Florie’s Birth Story
I have four children and am very privileged to say that each of their births went smoothly. I know that birthing is a daunting idea for any mum to be. It was for me. I didn’t really know what to expect and most of the stories I had heard were negative, until a friend told me that her experience was “elating”. This word gave me so much hope and strength through my antenatal journey.
It is important to prepare for different scenarios since we don’t control everything and should be led by the medical professionals, however there is a lot a mother can do to prepare with joyful expectation for each stage of labour, through thoughtful and methodical planning. I saw this quote online which sums it up for me “Labour is the only blind date in which you know that you will meet the love of your life.”
All my labours were very long, although shorter every time, from 50 hours for my firstborn to 17 for my youngest. For each birth, my plan was to labour and deliver in the water. The first one didn’t go quite according to plan as I was so exhausted after almost two days of relentless contractions. I loved being in the pool a bit too much, everything slowed down and I had to get out of the water to get things going. Our baby girl was born after 3 pushes standing, holding on to the side of the pool. Almost a water birth…
The two babies that followed were born in water using some gas and air and all went very well. When my son came out, he hardly made a sound. I was slightly worried and asked the midwife “Shouldn’t he be crying?” She replied that he as absolutely fine, simply very relaxed. He truly was, he was reaping the benefits of a super chilled labour and we were all elated, to quote my friend’s word stated earlier.
For my last child, it was very different. Thanks to the previous three wonderful births, I was really looking forward to labouring again, more prepared than ever to focus and rejoice with every contraction that would bring me closer to meeting our precious gift. My birth plan had been meticulously written and visualised, aiming for a water birth again. “Why would I change a recipe that works?” I thought to myself. It was all about to change, perhaps I needed to learn a different perspective.
Quite early in the latent part of labour, without understanding why, I began wishing for an epidural. My brain could not comprehend where this idea came from. I had never even researched the process or even discussed with my midwife, something extremely unlike me. I was coping well, I was focused and relaxed, pottering around the house through the contractions, nothing felt different but I couldn’t shake the thought.
When we arrived at hospital, I asked if an epidural could be considered despite it not being in my birth plan. The staff were wonderful and within a couple of hours of arriving, I got the injection. Labour kept progressing but eventually the midwife had to break my waters, as it had been done for each birth actually, because the sac was very thick. When the water broke, it flooded the room. I had so much of it, the midwife said that she had never seen anything like it. This is when we all suddenly understood why I had to have an epidural: there was blood in the water. Should I have been in the midwife-led unit, I was told, I would have been transferred immediately to the ward as this presents a threat to the baby and I realised that it could have been quite traumatic.
Instead, as we were already in the labour ward and the baby was being monitored thanks to a foetal scalp electrode, nothing needed to be done and we all remained very calm and peaceful. I was so grateful for the epidural, which I then realised had been a divine thought. Our youngest son was born half an hour later without any sensations for me, such a strange but easy experience. Thank God for modern medicine.