The Birth of Charlotte

Sarah & Daniel

Baby Charlotte is on my chest after her early morning feed, she is now 5 weeks old and is an absolute dream. We are besotted with her. She was born on 24th September at 9:44am and weighed 8lb.

I also thought you might want to know our birth story, so here goes…!!

We waited patiently for her but 40 weeks came and went. My midwife asked to book in an induction date but I declined at this point, trusting that my body and baby would know what to do when the time came. We were both well and luckily I had no complications so the midwife agreed.

41 weeks came and I initially declined a sweep at this point. We were both still absolutely fine so the midwife agreed with me. She explained induction again and that this would be the preferred option for us and we eventually agreed that if needed, induction would be the last resort, on the last possible date (which happened to be our first wedding anniversary!). After a couple of days, using my BRAIN, I agreed to have a sweep in the hope that this would avoid me needing to be induced (and be the lesser of 2 evils).

Coincidentally, my waters broke spontaneously 2 days before my proposed induction date and we were so excited! This was also 12 days past my due date at 23:56pm on Thursday night. I went in to get checked and I had some dull aches in my lower abdomen on the way to the hospital. There was meconium in my waters and the doctor and midwife advised that I stay in, despite me wanting to go home and continue my labour there.

Using my BRAIN again, I agreed and asked for mobile monitoring so I could stay active and move around as much as I wanted to. The lovely midwife set up our room on labour ward as I requested with dull lights, a sound machine and sparkly lights from their projector which was amazing! They made it as non clinical as possible.

Despite having some contractions, I was advised to have an oxytocin drip to speed things along due to the meconium. Daniel was brilliant in supporting me and making me feel comfortable and respected the whole time, so I’m sure that this was the main reason for my labour progressing. He advocated for me and made sure that I felt safe and was luckily allowed to be with me from the beginning. I don’t think I could’ve done it without him.

I tried to get some sleep but my contractions intensified quite quickly. Throughout my labour is used my breathing techniques and we had our hypnobirthing playlist on all of the time.

By 8am, I was 6cm dilated and started using the gas and air, but at 8:40 I started to feel my body push! I went with my body, pushed for 44mins and she was born! We were able to do delayed cord clamping and Daniel cut her cord before we both had skin to skin and she latched on to feed.

We were fortunately both absolutely fine and had such a positive birth experience. The midwives were amazing and I felt listened to and respected throughout. Despite it not being the minimal intervention water birth I wanted, it was still amazing and I felt empowered and informed to make the right choices for me and my baby. I felt like a superwoman!!