~~Maddie share’s the story of her daughters arrival ~~
On the 16th of September 6am, I woke up with what I thought to be Braxton hicks putting pressure on my full bladder, so I got up and went for a wee then as I stood up I felt something drip, it was my bloody show.
Not long after I had another Braxton hicks contraction, but still felt like I had a full bladder, so with the bleeding and the weird uncomfortable BH I paged my midwife, followed by a phone call to let her know what was going on. She said it sounds like I’m in labour wahoo!
I started timing the contractions and from the time I woke up they came pretty much every 4 minutes lasting from 40-60seconds, the pain wasn’t that bad I just kept breathing through them. My midwife arrived around 7.30 to check baby’s heart rate and see how I was doing then off she went to get some snacks and prepare for the possibly late night.
I was getting pretty excited that my wee girl was going to make her entrance soon!
My contractions persisted every 4 minutes all day but started getting a bit more intense after lunch time, but my wonderful partner Tana rubbed my back and held my hand when they hurt, and then around 5ish the contractions started coming a bit more often and lasting all over a minute and hurting a wee bit more.
My midwife arrived back over at about 9pm to check in on me and bubs again, we watched Project Runway, had a wee chat in between contractions, then at 11pm we let her go home and try and have a sleep, and Murphy’s law, about ten minutes after she left my contractions got very painful and strong, poor Tana is lucky his hands are still in one piece! I said to him, I think it’s time, so he text my midwife and it was time to head out to Lincoln.
17th September we arrived out at Lincoln not long after midnight, My midwife had the birthing pool running ready for us to get in, Me and Tana got in the pool and I got to relax for two minutes until the contractions started again, Tana never let go of my hands the whole time.
I continued to breathe through my contractions until they got so intense my body wanted to get this wee baby out, 2.20 I started to push, after what felt like forever I felt what I thought was her head coming out, and it didn’t seem so bad (turned out it was her membranes still intact, I didn’t want to look so I had no idea), so I just continued on pushing then felt something huge coming down so a bit confused but I just kept going, then at 3.03am still in the water my beautiful baby girl was born, straight to my chest for skin to skin, she opened her eyes and looked at her mum and dad then rested her head on my chest and tried to find a boob to latch onto.
