Katie tells her birth story in her own words…

Pregnancy

After not feeling heard or supported in my pregnancy journey I found The Mother Hub and changed my maternity care to them at 20 weeks. Since changing my care I had an incredible amount of support from Dr Sarah Bombell and Midwife Mel.

I saw them for breastfeeding consults and spoke to them about what to expect from labour and birth. Reassured that my body was made for this and that I would birth the perfect sized baby for my body. I spent a lot of time reading birth stories, listening to podcasts and educating myself all things pregnancy/ labour/ birth. I wrote a birth plan (mostly as a way of educating myself) that way if intervention was required I knew my options and or any risks involved. I had a fairly straight forward and enjoyable pregnancy - with the normal nausea, aches/pains and a bit of insomnia towards the end. 

Lead up to Birth

12 days before the birth of my son, my husband was hospitalised due to his severe sciatica. He had previously had back surgery in 2019 and had relapsed a buldge disc in his lower back.

Five days after being admitted to hospital he went in for his second back surgery. During this time I was so worried that my husband would miss the birth of our child and that I would be alone through it all.

My mum and my sister came down from QLD to keep me company while he was in the hospital.  Three days after surgery my husband was discharged from hospital to commence his recovery. I spoke with my OB and she was so understanding and submitted a request for an exemption to have a second support person at my birth. Given that my husband could not physically support me (being limited to standing for 15 minutes at a time and taking a number of pain medications). 

Birth

At 40+5 weeks pregnant I woke up at 2:30am in the morning with period like cramps. I started having contractions every 10 mins from then onwards. I stayed in bed trying to relax and get some sleep where I could and just breathe through my contractions.

Once the rest of the house was awake I chatted to my husband, my sum and sister in between contractions to keep distracted.

By about 0930 I was mostly sitting on the side of the bed letting gravity do its thing. Contractions were 6-7mins apart, I vomited up the water I had been drinking and from there my contractions got closer together, by 11am they were 2.5mins apart, I called the hospital to let them know and they said best to come in within the next hour.

So at 11:30am we loaded into the car. We got to the hospital at 11:45am and I couldn’t walk so I was wheelchaired up to the birth suite, got settled and COVID tested (we were all negative thankfully).

At approximately 12pm I felt the need to push, my midwife asked if I wanted to be checked for how dilated I was, I consented. She checked and I was 10cm and ready to push! 

After 2-2.5hrs of pushing, our son Leroy was born at 2:40pm weighing 3.560kg and 52.5cm.

I had a beautiful and completely natural, intervention free and drug free labour/ birth..

I had a second degree tear which was stitched up after and didn’t bothered me. I had the most amazing team of Midwives and Doctor’s there supporting me the whole way. I hugged them all after. Honestly it’s was just the best experience, tough but wow…

What do you wish you knew before birth?
I can’t really think of anything, like I said I read a lot and spoke to lots of my Mum friends about their experiences. I had realistic expectations about birth and I think that’s what helped me to surrender and let me body do what it needed to do to birth our baby boy.

If you could, would you do anything differently?

I would definitely have a photographer the next time, due to COVID it wasn’t an option for us but definitely something I would have liked to keep as a memory because it was by far the best day of my life.

What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?

Although my husband was one week post back surgery he was there when I needed a hand to hold or when I felt defeated and didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere during the pushing phase that he was there telling me ‘You can do this’ that was enough for me to keep going at the times where I thought I couldn’t. 

What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?

Educate yourself! Read birth stories, not to scare you but to give yourself realistic expectations on how long, tough and absolutely beautiful birth is!