First time birth stories

[SquigsC]

Hello you lovely lot!

I am currently 33 weeks and time is not slowing down! This is my first baby and therefore, first birth experience, and I would love to hear your stories. I would also love to hear anything you wish you had known prior to your first birth as I am trying to be prepared!

As a head's up, I am doing antenatal classes, hypnobirthing online and I am trying to make myself do birth affirmations (I find this bit harder!).

Many thanks in advance :)

I'll tell you something about the birth of my daughter- I didn't push once! With every contraction, she just nudged her way out a slither more. I was just on all fours concentrating on my breathing and my body took over and did everything.

When you hear people say "the pushing stage", it didn't happen with me. I don't even know when I got to 10cm.When I got to the hospital, I was examined and was 7cm, taken into the birthing room, whereby I just got down onto all fours and I just stayed there for about 4/5 hours until she was born (I literally didn't move) At any point I couldn't have told you how close she was to coming out, I had no idea when her head had been birthed, and even after her shoulders were out, she didn't "plop" onto the bed, she carried on nudging her way out, stomach, bum, then she was put into my arms. Isn't it funny how nature just does it's thing sometimes!

@Orangio true. Don't feel bad OP if you don't feel that high initially.

Thank you OP for creating such a lovely thread. This is exactly what I needed to read 😊

I got Lesley Regan's 'Your pregnancy week by week' from the library - covered all aspects of birth and evidence-based so I knew what to expect about vaginal birth, pain relief options, CS etc. I also did a hypnobirthing course but it wasn't any help.

My birth plan was left very open - I wanted access to all types of pain relief when I asked for them (I'd been under a lot of pressure to birth in the MLU which I didn't want but eventually got labour ward) and I didn't want forceps delivery. I'm not sure if that would have been followed if we'd needed it at that stage though as the baby is so low a CS becomes difficult.

You also don't have to do skin to skin etc after the birth if you don't want to. It's ok to hand the baby to someone else or put them in the crib! I felt under a lot of pressure to do it and ended up doing skin-to-skin for an hour while having my tears sewn up which I hated!

I also wish I'd known how common low supply is and milk delay when breastfeeding. I wish I'd taken some formula into hospital with me and used it for a few top ups in the early days. The midwives were very anti-formula and I ended up with my baby seriously ill with dehydration and having to be tube fed.

Be prepared that you might not get what you want. No epidural, they might only have space on the labour ward or birth centre, you might be left for ages and your partner will have to keep at them to get you a room. Nurses might suggest interventions and you'll have to know what you want, and stay calm and trust the process (I had one randomly say I needed to eat chocolate because my blood sugar was too low, and if I didn't I would need a C-section. Ended up projectile vomiting chocolate across the room.)

It might also take ages but don't let anyone rush you as long as baby is fine. My first labour was 36 hours and the nurses were saying I was progressing 'too slowly', but all that did was stress me out when everything was going fine.

And good luck! It's an amazing experience. x

Oh, and bring snacks to the hospital!! You'll be starving afterwards.

Also take food and snacks- postnatal ward is on usual hospital meal times so breakfast at 8am, lunch at midday and tea at 5pm. Then nothing until 8am!! I was so hungry after giving birth and being nil by mouth for hours - I had tea on antenatal at 5pm on Sat, gave birth Sun afternoon, didn't get to postnatal until midnight so didn't eat anything between 5pm Sat and 8am on Mon!

My first birth was almost 12 years ago now and I never thought I would be doing it again but here I am, 27 weeks in! Life has a funny way of going about itself :)

I went into labour naturally, 3 days early with my daughter. Labour at home was horrendous for me, she was back to back and I think I had around 12 hours at home of contractions gradually becoming closer together before I was 4cm and permitted to be admitted to the labour ward.
I must say, I had a plan in place in regards to pain relief and what position I wanted to give birth but I ended up going into hospital in my husband's t-shirt and followed what my body was telling me to do.
After being admitted to hospital and receiving pain relief (I had gas and air and diamorphine) I found it to be manageable. My daughter was born within 7 hours after being told I was 4cm with no complications.

Only advice I feel I should give is post birth.. as desperate as you are to be home with your new family, ensure that you are ready! I breast fed with my first and was sent home from hospital within 12 hours of giving birth, although I thought I had breast feeding down, she wouldn't latch when we got home and we ended up back in childrens A&E that night :( so just be sure all questions are answered and that you feel comfortable with every process before agreeing to go home.

