Birth Story: The Birth of Quinn - Hannah’s Story
Hannah and Ruan attended my May Group Class in Castle Hill.
Our bub is now earth side and we have named her Quinn.
I gave birth to her at 39+1. It was a LONG labour but she arrived safely.
I woke with labour pains on a Saturday night at 11:30pm with contractions about 10 mins apart. The pain was all in my lower back though which I hadn’t expected, nothing in the front at all. I dealt with it initially with the tens machine but unfortunately it didn’t really cut it for me as it was just adding to the pain I was already dealing with in my back.
I woke Ruan at about 3:30am Sunday morning to help support me. I laboured in the bathtub from about 4am through to 11am. At this point my contractions stopped for a couple of hours so we had some lunch, but then they came back with a vengeance.
I got back in the bathtub around 2pm and laboured there until 7pm. At this point the pain in my back was getting to a point where I wasn’t coping and I had residual back pain between contractions so I wasn’t really getting a break or time to relax. We made the decision to go to the hospital even though my contractions were flipping between 4-5 mins apart to 6-7 mins apart.
On arrival to hospital, I was 6cm dilated (found this out later as I asked not to be told) so I was super proud of how long I had laboured at home for and progressed. I reluctantly agreed to sterile water injections based off a midwife and Ruan’s suggestion as I had heard how much it hurts - AND OH BOY! I am NEVER getting it again. It was excruciating!
I then laboured for another 3 hours but it was just getting too much for me so I had a morphine injection just to try and get a break and perhaps some sleep. That worked and I woke up from returning pain again around 1:30am on Monday. At this stage, I was still so exhausted and I just knew that I was scared to experience the full pain again so I made the decision to get the epidural (even though I didn’t want it and had pretty much decided it was not going to happen unless absolutely necessary). I was scared to get it but once I did get it, I was so glad. It was the first time in hours that I felt relaxed and able to get a proper rest.
I slept from about 2:30am - 8am and I woke up starting to feel pressure with my contractions so I knew I would need to push soon. At 9am I began pushing and at 10:36am Monday she was born vaginally and healthy.
Although it was a long labour and exhausting, I feel so happy and confident with the decisions I made (minus the sterile water injections). I’m so glad I did research and classes and listened to podcasts as I felt that I knew what was happening at every stage and I was informed about what I was doing. I had a good experience and all the midwives that assisted me through MGP were amazing.
