When Taylah met Maddison
In the early hours of 31st of October around 12:30am my waters had I broken I originally thought I had peed my pants but when I messaged my mum group chat I was advised that it was my waters. I had gone into the hospital to be checked as I had been the day before for leaking fluids and they wanted to double check it was my waters, when I got there they had checked and confirmed that my waters had broken I was then advised that if my contracts had not started by 6pm the evening that I would need to come back in to be induced or if my contractions had started to to call ahead of time.
It was around 5am when I had gotten home from the hospital they had given me something to sleep which only lasted about 30 minutes before my first contraction had started I knew that they would be in my back due to where she was sitting but I didn’t realise how much they would hurt.
I had hopped into the bath to ease the pain by 7am I had called my mum to come over to help time and keep me calm by 8am she had arrived at my house bearing food and drinks (I don’t believe I even touched anything) by 9am we were heading back into hospital as advised by the hospital.
Once we had arrived they settled me in a room and I started labouring a little more intensively but my contractions where every 2-5 minutes apart lasting about 30 seconds.
By 10am the midwives had come in to tell me that I could either go home and labour or go for a walk in hopes to speed things up, I had opted for the walk by the time I had come back I was vomiting everything in my stomach up I was told this is a good thing as it meant I was progressing. I then asked if I could have something to make the vomiting stop as they were trying to put the cannula in (took 4 tries as I have baby veins) my mum was running the bath for me to continue labouring in.
I think it was an hour later so around 2:30-3pm I was consistently telling my mum that I needed to push and that I couldn’t help it but push a little during each contraction as by now things were picking up but still spaced out. She let me know I had hours still to go (little did she know that an hour later I would be pushing).
It was shift change I was asked if I could get check so I moved from the bath to the bed that was the first time I had been checked since arriving at 9am it was roughly 3:45-4pm once I had been check the midwife looked at me then her finger then back at me to her finger again then to look at my mum one last time before we both said what. She lifted her finger and pointed to the first knuckle on her pointer finger and said this far. I asked what does that mean she had told me I was 10cm dilated I asked if that meant I can push she said yes but to wait while she called my student midwife Clare to get here.
By the time my student midwife had arrived I had probably been pushing for about 5-10 minutes already and was crowing when she entered the room 14 more minutes of pushing and my daughter Maddison was born ( she was my midwife’s first catch) I immediately got to do skin to skin and spent the golden hour soaking in all the newborn cuddles. I had suffered a second degree tear and two grazes from how fast I had pushed her out but other then that there were no complications.
What do you wish you knew before birth?
That labour can look so differently to every I had been told that I wouldn’t get breaks between contractions and that never happened for me.
If you could, would you do anything differently?
I probably would have asked the midwives to check me before getting into the bath and to call my student midwife earlier.
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
My mum was there the whole time telling me how strong I was and that I could do this.
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
Believe in your body if you feel the need to push it’s probably time to. And don’t hold high expectations when things can look so different in others.