@RidingMyBike can I ask why you didn’t want the skin to skin? No judgement just curious 🙂

Hi @PinkFizz1 I'd expected to like it and so much emphasis had been placed on how vital it was for establishing BF (this turned out to be cobblers!).

The reality was my baby was covered in vernix and my blood (I had 2 tears and an episiotomy) which I found revolting and made her smell weird. She was literally born and plonked straight on my chest with not even a wipe and without a nappy on (I've got friends who ended up being weed on at this point although we avoided this!). And I was expected to do S2S for absolutely ages, including whilst being sewn up which was painful and u comfortable. I was exhausted and, as an introvert, actually just wanted some time on my own to process the birth. I was also terrified I'd drop her as I wasn't feeling that great. I did get half an hour on my own when DD had to go to NICU to have a cannula put in and it was so amazing just to relax, not have to think about anybody else and know someone else was looking after her.

Congratulations and good luck!

I read so many birth stories before my first. All kinds, positive and negative. So I had a pretty good idea of what could happen and what I preferred if it was my choice.

I tried to remind myself over and over that millions of women have been through it before and odds were it would be okay.

I tried to think about it like - contractions are, generally, less than a minute each. I can manage intense pain for 1 minute, and just get through one at a time. Don't think about hours of pain, just one contraction at a time.

I found learning about 'emotional signposts' helped - especially the transition phase. When you feel like you can't do it anymore, you're probably almost there!

My first was born at 40+1. My waters broke on my due date, I waited a long time to call the midwives because I knew that as soon as I told them, I'd be 'on the clock.' I kept an eye on fluid (clear) and movements (normal) and I started having prelabour contractions during the day. I went into the maternity centre that evening, they said I was only in early stages and to go home, to come back in the morning for induction. It took til 2pm for a room & induction to be organised, about 17 hrs since waters broke. I kept contracting & walking all morning. By the time they got the drip in I was 4cm and just about in proper labour on my own anyway. I was scared that after such a long day/night/day I wouldn't be able to cope with induction pain or being mostly stuck on my back (monitor). But, once it really began in earnest I kind of mentally got in the zone and it was okay, other than once when they had to turn the drip down as it was too strong and I had non stop contractions for a bit. Dd was born 7 hours after the drip went in, after nearly 2 hours of pushing, no epi, no tearing, I only needed gas&air. It was a really positive experience overall! I've done it thrice more since and one more to go later this year 😄

Understand that it's basically a marathon or something intense like a parachute jump (depending on the speed of labour!) Pace yourself and have lots of techniques prepared. Be prepared to go with the flow and adapt to what is going on. Some techniques will be completely useless and others will be much more helpful than you thought. Ask for pain relief if you want it. If you don't feel sure, ask your midwives for guidance or explain what you're feeling/experiencing and ask for suggestions. They have attended hundreds of births and their experience is very useful.

If the affirmations help you feel positive, confident, in control and capable then use them. If they make you feel that only a "natural" childbirth is a successful outcome and anything else is a failure, bin them. Our bodies are capable of amazing things, but childbirth is also extremely intense, and there are inherent risks. Modern medicine really helps alleviate those risks, so don't see intervention/doctors as the enemy. But ask as much as you like for information to make a choice. Generally, if an intervention is being suggested it's because there is already something being flagged up, so it's worth understanding. Sometimes people are offered intervention, such as induction for example, and are upset because they are seeing their vision of a lovely calm natural waterbirth vs this medicalised fast track "machine that goes ping" birth. But that might not be what's on the table right now. You might actually be looking at balancing the risk of stillbirth (in an extreme case) or a vaginal birth which will be higher risk and complex with high risk of an emergency, crash c-section vs a still relatively hands off vaginal birth with a little push to get it started off. It's always worth asking the medical professionals for context if you do not know where something has come from, and if something is not an emergency, let them know what your priorities or fears are and they should be able to explain or help you work out how best to accommodate them.

Sometimes something is protocol, and then it helps to ask well what does this mean for my specific situation? I think my most useful question was: Can we wait? What are the alternatives? I also liked the acronym BRAIN - Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Intuition, Nothing (the last two = what does my gut tell me / can we just wait?)

walk and eat carbs in early labour. Treat it as an endurance event because it is.

