Kay & Baby Olivia's Birth
August 2016

Hi Charlotte,
Just to let you know I've had the baby. Olivia was born on 2nd August at 7.41am.

Labour was a really wonderful and exciting time, i almost want to do it again- but not any time soon!

My waters broke at 1.20am and I phoned Huddersfield and went in for confirmation and checking. Due to staffing they were closed until 7am. Went back home and at about 3.30am surges started, I didn't really find them painful, just did my up breathing and visualisation. Phoned Huddersfield back at 5am and said I think I need to come in but they were still closed, as was Calderdale and the LGI so I ended up in St James.

Arrived at 5.40am and was fully dilated; I asked for a water birth but the midwife said it took 30 mins to run and she thought I would give birth before that time so I didn't have a water birth. The midwife was very respectful of my wishes but I had to stand my ground on a couple of issues as she wanted me to birth on my back to do a continuous monitoring of the baby's heart rate because she couldn't find the fetal heart rate with the handheld doppler. I  Gave birth at 7.41am so from the start of the surges it was only 4 hours. So all in all a good experience but I think next time to prevent all the uncertainty I'm going to opt for a home birth.

Hypnobirthing definitely helped so thank you!