Our first daughter was born in the summer of 2020 in the midst of Covid restrictions. A variety of circumstances aligning poorly (particularly our lack of tools to deal effectively with deviations from our plan A) led to a dubious induction, a long labour and an emergency c-section. The whole experience was fairly traumatic and it took a lot of work in the months that followed to process it and better understand what had happened, seeking to gain as much knowledge and understanding as I could about birth in general.

Roll on a couple of years and we became pregnant again and started to prepare to give birth to another little girl. We knew things had to be different this time and from the learning I’d done in the meantime, I knew it was vital that not only I had the knowledge, but that my husband (and birth partner) Matt knew his stuff too. I did some research and booked us one of Anna’s online 1:1 hypnobirthing refresher courses. To say that Matt was initially reluctant is an understatement, but even after just the first of the two sessions, he was already buzzing. I distinctly remember him saying, "This is going to be worth every penny!"

I developed gestational thrombocytopenia (low platelets) in my pregnancy as I had done with my first, but did some research, knew the risks and still opted for a home birth as our plan A. There was a slight question mark over where we’d actually be living when the baby was born as we were in the middle of a long drawn-out house move(!), but I knew that even planning a home birth increased my chances of the kind of delivery I wanted. Fast forward to April, I was 8 months pregnant, and we sold our house and moved in with my parents whilst waiting for our new house to complete. Timings weren’t ideal but the baby wasn't due until May and “babies are always late, right?” so we didn’t expect on the Friday evening that we completed on our house sale, for our little girl to make an announcement that she wanted to join the party… cue my waters breaking. 

After spending the first hour or so trying to convince ourselves that I’d just wet myself, we finally conceded that the continuous trickle was indeed my waters. We contacted triage and went in for initial monitoring, returning home around midnight in the hopes that labour would progress naturally. My waters spontaneously breaking pre-labour wasn't something we had specifically prepared for, but we knew where to find reliable information, and who to ask for advice, and were happy we could make informed decisions about when to act and when to wait. We spent the rest of the weekend desperately fighting to stick with our plan A (a home birth), whilst doing our best to get the all-important oxytocin flowing. However, Monday morning eventually rolled around and the regular contractions I had been having at times, had all but stopped. I had a big cry (and felt much better for it!) and before heading into the hospital we sat down with Anna on the other end of the phone and went over our plans. What were our options? What was most important to us? What did we have control over? 

Having decided that we were done waiting (and done fighting for the right to do so!) we went in with a very clear idea of what our next steps would be. I hadn’t had a VE this whole time, so had no idea what my cervix was doing. Therefore we decided that, if it was feasible, we would allow them to break the remaining membranes as long as I could have mobile monitoring and remain active during labour, and that if not, we were happy to opt for a c-section.

Once we were in, a VE showed that I was already 2-3cm dilated and the doctor agreed that breaking the rest of my waters and waiting to see what happened was a sensible course of action. There sadly wasn’t a birth pool available so we opted for a room on the labour ward rather than the midwife-led unit (they’re just different ends of the same corridor!) so that if we did end up for an induction we wouldn’t have to move rooms again, and so we got settled in. 

Our assigned midwife was absolutely wonderful - she had set up the room before we arrived with dimmed lights and mats/balls etc and sorted us out with some aromatherapy too. She kept all her medical bits at one end of the room and gave us our corner to get settled in. We got all the chatting and decisions and paperwork out of the way beforehand, and then got me hooked up to the mobile monitoring (the mobile aspect being one of my non-negotiables as I was adamant I was not being tied down to a machine!!). The monitoring actually worked like a dream throughout, so I hardly even noticed it. 

Mid-afternoon, the midwife broke my waters and within 30 minutes, I was in established labour having strong, regular contractions. After chasing contractions all weekend, as each contraction came along I was like “Yes! Another one! Let’s do this!”

I spent most of the time standing, leaning over the end of the raised bed swaying - comb in one hand, our eldest daughter’s comforter in the other. Matt used massage and hip squeezes at each contraction like he’d learnt, and I tried a couple of different kneeling/all fours positions at points when my legs got tired from standing, but always found myself going back to leaning up against the bed. 

The doctors came around after about two hours which was when we had said we would review whether to start the drip. The midwife did all the talking with them outside the room and then quickly brought them in just to introduce themselves and summarise what they’d chatted about. The doctor actually started off by saying she was really sorry we had had such a poor experience last time, and that they wanted to do whatever they could to make this as positive as it could be this time around. She basically said she hoped she didn’t see me again(!), that I was doing amazingly by myself and that their thoughts were that there was no need to do anything - perhaps a further VE in a couple of hours if I wanted, to see where we were up to.

I did ask to have a VE (sooner than the two hours) and had gone from 2 to 5cm which felt like great progress. I took a few contractions while sitting on the bed in "chair mode" to rest, coinciding with the change of shift. Thankfully, our second midwife was just as good as our first - really positive and supportive, and happy to essentially leave us to it. 

I hadn’t had any conventional pain relief up to this point and things were just starting to increase in intensity. It was then that I remembered we had a TENs machine in the bag which I’d completely forgotten about. We hooked that up which served as a good distraction and change of focus too. 

A couple of hours later things started to feel different. I didn’t have a particularly noticeable transition period this time around (unlike with our first daughter!) but after a few contractions it got to a point where I was uncontrollably pushing, and the sounds coming out of me were completely different too! I started on the gas and air and after a few contractions stood leaning against the bed, I tried a few different positions on the bed and eventually, after about an hour or so, I pushed her out just before midnight. It was everything I had hoped for. We had immediate skin-to-skin and revelled in that afterglow! There's a photo of the three of us just after she was born, and I still can’t get over the sheer joy and pride on my face!

I did end up with some tearing which resulted in a significant blood loss which meant that my physical recovery post-birth was slow. However, having a positive birth to hang it all on has meant the whole experience couldn’t have been more different to last time. When we got to HDU, the midwife there said “I’m really sorry it’s been quite traumatic for you and you didn’t get the birth you wanted.” My response was, “What are you talking about?! It’s been wonderful!” I think she thought I was a little bit mad!

The birth we got didn’t look very like the water birth at home in our ‘Plan A', but thanks to all the preparation we’d done and all the support and guidance from Anna especially, we were able to confidently keep hold of the reins of what we did have control over, bending and flexing as the circumstances threw curveballs at us. We made informed decisions that were right for us at each hurdle and in the end, I got my VBAC. 

Oh, and they were right, that tea and toast post-birth really is something else.