If you are looking for a straightforward pregnancy and birth story then you have come to the wrong place (please close the door on the way out). If you are looking for honesty and sometimes slightly too much information, then fasten your seatbelts because you are in for a very long but truthful ride full of complications.

Finding Out

It was 3:30am on the 21st December 2019 and I had finally decided to brave it and take a pregnancy test.

The week before this, I was at my works Christmas do and I decided that I wasn’t going to drink because my husband and I had just started trying for a baby and I didn’t want anything bad to happen if we were lucky enough to conceive. So I stuck to soft drinks for the night, but when I got home out of no where I needed to throw up (sorry tmi).

The next week I felt sick on and off but each time my husband and I made an excuse up as to why that would be eg I had eaten too much Chinese food, I was feeling stressed etc and when I suggested that I could be pregnant we decided that I probably wasn’t because we hadn’t been trying for very long. What did make me suspicious, was that a week later it was the end of term and I was challenged to a ice cream eating contest by one of my fellow teachers. Usually, I would jump at the chance of this knowing I would win hands down, but this time the thought made my stomach churn. I knew something wasn’t right.

That night, my husband was on night shifts. I had told myself that I was going to wait until 24th December to do a pregnancy test but me being me couldn’t wait. It was the 21st so I convinced myself be fine to do one a couple of days early. I did the test and then within less than 30 seconds it showed a positive, which was just getting clearer and clearer. I practically collapsed onto the edge of the bath as the information sank in. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest and I was shaking uncontrollably. I can’t actually write what I said on here because it wasn’t too polite but it was along the lines of, ‘I knew it.’

There was no chance that I was going back to sleep at that point and I was not going to tell my husband over the phone, so I waited until he got home at 6:15am to tell him. When I showed him the test he gave me the biggest hug then asked,” Now what to we do?” Thank god for google

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The Pregnancy

Over the 9 months, there were lots of different midwife appointments (roughly 1 a month). The first one involved lots of paper work, where as the others were more about measuring my tummy and listening to baby’s heartbeat (which was amazing to hear).

All of my life I have had a huge needle phobia, to the point where I would worry about injections and blood tests every day (I had never had a blood test before). When we first found out I was pregnant, my husband paid for me to have some hypnotherapy to try and help as he knew how anxious I was about the needles involved in pregnancy. I was terrified when the midwife said that at my 12 week appointment, I would have to have a blood test. One thing that did make me more determined to face this fear was that before I was due to have that, I was going for my first scan. This made it all so real, so in order to help me, I looked into ways to overcome a needle phobia. Whilst doing this, I came across a numbing cream called EMLA that could be purchased over the counter for around £5. I bought 4 tubes just to be on the safe side.

On the day, I made sure I put plenty (most of the tube) of the EMLA cream on my arm and wrapped it in cling film. My husband drove us to the hospital. I was so excited to see our baby, but so scared of the impending blood test.

After a short wait, we were called through to the scan room. Here, I laid on a chair/bed thing and got my belly out. The nurse put some jelly type stuff on and then the thing they use to do the scan. I was really surprised at how hard they had to press to get a clear picture. My baby was being naughty though (nothing has changed) and kept rolling over so they couldn’t see what they needed to, so they asked me to wiggle around to try and make a move. This was not pretty. Eventually they saw what they needed, gave me some scan photos and sent me to wait for the blood tests.

As I sat in the waiting room, I saw all sorts of nurses call people in for their tests. I was trying to decide in my head who I wanted to do mine based on how nice they looked. There was one lady who looked very strict and scary. I decided straight away that I did not want her. I really wasn’t sure if my arm was numb from the cream either because of the cling film. After 15 more minutes my name was called by no other than.... scary lady. I slowly got up and walked into the room with her. I blurted out how scared I was and that because if that I had slathered on a whole tube of the EMLA cream. She was fine with this and was actually really nice. She reassured me that it would be fine and thrust one of the Emma’s diary goody bags at me like a child who has kicked off at the dentist. Needle time. There was no way that I was going to watch her do the blood test, so I looked at my husband and squeezed his hand. It seemed to be taking her ages when my husband said, “Can you not feel that?” The needle was in and she was already taking blood and I hadn’t even realised. I was that excited about it I started shouting all sorts of rubbish. She took 4 viles of blood all in all and I was absolutely buzzing that I had faced my biggest fear.

