Beth's story, Manchester - gas and air and the luxury of a birthing suite

"Well with Callum being on time, I expected Charley to be as well! However at 11 days late I felt ready to pop! Due to be induced at 9am on the 17th Nov and I woke about 5am with my first contraction! I decided to sleep and see when the next ones came and they were coming at every 9 minutes so I had a shower and got up and ready and woke DP and said we were going ealier to the hospital as in the shower they were becoming more frequent! Arrived at the hospital at 8am and was put on a monitor and when I was assessed about 10am I was shocked to be told I was already 3cm! It took 24 hours with Callum and a drip to get to 3cm! I had a TENS machine which really took the edge off all the way! I was all set for an epidural as I had one with Callum but he was a 34 hour labour but as I knew one of the midwives she mentioned I could go to the birthing suite and 2 other midwives recommended it! Not wanting to seem like a wimp I said I would consider it! They did my bloods to check my iron and I was secretly hoping I was high risk (i.e. low iron) so that I could head down for an epidural however I came back low risk and I knew I wanted it to be as pleasant as possible for DP as he wanted to go home for a sleep half way through labour with Callum! Went to the birthing suite, it was lovely as it was your own room with a bath and bed and you could use the kitchen for tea and coffee....I was nervous as hell!

Had a bath about 3pm as I wasn't progressing much then the lovely midwife came in and said if I wasn't progressing much in the next hour I could go down for an epidural!

"Yes" I thought, however I said " Could I not stay here?" (for the sake of DP as it was more comfortable! Hoping she said " no"). She then said yes... ooopssss! She said she would break my waters about 5pm and see what happened as the bath had stopped my contractions! 5pm came and I lay on the bed after another big show and she broke my waters, they gushed out like there was no tomorrow and I became scared again (you wouldn't have thought I have given birth before!).

Contractions started thick and fast, every 2 mins so I paced the room for an hour with my TENS machine on before the midwife came in and said I could then get in the birthing pool! (I was then 5cm!) God why didn't I have an epidural, wimp woman I was thinking!

Got in the pool at 6pm and I thought you could have Pethedine (but not in the pool) so in the pool I just had gas and air and the contractions were so bad I thought I was dying and towards the end I was crying (wimp woman again). The midwife said "I want you to have this baby by 9.30pm as I finish the shift". At 7pm I was like, "I want this baby now, not in another hour and a half!". She checked me, I was only 8cm! God I thought I was dying again! (Girls you will be so proud of yourselves for anyone just doing gas and air!) Midwife told me when I feel like I need a poo that's when I'm ready and to push, and to be honest I never got that feeling, the contractions got unbearable about 8pm so I pushed TWICE and he popped out! I stood up and unfortunately there was blood gushing out of me and the birth pool was red (I had ripped) so went to be stitched up after (that was actually worse than childbirth) but god, me!!!! I did it without an epidural I felt amazing afterwards!!!!"

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Sam's story, Kent - large baby and haemorrhage

"A tough journey but an amazing reward...

On the Friday night 27th November 2009, on day before my due date, large and uncomfortable and like all parents to be desperate to get things moving, we went for a walk down to the fish and chip shop which involves a steep up hill walk on the way back. No instant labour, no broken waters (nice chips though), but disappointment on the walking makes the baby comes front - well that is until around 5am on Saturday 28th (my due date) I woke feeling a little damp so got up for the loo and had a bit of a trickle. 

I didn't really think anything of it just that I was obviously more desperate for the toilet than I thought...wrong. I continued to wake approx every hour with the same trickling every time I moved. To be honest although I was aware that waters could leak, mainly I was totally panicking that I was incontinent as I wasn't getting any pains... but as time went by I noticed the fluid was quite jelly like so became quite sure I was losing my waters, I took the time to have a nice bath, shave my legs, make some food, but by the afternoon the colour was changing which was of concern to the hospital, so on our way we picked up my mum arriving at the hospital about 4pm. 

At the hospital they examined me and seemed unsure if my waters or not but there was a sudden flood, so I am guessing if they weren't broken, they broke them for me, however I was around 3cm and baby had pooed and so were going to admit me and put me on a drip to get things moving. They put a monitor on babies head and I was bed bound...not the birth I was expecting. I had attended NCT classes and was planning on using all the things we had been taught about keeping mobile, I was open to the idea of a water birth and had this idea that of labour being exactly like what it was not for me. 

By the time I had been hooked up to all the necessary machinery, it was 7pm, the midwife confirmed that she would examine me at midnight, this was my goal and I was determined to make it to then without any pain relief, so I soldiered on happy with the fact that I had been told I would go 1-2cm an hour so by midnight should be almost at the pushing stage. 

Yep you guessed it midnight comes and I am 5cm...cue me getting upset and starting on the gas and air. I had mixed feelings about the gas and air I loved the feeling of drunkenness and hated the loss of control I felt. The drip had been cranked up to max and the contractions were coming one on top of the other, I decided that I would rather be without the pain but in control mentally and so begged for an epidural. 

Epidural helped a lot and I was able to nap, however I had problems that the epidural was more effective than on one side than the other. I was examined again at about 4am when I was 8cm and then at about 8am when they decided I was ready to push. 

I started pushing but had excruciating pain in my back which made me very very sick, the registrar gave me a top up of a different drug which stopped the pain. The midwife told me that baby was back to back and the pain reached a head as it turned the right way. After half an hour of pushing I hadn't managed to deliver baby and the concern was growing because of his poo, so the docs came in and put a suction cup on babies head and also cut me, on the first pull on the suction cup it popped off and after a couple more pushes I delivered baby on my own at 9:57am. 

Everything seemed fine, baby was big and healthy and I couldn't take my eyes off it...that is until I became aware of the rising panic around me and then the out of this world pain as a doctor started to pump her fists up and down hard on my tummy. The pain was worse than any part of the labour and the epidural did nothing to stop it, I just screamed and screamed totally unaware of what was happening. I was aware of being rushed up the corridor on my bed and my body convulsing and agreeing to all the drugs they were offering... I remember asking if I was going to die and telling them to look after my baby but as you can imagine I soon zoned out. 

I came round a couple of hours later. I had an unexplained haemorrhage and had lost half of my bodies blood, the doctors put a balloon inside my womb filled with water which put pressure on to stop the bleeding, the balloon was left for 24 hours and then a little bit drained each hour until it was removed. I also had a blood transfusion over about a 48 hour period. 

Three hours after he was born I met my beautiful son Lucas, weighing it at 9lb 1oz, I would have died for him that day and, I would go through the same again and again for him."


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