth
This is my very own birth story at Pinderfields birth centre in Wakefield in 2018.
Lucy May Brown was born on 05/03/2018 weighing 6lb 14.
I had an extremely high-risk pregnancy with Lucy, unfortunately, she had lots of issues that were found whilst I was pregnant and the birth was looking very medicalised for me. I was told “you will have to be induced,” “you can’t birth on the birth centre,” “we won’t allow you to go past your due date” and “you will have to be continuously monitored.” I felt like all control had been taken away from me and I was suffering from really bad pregnancy anxiety. I felt sick thinking about the birth, what if I had no choice in anything? What if they made decisions for me that I didn’t want? I’m not going to lie, my pregnancy was really tough.
I had to regain some control over my birth, I wanted to feel confident and empowered during labour.
I knew that something had to change, I had to regain some control, I couldn’t continue for the next few months feeling this way. So, I booked myself and my husband onto a hypnobirthing course with Abby from Love Your Birth. It was the best decision that I ever made, my attitude and outlook towards birth completely changed. I started to feel confident, calm and actually excited to be in labour.
Without hypnobirthing, I know that my birth would have looked very different.
Here is the birth story of my beautiful little girl. Both I and Chris had had such a lovely day on Sunday (the day before the birth), going for a nice walk, to the cinema and for a meal. We both had a good night’s sleep and woke up on Monday morning at 6 am as Chris was due to do some overtime. We both headed downstairs and as I went to the kitchen I felt a trickle down my leg, it was only small and nothing of concern as the water was clear but we decided to ring Pinderfields hospital anyway just to see what they suggested we do. The midwife asked for us to come in to be assessed which was fine with us (it was a good excuse for Chris not to have to go to work). We listened to the radio on the way there and our wedding song “You’ve got the love” came on, so we started to sing (badly I might add).
Turns out I had an embarrassing accident
When we got to Pinderfields hospital, we headed straight to the birth centre (we had previously done a trial run so knew exactly where to go). At this point, I felt completely fine but consented to a vaginal examination where the midwife told me that my waters were still intact so to go home (meaning that I’d had an accident in the kitchen). I wasn’t too surprised though as Lucy’s estimated due date was the 15th March and it was only the 5th.
We headed home and decided to go back to bed and have a nap, there was no point in Chris going back to work now. We had episodes of Friends playing in the background and I remember waking up from the nap with slight sensations in my stomach, thinking it was nothing as it wasn’t too dissimilar to period sensations, I went back to sleep, I woke up and drifted back to sleep numerous times but I decided to let Chris sleep as I knew he would need his energy if something were to happen. Eventually, I woke up a few hours later with stronger sensations, so I got up and went to the loo where I had a bloody show.
Our little hypnobirthing bubble
I woke Chris up to tell him and he rang the birth centre where they told him to tell me to get a bath. At this point I was still feeling fine, I did have the sensations but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t deal with, I did start listening to my hypnobirthing MP3 tracks in the bath though and practised my breathing technique (Chris counted me through the technique which was such a good focus for me). Chris had started to time the contractions without me knowing, he didn’t want to put pressure on me just in case it wasn’t labour but he quickly realised that there was a pattern to the contractions.
Fortunately, from the hypnobirthing class he knew what pattern he was looking for so didn’t have to bother me to ask if he should call the birth centre, he just did it. I felt comfortable at home and knew that I probably had a while to go so we decided to stay in our little hypnobirthing bubble. We practised more breathing techniques and Chris told me to visualise my happy place (a beach on our honeymoon that had a small tree that we had sat underneath ). Eventually, it was Chris that said he wanted us to head over to the birth centre, I felt like I could have possibly stayed at home longer (I knew that it was the best place for me to be) but I trusted Chris, so we got into the car and started the journey.
Stuck in traffic during labour but not a care in the world
To be honest, I don’t remember that journey at all, I was very focused, using all of my hypnobirthing techniques to stay calm and focused. Chris told me afterwards that we got stuck in traffic due to a bus that had broken down. I had no idea, as I was in my own little world, practising breathing with my eyes closed and using the ‘self-hypnosis’ technique that we had been taught to remain calm.