Due to a couple of complications in my pregnancy, I ended up needing 6 blood tests throughout but normally you would just have the two. My first two trimesters were fairly straightforward. I did not suffer from morning sickness, I had no cravings and I was quite chilled out considering my hormones were all over the place. At my 20 week scan (3 days before the 1st lockdown) our baby was playing up again and wouldn’t let the sonographer see the different organs very easily, meaning she had to press really hard (which actually left me bruised). Again, I had to shake my belly like a bowl full of jelly and this time also had to walk the corridors in order to get baby into the right position. Near to the end of the scan the sonographer said to us, “Please don’t ask me to tell you the gender of this baby,” To which I was quite disappointed because I really wanted to know. Luckily, she was then able to tell us that we were having a baby girl. We were over the moon.

From that point I did start to get pain in my pelvis that felt like I had been kicked by a horse. This got worse as the weeks went on and I have since found out is called pelvic girdle pain. At 27 weeks, I also developed an extremely itchy and painful rash all over my body. It got so bad that I couldn’t stop myself scratching my skin until it bled. I tried all sort of different creams and medicines (prescribed by the doc) but the only thing that would work was ice. I was told that I would have to go to the maternity led unit to have a blood test to make sure that I didn’t have Choleostasis (a serious condition in pregnancy). When I got there, I had to go to the labour ward to have it done as it was a Sunday. Well, if you want to scare a girl into not wanting to give birth then send her here. The noises I heard were like something out of a horror film. After I had sat there awkwardly trying to ignore the screams of torture for around 10 mins, I was called in for my blood test, which came back as fine but because I continued to have the rash for another week I had to go back to have another one. Lucky me!

Things seemed to normalise after that. The pain in my pelvis continued to get worse to the point that when I walked, I looked like a had been riding a horse. I also took to sleeping on the sofa as the mattresses in our house were too hard for me. I even tried making a diy mattress out of the garden furniture cushions and some of our sofa cushions on the floor. This felt more like trying to sleep on a set of stairs so I soon reverted back to the sofa.

At 36 weeks I went for my usual midwife appointment. I was excited to book my aromatherapy water birth that I had been banging on about throughout my pregnancy. However, after measuring my tummy my midwife told me that my baby’s weight had plateaued and so she was sending me for a scan to find out why. This didn’t concern me as I had heard that these things could happen. That afternoon I drove to the hospital and I was soon called in by the sonographer. As soon as she put the machine on my tummy, she said,” Ohh, now that has thrown a spanner in the works.” My heart suddenly sank. She told me that my baby was breech. I instantly knew that this meant the one thing that I didn’t want. A C-Section! I was told that they may be able to turn my baby. I was hopeful at first about this but then I watched a video about how they do this on YouTube. Big mistake. Luckily, when I went to have it done, the consultant told me that he couldn’t do it for a number of reasons and booked me in for a c-section at 39 weeks. That week, I was in such a sulk about the whole situation but looking back, it was the best thing that they found out about it before I went into labour. It also gave me a chance to prepare and get my head around it (because I really don’t do surprises).

The Birth

We were told to get to the hospital at 7:30am on the 31st July for the op. As we drove there, we were in awe of the fact that we were going to be parents later that day. I felt fairly chilled out and had made peace with the fact that things could go wrong in the op but it was ok because I knew that it was the safest way for my daughter to come into the world at this point.

We weren’t sure if my husband would be allowed into the hospital until the actual operation because of the Covid rules. Luckily, he was though. There were two other couples having an elective c-section that day as well. When we got to the labour ward, we were all taken to triage. Here I was given a gown to wear and my husband had to put scrubs on over his clothes. Ohh I forgot to mention that it was the hottest day of the year so he was struggling with the heat. I also hadn’t eaten or drank anything since 12am earlier that day so I was so parched.

Over the couple of hours that we were in triage, I had a scan, discussed my blood and Covid test results from the pre op a few a days before (all were clear) and different medical professionals introduced themselves and what their role would be in the operation. When the anaesthetist came in, I explained that I had an extreme needle phobia but could cope if used the EMLA cream. He told me that I would not be allowed to use if for the c-section and I kid you not, I threatened to walk out there and then dressed only in just my backless gown and trainers (yes I can be a little dramatic at times). He soon realised that I was serious and agreed to let me use it. I was due to have the operation at 10am but because of my outburst it had to be pushed back until 11am to let the EMLA cream work.

