I took Anna’s face to face course late 2023 to prepare me for the birth of my son. I had seen her work on instagram and her person-centred, straight talking, factual approach appealed to me. As a nurse working in the NHS I understand how stretched the system is and also how complex it can be to navigate so I wanted to arm myself with as much unbiased knowledge as possible before giving birth.

I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes early in my pregnancy which meant I was categorised as a ‘high risk’ pregnancy, but I was already in this category because I had had 5 previous miscarriages and I have a high BMI. This changed my antenatal experience significantly as I had more appointments at the hospital, more interactions with medical staff, more scans to measure baby and I had to monitor my blood sugars 4 times a day throughout my pregnancy. Apart from the gestational diabetes my pregnancy was straightforward; I felt well in myself right up until my final 2 weeks where I developed fairly severe pelvic pain.

There were many discussions with the midwives and obstetric teams about how they recommended I navigate my pregnancy and birth. Honestly if I had not undertaken any antenatal preparation, I don’t think I would have been able to trust my body to birth my son as the undertone to many of my appointments was that I would struggle with a vaginal delivery because of my BMI and my ‘big baby’ as my son had started to measure large on the extra scans I had in my pregnancy.

Because I had required insulin to manage my blood sugars I was offered induction at 38 weeks which I decided to proceed with. I tried many things from 37 weeks onwards to try and induce labour (lots of walking, acupuncture, raspberry leaf tea, dates) and despite these not working I do feel they contributed to my positive and fast induction. I had been listening to my hypnobirthing tracks and had been practising my breathing techniques so I felt as ready as I could be when I went into hospital on the 19th Feb.

Once I was on the induction ward I was again reminded how ‘big’ my baby was and the associated risk of shoulder dystocia if I chose to proceed with a vaginal delivery and was again told that I could choose to have an elective caesarian. I declined, again, and proceeded with the induction. I had the 24hr pessary inserted at about 4pm and by 6pm, when my partner Michael came to meet me for dinner, I was starting to have contractions. I honestly couldn’t believe it and just thought I really needed a poo! I went back to the ward and told the midwife who just told me to continue to wait and they would examine me at the end of the 24 hour period to see if my cervix was favourable to allow them to break my waters. Well my body had other ideas as at about 10:30pm my waters broke all over the hospital bed and floor! I informed the midwife who removed the pessary and supported me back to bed. I continued having mild contractions overnight and managed the pain with my trusty comb, hypnobirthing tracks and breathing techniques until about 5am when I then added my TENS machine into the mix as the contractions were starting to ramp up slightly in their intensity. I was so pleased with myself that my body had managed to go into labour with just a nudge from the pessary and was looking forward to labouring unassisted and proving everyone wrong!

8am and shift change came, the ward became bright and noisy, ward rounds started and unfortunately my contractions stopped. I was devastated. I was offered the syntocinon drip as my waters had broken already but I desperately wanted to try and go back into labour myself. I called Anna in a panic and she gave some solid advice about what I could try to bring the contractions on again and also reminded me that everything was still my choice and to advocate for what I wanted. I negotiated with the hospital staff to give me more time to see if I would start having contractions again; I was lunging, dancing, doing hip circles on the birthing ball but my contractions were nowhere to be seen.

By about 4pm I felt that I had been given a good amount of time to see if anything would happen and so agreed to have the syntocinon drip. Because of my BMI the anaesthetic team had recommended an epidural prior to starting the drip but I spoke to the obstetricians about my reluctance to have one as I wanted to be up and moving around and they agreed that I would be fine without one and could always change my mind down the line if I did end up wanting one.

We set up the room by turning off all the lights, closing the blinds on our great view of the London eye and turning on our galaxy projector and starting the instrumental track from Anna’s hypnobirthing pack; I had my comb and TENS machine ready. The syntocinon infusion was started at around 5pm and so was the CTG monitoring which was thankfully wireless so I could still move around the bedspace. The dose of the drip was slowly increased and I could feel my contractions coming back, I was moving around the bedspace and had also started to use the gas and air alongside the comb and TENS machine.

Several things happened at 8pm that I remember, firstly shift change and it was a game changer for me. The midwife on the night shift, Lauren, was the perfect fit for me and I immediately felt safe and held and completely trusted her and I properly relaxed. She reminded me of all my favourite nurse colleagues I worked with, and we had a chat at the start of her shift and she reassured me that she always tries her best to promote vaginal delivery in her patients and that she had done extra training on positioning during labour to facilitate optimal positioning for baby. I had to monitor my blood sugars every hour during labour to ensure they didn’t go too high as this could affect the baby after delivery; they had been slightly elevated and the dayshift midwife and doctors wanted me to start an insulin infusion which I was declining as I knew it was because of what I had eaten so I said I would just stop eating and wait to see if it would start to come down on its own in the next couple of hours. Lauren was much more relaxed and agreed to give me a bit of time to see if my blood sugars would start to come back down on their own which they did. The last hour of the dayshift the CTG monitoring had shown that my baby’s heart rate was slightly elevated, in the back of my head I had the BRAIN acronym ready and would have pushed to do nothing and continue to monitor but shortly after shift change the heart rate came down and according to the CTG he remained chill throughout the rest of my labour, they could even see he was sucking his thumb! I was reassured by Lauren as she also told me that she had done extra training on CTG interpretation to reduce the amount of unnecessary interventions from incorrect interpretation so I really felt that she was on my wavelength.

At 9pm I had a vaginal examination which showed I was 3cm dilated, I was slightly disappointed but Lauren reminded me that my cervix had had to do a lot of work to get to this point so not to be disheartened. The contractions had become more painful and I started to debate whether I should have an epidural as I convinced myself that because of the syntocinon they would just get to a point they would be unmanageable. After talking with Lauren and Michael I decided to get the epidural and this was placed at about 10pm. The epidural was patient controlled which meant I could press a button every 20 minutes to get a dose of pain relief, I was determined to use it as little as possible so I could still feel my contractions and still move if I wanted to. After this I just remember telling my partner to have a nap so at least one of us was well rested and then I just chatted with Lauren while having more contractions and she helped me get in lots of different positions to get baby to move into a good position.

At 2am I had another vaginal examination and I was 10cm dilated but Lauren advised that since I had the epidural in and I was comfortable what we could do instead of starting pushing was continue to wait and get in more positions to encourage baby down and let the contractions move him down so that I wouldn’t have to push for too long. We waited a while longer and then I got a really strong feeling like I needed to poo and panicked completely forgetting that this is a sign that baby is about to come! Lauren got me in position to do another VE and didn’t even bother as she could see baby was really low down so it was time for me to push. We woke up Michael (!) and then I started to push with my contractions and in 10 minutes he was out and in my arms! We were given our time together for about two hours before Lauren took him away to examine and measure him (he was a very normal sized baby and not the huge baby I was told about throughout my pregnancy); the whole experience was amazing and I felt so empowered and in control at all points during my labour. I am so sure that being informed and understanding my options and the process of an induction was what made this such a positive experience for me. I would do it all again!