My husband the lollipop man
We finally reached the hospital and I remember saying to Chris “don’t bring our bags in as I know for a fact that we will be going home soon, I won’t be dilated enough and I would prefer to be at home anyway” so he left all our bags in the car and as we walked across the zebra crossing I stopped right in the middle of it, the contractions had all of a sudden changed. A lady came over to us and offered to get me a wheelchair but I declined as I felt strongly that I need to be upright (I’m not sure how happy the cars were at this point as I refused to move for a good few minutes). My husband was a little lollipop man and stopped all the traffic.
9cm dilated just using hypnobirthing tools
As we entered the hospital and took the lift to the birth centre I was silent, focused and in my zone. I remember turning the corner and seeing the queue of women waiting to be seen and I thought to myself “oh well, by the time we get to the front I might not have to go home anyway as I think we might be here for a while”. I was thinking of the affirmation “control what you can and let go of what you can’t”. Luckily we were put straight to the front of the queue. We saw the same midwife that we had seen only 7 hours earlier, she examined me again and was shocked herself to tell me that I was 9cm dilated!!! I genuinely could not believe it but I knew that my contractions had changed on that zebra crossing.
Releasing my own natural pain relief
I had previously been told that I wouldn’t be able to birth on the maternity led unit, I would have to be on the labour ward, however using a technique that we had been taught on our hypnobirthing course, I managed to persuade my consultant to let me birth there. We had a lovely room at the birth centre, the lights were dimmed for us and the birth pool was filled, it was fully equipped for hypnobirthers. All the time Chris was counting for me as it was something that I found so helpful. Chris used soft-touch massage on me to help me release my own natural pain relief, this really helped to keep me calm, knowing that he was there and knowing that I was right to trust him and feel confident that he was with me. I got into the birth pool and it was a relief but I found that I actually liked to be pacing around, so after an hour or so I got out of the pool and I tried every position going.
Feeling a little high - but not from the drugs
I remember feeling like I was in another time zone and at one point I felt like I was looking down on myself, it was such a strange experience, especially since I hadn’t had any pain relief (I genuinely think the cocktail of hormones that I was producing were making me feel high). I would never have described my contractions as painful, they were intense and powerful but I always managed and then during the break I was laughing with Chris and the midwife.
“I feel like superwoman”
A few hours after arriving at the birth centre I gave birth to Lucy, there was a point when I didn’t think I could do it, not because I was in pain but because I didn’t want to eat which meant I was losing energy. I was offered gas and air but Chris told me he didn’t think I needed it and to be honest, I knew that I didn’t need it either and that if it did make me feel sick that would be worse for me (I hate being sick). Lucy was born calmly and entered the world very quietly. I had immediate skin to skin contact with her, Chris cut the cord after it had stopped pulsing. I tried to birth the placenta myself but as I was so tired from not eating anything I decided after a while to have a little bit of help. My first thought when Lucy arrived was “I feel like superwoman”. Chris had skin to skin contact with Lucy whilst I was stitched up (I only had a small tear) and then I rang my mum to tell her that she could only come to the birth centre if she brought me a can of coke and some sweets.
Turns out I hadn’t had an accident
Remember the midwife suggesting that I might have weed myself as my waters hadn’t gone? Well, they never went because it turns out that I think they may have gone in the bath the day before, it was only afterwards that it occurred to me that when I thought I had slid down the bath causing a wave (I was huge), that actually it might have been my waters. I’m not 100% sure why the midwife hadn’t noticed that they weren’t there at that first examination but actually, I’m pretty glad I didn’t know as it allowed me to continue on as normal. Do you also remember me telling you that we left our bags in the car? Well, I refused to let Chris go and get them so I birthed naked and all the hypnobirthing tricks like the lavender, tea lights, MP3’s, tennis ball were all still in the car. I never got a chance to use any of them but actually, all I needed was the hypnobirthing breathing technique, faith in Chris that he would be a wonderful birth partner, confidence that I could do it (from all the birth prep that I had done in pregnancy), visualisations and the knowledge of the process of birth, don’t get me wrong the lavender and tea lights would have helped but I had all the power within myself.
Giving birth was the single most empowering thing that I have ever done and I have hypnobirthing to thank for that. Without hypnobirthing I know that my birth would have been very medicalised and whilst I believe that a medicalised birth can still be positive, hypnobirthing gave me the confidence to trust my instincts which told me that I could give birth without the need for medicalisation.
Hannah and Chris, Wakefield. 2018
