Layla's Birth Story

I realise it has been a long time since I wrote anything on here but if you hadn't guessed it already I had a baby :)

I was expecting to be well over due as all my other baby's have kept me waiting but this one obviously knew we were dying to meet her.

It all started at midnight on the 28th July, I was officially 4 days overdue. I think I jinxed myself as Daddy Hazelden had just been saying 2 hours previously that we would go to my cousins wedding reception the next day seen as I hadn't given birth yet and didn't expect to any time soon as at my last midwife appointment I had been told that the head still wasn't engaged.

Well as I said at midnight the tightenings started, in the beginning they weren't regular so even though I knew they were contractions rather than braxton hicks I wasn't sure whether this was going to turn into established labour or not.
Over the next 5 hours I kept getting contractions on and off, I was timing them on a app on my phone, some were 3 minutes apart, some were 5 but some were 10. When they started to get to 10 minutes apart I started to get disheartened thinking it wasn't going to happen so I decided to try and get some sleep. Typically the minute I laid down the contractions started again.

By 9am I decided to ring my local birthing centre who told me because my contractions still weren't consistently regular I couldn't be in established labour so to stay at home and wait a few more hours, I was told that the contractions needed to be constantly 5 minutes or less apart before going in, they would ring me back at lunch time and check on me.

We decided to go for a walk to try and get things moving more but again the contractions were coming and going, irregular as far as the midwives were concerned. Now TMI Daddy Hazelden and I then decided to have sex to see if that would do something and it obviously did because my plug came out!!!!

Lunch time came and went and I never got a phone call back so by 1pm I decided to ring the birthing centre again seen as my plug had gone and I was still having contractions but again they told me because the contractions weren't consistently regular I was to wait at home, no offer to come and check me or anything. At this point I was becoming very stressed out because the contractions were very painful.

I spent all afternoon getting in and out of the bath with all my other children asking if I was alright not nice seeing me in pain. Unfortunately my contractions carried on being irregular so I was trying to sit tight so to speak.

At 7pm I decided to ring my mum who was at my cousins wedding.  I was in tears because I didn't know what to do, it was hurting to walk around, hurting to sit but still my contractions weren't regular, I was beginning to think it wasn't going to happen, I thought maybe she couldn't get her head engaged. Now my auntie is a trained midwife so my mum told her what I was feeling and her exact words were "if they won't see you up at the birthing centre then ring an ambulance because when it's your 4th child you won't get regular contractions, you need to get to a hospital now!!"
So at 7.30pm we rung the birthing centre and told them we were coming up now as I just couldn't cope with the pain anymore. The girls were then dropped off at nannies and we made our way up to the hospital.

When we arrived the midwife said she would check me quickly as we actually wanted to have the birth at a hospital 30 minutes away so she wanted to get us on our way. Upon examining me she said, you won't be going anywhere, the head is well down and your between 7 and 8cm dilated and your waters are bulging. I was in utter shock because every other time I've been in labour I've needed my waters breaking as I haven't managed to get past 3cm. I was also gutted because it meant yet again I would miss out on my water birth because for some reason the pools at the birthing centre weren't in use :( This meant me going through the rest of labour without pain relief as gas and air makes me physically sick.

I spent the next 3 hours pacing the corridors and trying my best to breath as everyone kept telling me, at this point the contractions were too regular I wasn't getting a break inbetween each one, I thought surely this must be it now. Daddy Hazelden was amazing rubbing my back and letting me squeeze his hands until they were white.
The midwife re examined me and I was still only 9cm and my waters still hadn't gone, so they decided to break my waters, this was at 10.30pm.

At 11pm they checked me again and they said there was still a tiny bit of cervix in the way by this point I was exhausted as I had been awake since 6am the previous day and I hadn't eaten anything all day because every time I contracted I felt sick. And at this point in labour I was actually sick, bless Daddy Hazelden holding the bed pan for me and holding my hair back. I was just so hot and bothered.

At 11.20pm I couldn't take the pain any more. The midwife was just about to leave the room to check another lady when I began to push, it was the only thing I could do to get rid of the pain and at 11.25pm little baby Layla came in to the world with her hand on her face, this was why it had taken so long, little monkey but as soon as she came out all panic started.

Now this part left myself and Daddy Hazelden very upset as it was very poorly handled as I shall now explain:

I started bleeding heavily so Layla was passed to her daddy and everyone crowded round me, one midwife was shouting phone 999 the other was trying to inject me to get my placenta to come out but instead of waiting for the injection to work they just tugged it out of me, at the same time they were putting needles in my hands and trying to attach me to drips, both midwives had shaking hands, didn't seem to know what they were doing, they couldn't get the needles in, they couldn't get the drip to work, it was all just one big mess as I now had blood pouring out of my hand as well. In all this time nothing was explained to us and to be fair I thought it was a lot of panic over nothing as I was sat there feeling fine and having a conversation with the midwives as they were panicking away!! As it turned out the next day one of the needles hadn't even been put in a vein it was just shoved in my arm leaving my arm and wrist heavily bruised.

At the same time they were telling Daddy Hazelden to get Layla dressed and in her car seat as he needed to take her up to the hospital, they hadn't even checked her over there could be anything wrong with her. They refused to let me take her in the ambulance with me, I hadn't even cuddled her yet. He ended up going to get mum to drive up with him so that she could keep an eye on Layla while he drove as anything could happen in that half hour journey.

By the time I got to the other hosiptal they bleeding had slowed a lot even without the clotting drip that they still hadn't got working. When the doctor came to examine me he ended up having to manually clean me out as they had left bits of placenta and membrane behind because of their rushing around.

The midwife who was at my birth had come in the ambulance with me, said she would personally come out and explain to us what had happened but we never saw her again, no explaination, just nothing.

And all of this had a knock on effect because I ended up having to take antibiotics to prevent infection, I was on 11 tablets a day, this is in turn made my milk taste funny so Layla wouldn't take my milk, so upsetting and disappointing.

At the end of the day I am just grateful that Layla was alright but I think If that had been my 1st child it would have put me off for life. If that had been a young mum they would have been scared to death, I think I'm lucky that I kept a level head throughout, poor Daddy Hazelden really thought he had lost me, he was expecting to get the hospital and find me attached to blood transfusions etc. It turns out I lost over a litre of blood. Now it is a good job that I took my aunties advice and got to the hospital because it could have been a lot worse.

I think my advice to anyone expecting is to trust in your own body, you know when your in labour, I really wish I had trusted my own instincts.

To end this on a bright note here is a picture of my wonderful girls