Just a quick one but felt I should as have been ALL OVER this board in recent weeks about EVERYTHING and have had a lot of great support.
Ds2 was born after 36 hours latent labour (totally anxiety mediated!) yesterday afternoon. I went into hospital at 4am on Sunday tearful and agitated and feeling I just needed drugs to sleep but the supportive team there gave me the most amazing home-from-home pool suite and encouraged me to take as long as I wanted with just dh and I to "build a nest" and see if labour would progress. They followed EVERY thing I had asked for in terms of communicating with me/my preferences and co-ordinated this across all staff. The midwife when in the room was "there but not there" and encouraged me to feel I could make any decision I wanted at any time with no timescales, pressure etc as long as they were happy baby was safe.
Getting in the pool at 5cms led to one and a half hours of intense, furious labour with the most overwhelming, powerful transition in which everything I ever worried about or felt anxious about flooded me.. but by just staying with me, not talking me out of it and just being there, dh and the midwife helped me through. After it passed, I got into the pool and just sat for 20 minutes in total silence, almost like I had just spent every last bit of emotion and energy, and then I knew it was time for my baby to come. Again, midwife just sat with me.. told me once that my body would know what to do and just to go with it, to let it happen and otherwise just waited. 20 minutes later and having felt all sorts of doubt and fear and even panic as I pushed which I battled and breathed against, my little son swam calmly into this world and up into my arms.
It was the most intense, powerful and amazing experience of my life. It is not the end, my anxiety about my son's health as a newborn is still with me but I wanted to just update and say for all the concern and worry about how the NHS treats women whose fear of chilbirth is debilitating, I have to say it came through 100%. I felt cared for, understood and as though how I felt about birth really mattered. It was exactly the opposite of the clock-watching, time-pressured, numbers-vs-patients mentality there is so much fear of among women and I wanted to share that this is possible x