Mollie’s Birth Story

I went nearly two weeks over so I booked to get an induction (I wanted the foley balloon and then to have my waters popped, but I didn’t want the next step, which was the oxytocin drip, because I thought if my body was ready and on the cusp of spontaneous labour, I’d give it a nudge but if that wasn’t to put me into full blown labour then my body obviously wasn’t ready and I wanted to just opt for a section).

Anyways, I didn’t need the foley balloon because I was already 2cm when I went in, so they popped my waters and I immediately went into labour and was contracting like on a minute off a minute so like reaaallly intense!

I used gas and air and a tens machine for pain relief which was working really well for a period of time until the contractions got reasonably worse.This went on for like 5 hours, by which time I was in quite a lot of pain. They offered me a vaginal examination and after 5 hours I was still at 2cm, like hadn’t made any progress at all.

So they asked if I wanted the epidural, but I just thought if my body has made no progress in 5 hours, contracting this frequently and being in this much pain and I know I definitely don’t want the drip, then I just wanna ask for a c section. They pushed back a little at first, but I explained my reasoning and that I had done my research and that this was within my original birth plan and they did actually say that the baby was starting to get a little bit distressed, so they were happy to get me into theatre asap.

It was classed as emergency, but it wasn’t really emergency because I still had my preferences, like Adam cut the cord and I got skin to skin straight away when he was born. It was genuinely a really really nice experience, I felt really in control throughout and feel genuinely so proud of myself for listening to my body and not being swayed in my decision.