#25: Rebakah’s life-changing, amazing and special waterbirth …
Before we get to birth, let’s start at the beginning. How was your pregnancy?
Pregnancy was AWFUL.
I had hyperemesis gravidarum from 6 weeks until around 38 weeks. I think the sickness only stopped because I couldn’t fit any food in I was so big at the end. I bled on and off throughout the pregnancy too, and I was anaemic*.
I have never ever been so tired in my life.
Anemia is where you have low levels of iron in your blood; this is a normal side-effect of pregnancy but if the levels drop too low it can make you very tired and cause complications. Midwives test your blood at the beginning and middle of pregnancy, and can offer drugs and infusions if needed.
And, before the event, how did you feel about giving birth?
I was terrified from the moment I found out until I was about 8 months, with it being my first baby I had no clue what was about to happen. But by the time I got to 8 months I was that uncomfortable I wanted nothing more than to get this baby out!
It was a complete mind shift, from first finding out and wanting a c-section, to 8 months and I was happy to give birth in the car as long as I could just get the baby out 🤣
Then the big day arrives. How did it feel when you realised your baby was on their way earthside?
Contractions woke me up at 5am, and I lay there for a while and let them come and go a few times before I woke Dan up.
I was so excited when it finally started.
So, how was your birth experience?
I had a sweep on the Tuesday and I was already two cm so I went home and blitzed the house and packed the car up 😅
Nothing else happened so the Wednesday I pumped a few times, still nothing so we went for a park walk in the heat wave. Thursday morning at 5am booom the contractions woke me up, still very mild but they were noticeable, not in the place I expected either! They were higher up than what I imagined.
I felt like I was in limbo all morning, wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do: Who I should tell? Was it too early to call the birth centre? I called at midday just to let them know I had been having contractions all morning and that my waters had broken, this was a shock when it didn’t gush out, it just trickled down my leg like I had pissed myself.
When they started getting strong they were still very irregular, 2mins, then 7mins then some 20 mins. It was all over the place!
I called again at 7pm asking to come in, they were 6mins apart but I was in pain now, and had been sat with a hot shower on my back for the last hour. We made our way to Truro Birth Centre.
By the time we pulled up they were two mins apart and strong. We were met with the midwife just before 9pm to have my first check. 4CM! I was gutted, I’d been contracting for hours and I was still just at the beginning it felt like.
They ran me the bath in the birthing suite and I got straight in with the gas and air. I was managing the pain with the gas and air until I’d puffed it too much and was sick everywhere. We tried getting on the bed on all fours. All I could concentrate on was the feeling of needing to poop, and thirty seconds later it dropped on the bed 🤣
At 1am I was checked again and I was 8cm, we were so close to the end!
But this was where the contractions turned me into a werewolf, the sounds I was making I couldn’t make again now if I tried lol. In between each contraction at this point I was asking for more pain relief other than gas and air, but it was too late I was nearly ready to push, I was checked again around 3am and I was so close and almost 10cm.
We got back in the pool again to have my baby. The pain then all of a sudden shifted from pain to pressure, and pushing down was relieving the pain, so I wasn’t reaching for the gas and air at this point. I wasn’t reaching for it. I was pushing for what felt like 20 mins, but it was actually two hours.
The baby’s heart rate was rising so I had to really bare down at the end; I could see her hair swishing around in the pool and I had a feel of her head, and remember thinking her head is so soft I can do this!
I finally pushed her head out through the ring sting, almost, but her chin got stuck so I had to do some little pulse pushes and her chin was out. Then on the next contraction it was so quick, I felt her slip out, shoulder, shoulder, body, DONE.
5:33am I had my baby on my tummy and she was perfect. My cord was very short so I couldn’t pull her up to my chest. Dan cut the cord and she was handed straight to him, she instantly pissed down him for that first bonding experience lol.
She was our student midwife’s 40th baby, so she was the baby the qualified her. It was so special. I was injected to get the placenta out, this took about 20 mins and it was huge! It filled a full sick bowl I was amazed!
I was then been cleaned up and they checked for tears, I unfortunately had a second degree tear on my labia and went for 5 stitches, this was by far the worst part for me, then numbing injection had done nothing for me so I wasn’t reaching on more gas and air for it. It was agony and I couldn’t stop crying.
Once that was done and then gave me to pain relief pessary I was fine. I could walk, I had my baby and at 8am I was breastfeeding with my tea and toast. I couldn’t believe I had done it, I had never felt so proud in all my life.
At midday we were sent home with our brand new girl and we couldn’t believe it.
Do you remember what you said to your baby when you first met them?
“Why aren’t you crying?!”
Looking back, what was the best part of your birth experience?
Seeing how happy Dan was when she was born.
And on the flip side, if you could, what would you have changed about the way your baby entered the world?
I would have taken a hairbrush, after 24 hours of labour and getting in and out of the pool my hair was matted, badly.
If you could give parents-to-be one piece of advice about preparing for the birth of their baby, what would it be?
Be vocal, use your voice, tell the room exactly what you need.