11am soon came around though and we were collected by one of the medical people. We walked for what seemed like miles to the theatre, which isn’t too easy when you are suffering from pelvic girdle pain. When we got there, the room was completely different to what I expected. It was two rooms connected together full of machines in one and a bed in the other. Around the edge of the room were loads of medical professionals eating their lunch and chatting about what they were going to do at the weekend. I was told to take off my trainers and sit on the edge of the bed. They then told me they were going to put the cannula in my hand. I was a bit nervous but not too bad because I had my magic EMLA cream. What they didn’t tell me was that they were putting it into a different vein because the one they would usually put it in crossed over another so couldn’t do it. I literally felt every cm of that cannula as it went in. Because of this I went into a panic and started to freak out. My husband was holding my hand and telling me to squeeze it to try and calm me down. From there on it was like an out of body experience because I possibly went into shock. They then told me that I had to lean forward with my chin on my chest because they were going to do the numbing injections for the epidural. First they sprayed some cold water on my back and asked if I could feel it. I jumped up and made it very clear that I could. There was a nurse in front of me with her hands on my shoulders and she warned me not to moved. They did two injections, one on each side of my spine, which were not nice at all. I did jump and tensed up. I was terrified and was apparently shaking like mad. They asked me where I could feel it but my reply was way too rude to put on here. The cold water was then sprayed again on my back and this time I couldn’t feel it. I was once again warned not to move as they were going to do the epidural. Thankfully, I didn’t feel it at all because if I did I think they would have had to knock me out. I then had to quickly lie back on the bed before my body went numb. I remember saying that I really didn’t like it over and over again to my husband. One of the professionals asked me to lift my leg, which I couldn’t. It was the weirdest thing. I then said that I could feel pins and needles up to my chest, which is apparently what is meant to happen. The surgeons then said that they were going to put the catheter in but it’s ok because I would not feel it. Well, let me tell you.... I felt it. I tried to tell them that I could feel it but really struggled to get the words out because of the pain. They also laughed at me when I said I could feel it.

Bt this point, I was on another planet. I was freaking out and felt like I was out of my body watching. People were talking to me, but I could not work out what they were saying as I was in such a panic. After 5 minutes, I snapped out of it and I heard a suction noise like you hear at the dentist. They told me that it was my waters being vacuumed up and that baby would be here any minute. Suddenly, my baby was held up in the air over the screen that was put in front of me, like the scene out of the lion king. Even though she was dripping in my blood, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I burst out crying and couldn't stop.

Some of the medical staff whisked her away to the other part of the room where the machines were to make sure that she was ok. I told my husband to go with her and that I would be fine. Here he was able to cut the cord and take in those first moments of being a dad whilst, the doctors removed my placenta and worked on putting me back together. I was still crying and did make them confirm that we had a baby girl, because I had kitted out her whole wardrobe mostly in pink and was not going back to the shops. They then asked us what she was called and we agreed that her name would be Leah Grace. My husband brought her over to me where I got to properly meet her for the first time. I cried for a solid 40 mins.

Once the surgeons had finished operating, they had to roll me onto a board and then I was tipped onto a different bed. Leah was then handed to me and we were taken to recovery. Here I was monitored for a couple of hours. The midwife was concerned because my heart rate was really high and my oxygen levels were low. I told her that this was normal for me but she wouldn’t chill out. I had to have a couple of bags medicine through the IV drip but I was so in awe of my new baby I didn’t mind.

After a few hours my husband had to leave because of the Covid rules and I was taken to a ward. Here a nurse told me that she was going to take my catheter out and I would have to walk to the toilet that night or it was going back in. I tried to put up a fight about this but didn’t have the energy. I wasn’t prepare for what happened next however. She told me to take a deep breath in and then breath out on 3. When she got to 3 she yanked the cannula that hard, I honestly thought my soul had been removed from my body with it. It was horrendous. To top the night off, she announced that I would have to have 10 days worth of blood thinning injections in my tummy and she would be back in 5 mins to do the first one. This was my idea of hell.

Skipping forward to the next day, a new nurse came to remove my cannula. I was freaking out about this because I was still finding it uncomfortable. She did tell me that it probably would hurt as she took it out but she would be quick. I squeezed my fist so hard that the cannula actually came out by itself. Initially, walking seemed impossible. I felt like I had to hold onto my tummy in case it split open. But I found that the more you walked the easier it got and the pain became more bare able. Other things I found weird was that my legs and feet swelled up so much because of the fluid from the IV. I hated the feeling of it. I had to wear these white medical stockings to help with blood flow, but when I took them off to shower I could feel the fluid wobbling around especially in my feet. It went down after about 3 weeks. I was also surprised that even though I had a C-section, I also got after birth pains from my uterus contracting back into place.

So that is the story of my pregnancy and birth. Well done if you have made it this far as I know I have gone on and on but I really wanted to cover my whole thing. Leah did end up in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit the day after she was born but luckily she wasn’t there long and we were allowed to go home after 6 days. Although a C-section was the furthest method of how I wanted to give birth, looking back it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was quick, planned for and I didn’t really have to do a lot. Win win. Thank you for reading my story and I hope it helps just one person with their pregnancy.