Early Labour - Excitement Phase

Waters started to leak at 5.39 am. Started timing contractions from 5.45 am.

Contractions began at the same time and once I got up and walked to get some cereal, I sat back in bed and my waters leaked out more fully onto a towel.

Phoned the pregnancy assessment unit at 6.47 am and had a lovely chat with the lady on the phone.

We cleaned the house and tried to have a wash etc before the midwife arrived. Midwife came over at 8.30 am to check me and perform antenatal checks. Contractions were 10-12 mins apart and lasting up to a minute so we thought we had a long way to go. I planned to go for a walk with the dog and do some yoga to relax before the midwives would return at 10 am. I walked out into the hallway and had a VERY intense contraction hanging onto the bannister and decided to go straight upstairs to prepare my birthing room and myself.

Before the midwife came, Anthony cleaned the kitchen and I told him I think we should put the pool up. We panicked because we realised we had no liner for the birth pool which we realised was actually okay as it hadn't been used before.

I sat downstairs on my birth ball while Angela was here and she did her checks. Anthony put the pool up and went to fill it before realising the boiler had broken down and had lost pressure! I went into full hypnobirthing mode and trusted that he would fix the problem and have the pool sorted in no time. I sat upstairs and worked through contractions on my birth ball until the midwives arrived at 10 am and started setting up and checking in with me.

My contractions slowed down when Anthony left the house to go get supplies (coffee machine and pasties!) And quickly restarted when he came home and the midwives left me to my devices. I felt a bit watched when they were sat in my room so they offered to leave and go downstairs so I could progress.

Active Labour - Serious Phase

Then Anthony came upstairs and it was like the catalyst! My contractions became so strong that I was vocalising them and humming to get through. We swayed stood up and tried to change positions frequently before I decided I really needed to be in the pool for pain relief. The midwives wanted me to wait as long as possible before getting in the water, but once I got in it was like my body knew what to do and I went into the active stage of labour.

We had my woodwick candle burning, clary sage in the essential oil diffuser and I was using a piece of cut up towel doused in clary sage as my "gas mask" pain relief. I had my natal hypnotherapy playing in the background as well as some soothing music throughout. Everything starts to get hazy from here. I went into what felt like a trance even closing my eyes for what seemed like hours at a time. Every time I felt a contraction I tried my hardest to hum through the pressure and hang onto whatever was at hand which sometimes was a person, sometimes was the pool. The midwives found it hard to keep track of Cece's heartbeat which was very distracting and stressful for me to handle as they kept trying to move me to put the heart monitor on my tummy. I didn't want to move backwards because I felt good being on my knees. I stayed on my knees from 12pm til 3 pm when she was born. I had one contraction where Anthony got in the pool and sat behind me which was lovely and comforting but I felt more pain in my back when laying on my back so opted to hang over the pool edge again which unfortunately upset the balance of the entire thing and meant the water was higher on one side meaning I had my face on the water surface during some of my contractions.

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