@RidingMyBike Makes sense, thanks for sharing!

That's OK @PinkFizz1 thank you for asking. I hope it helps the OP! I can remember being absolutely thrown because I didn't fall instantly in love with the baby we'd been longing for for years, just wanted a break from her and it's entirely normal to feel rather wobbly and very uncertain after losing a lot of blood etc!

I am still completely revolted that, because they don't bath babies in hospital now, DD had loads of my dried blood in her hair for days until we could get home and give her a bath. That was day 4. Totally revolting and incredibly unhygienic surely?!

Seconding those saying not to leave it too late to go to hospital, especially if you’re relying on cabs or live some distance away. Like PP I was told not to come in because it seemed too early as I was coping well with the pain and my contractions weren’t as long as the midwife thought they should be. Minutes later I lost a huge load of really bloody mucus and headed straight in as couldn’t get through to check whether this was normal. I got to hospital around 25 minutes after the call when I was told to stay home. I was already 7cm dilated and I think the stress of travelling in by taxi at that point stalled my labour and meant I got stuck in transition for literally hours. Not something I’d recommend!

@RidingMyBike My DD also had bit of blood and vernix in her hair which I found a bit distracting when I was cuddling her so I asked the midwives for a top and tail bowl of water and some cotton wool balls and then just laid her on a mat on my bed and gave her a wash all over. I think these are the sorts of things they don’t really have time to offer as a matter of course but can provide if asked.

@RidingMyBike The opposite, actually. The vernix newborns are born with acts as a natural moisturiser and protectant against infection, and it's recommended not to bathe newborns for at least 24 hours.

Agree that it's impossible to have a firm plan but I think it's really important to have a birth preferences document (as opposed to a birth plan). I used a template I found online and stated my preferences for everything from cervical sweeps, through to placenta delivery and breastfeeding. I made a copy to go in my yellow book for the midwives and also gave a copy for my partner so he could advocate on my behalf.

I think the preferences document is especially important if you're planning on using hypnobirthing breathing and visualisations like I did (I also used TENS and gas and air). With the hypnobirthing I definitely went 'into myself' - I didn't say a word for the whole labour, just stayed focused. Very unlike me! So it was really important that others knew what I wanted without having to break my concentration. For example, they got the birth pool ready for me when I got to a certain stage as I had asked and then I simply had to agree to use it, by that stage in labour I wouldn't have been thinking straight to even remember there was a birth pool!

Anyway, I recommend hypnobirthing - I used it from the first contractions. And strongly recommend making sure your birth partner understands what hypnobirthing entails (I got mine to read sections of the book 'practical ways to make your birth better').

I'm not keen on the use of preferences instead of plan - I do get the point that you can't always plan such an unpredictable event but I also think preferences evokes even more of a sense of "I'll get to pick what I want to happen!"

I liked what Milli Hill said about plans not necessarily being fixed and nobody would laugh at you if you went into anything else unpredictable with a plan, in fact it would be seen as sensible. People go into battle, business etc with a plan. Why not birth?

I do think the way birth plans are presented/taught is sometimes unhelpful.

I did a lot of if > then in my birth plans and this was helpful for me to have made specific decisisions in advance even though of course most of the plan was never used.

I do think I was really lucky to get great antenatal education. I went to NCT classes and our teacher covered the physiology of birth and why certain things like being upright, positioning, water etc are helpful but also went into every intervention, in what situations they would commonly be needed, what would happen if they were needed, etc. She set up a little Playmobil operating theatre to demonstrate how many people would be in the room if we ended up with a c-section and she explained who everybody was and what their role would be. I can't remember it but I remember that she said it was often overwhelming if this happened without you knowing that it might, I didn't have a c-section but I think that would have helped a lot.

Thanks @georgarina yes, I knew that about vernix even though I thought it looked gross but I do think it's revolting and unhygienic to have dried blood in the baby's hair hanging around for days on postnatal. The staff offered no support or advice with baby care - it was another mum who suggested wetting the cottonwool to wipe up the meconium!

I spent £500 on hypno birth sessions during pregnancy, determined to have the no-drugs, no-intervention birth. I ended up having an induction, epidural & episiotomy! And, thank god those things are available. Open minded is the way forward and listen to the medics!