Lindsey & Maisie's Birth Story

On my due date, I had my check up with the midwife, they’d offered me a sweep but I decided to turn it down as I was only just at 40 weeks and wanted to wait a bit longer. I remember the student midwife saying to me go home, relax & do whatever makes you feel happy - watch your favourite film/ eat your favourite food etc.. so I did! I left my appointment feeling really good, happy & excited that hopefully my little one would soon be here. It was probably just coincidence but I’d like to believe it helped.

3am the next morning I woke up with mild backache, not thinking too much of it & tried to go back to sleep. 5am I was starting to realise that the back ache was coming and going and that this could be the start of labour so my husband ran me a bath, put on my steam diffuser with some lavender oil & my relaxation playlist and I just concentrated on relaxing.

9am, contractions were coming more regular & longer now and I was feeling very uncomfortable so thought we should probably head over to the midwife unit as it was a good half an hour drive away too (although I think my husband was worrying more than I was!). When we got there I was surprised to find out I was already 4.5cms dilated & in active labour! My waters broke not long after we’d arrived, but only a little bit. The midwife ran me a bath with some lavender oil & I carried on trying to be relaxed & as calm as I could with my relaxation playlist on in the background and concentrated on my breathing. Contractions were getting a lot stronger now so I had some gas & air to help take the edge off. I started to feel pressure and the urge to push so the midwife quickly got me out of the bath & into the lovely warm birthing pool. My contractions started to ease off though so the midwife took the gas & air off me so I would continue to push. Then about 45mins later, when I was starting to feel like nothing was happening & I couldn’t do it anymore, 1pm my beautiful little baby girl arrived! (We were shocked as everyone had predicted a boy). We had some skin to skin and my husband cut the cord. I remember such an overwhelming high feeling of love, joy & relief!!

I got out of the birthing pool and over to the bed, and had the injection to help with the placenta. I did have some tearing so the midwife stitched me up, while Maisie had some cuddles with her Dad. Once all that was done, we had some more skin to skin and I breastfed her. I had to stay in the unit over night as I’d lost a lot of blood, but they were happy with how I was over night and we got to go home the following afternoon.

I was terrified at the thought of childbirth and hypnobirthing definitely helped me to prepare. Concentrating on being relaxed and staying as calm as possible - focussing on my breathing, definitely helped me to manage.