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18 Aug 2022
The birth of Arlo
I woke up on 18th August thinking it would be a normal day, my fiancé left for work and I began watching the maternity leave staple of daytime TV. At about midday I started to feel what I thought were braxton hicks, I was only 39+1 weeks and everyone had told me with my first baby and him being a boy he would be late so I didn’t think labour was starting.
I decided to bake a cake to keep my mind occupied and see if the sensations went away. After about an hour I thought this could be the start so I started to time my surges. By about 2pm my surges were about 5 minutes or so apart so I called my fiancé and asked him to come home. My waters then broke at 2.45pm and then the moment my fiancé walked through the door my surges started to become a lot more intense.
I ran a bath after speaking to a midwife at the hospital but didn’t even get a chance to go in. Over the next 2 hours my surges increased and got closer together - I continued to use my breathing techniques - there were moments of panic but my fiancé was able to bring me back into my zone as he had been at every hypnobirthing class with me.
At around 5pm I lost my mucus plug and it was at this point that I decided I wanted to go to hospital. Once we got into hospital, I consented to a vaginal examination and was told I was already 8cm dilated. I therefore got taken round to the delivery suite quite swiftly and got into a comfortable position for birth.
Our midwife asked if we had any preferences on our birth plan and my fiancé was able to run through what we could and couldn’t have due to the speed of our labour. I wasn’t able to have quite a few things on my birth plan, however I still felt calm and positive as we knew all the options from what we had learnt on Anna’s course and felt prepared for lots of outcomes.
We put on our calm labour playlist and I started to use some gas and air which definitely helped me through my surges, I listened to my body and pushed when I felt the urge to. Just 2 hours after arriving at hospital, at 7.14pm, our little boy was born, weighing 6 pound 9, and put straight on my chest for skin to skin.
Although I didn’t get the birth I had wrote out in my birth plan, by the time I got to hospital I really didn’t give it a second thought and was comfortable with that.
Now, I truly can’t wait to give birth again hopefully in the future and I believe this is thanks to Anna and all the tools we both learnt.
Rachael & Ed - Droitwich, Worcestershire