Erika’s Birth Story
My birth story. of my beautiful baby girl Aspen born at 40+6 weeks on 02/03/23 weighing 6.6lb. Erika x
I had been getting strong Braxton hicks for about two weeks before Aspen was born, I thought I was going into labour every day during this period! It was a really tough time as they kept getting stronger and stronger and more frequent, but painless so it was quite disheartening to wake up and still be pregnant every day! At 39 weeks I was offered to have a sweep, after this, I had a bloody show straight after and part of the mucus plug came away. I thought amazing yes it's definitely coming soon. 3 days later I had another sweep where nothing happened so I decided to let nature do its thing and not try to interfere and knew my baby would come when she wanted.
On 2nd March I woke up at fam with period pains that were a little stronger than the dull period aches I had been having previously. I got up and walked to the toilet and noticed there was a bit of blood in my knickers. I called the midwife straight away and they said to monitor it to see if it progresses and if it does, I needed to go in. As the morning went on I went for a walk with my husband, where my Braxton hicks were really strong and starting to become uncomfortable. We walked for a few hours and luckily I lived walking distance from my hospital and as they ramped up a lot I decided to walk to the hospital to just get checked. When I got to the hospital the contractions were coming fast, about every 5-10 minutes and I was uncomfortable but it was bearable.
I had a scan and the sonographer noticed my baby hadn't grown since my 38 week scan. I was contracting now quite strong and was taken over to the labour unit where I was given gas and air (which was amazing). The doctor came in and said he was concerned with the size of the baby and the lack of growth and offered me two options. 1 - induction but could lead to c section as baby is small and 2- straight to c section. I never originally wanted a c section but at this point where I was contracting every 5 mins and there was clearly a problem - my instinct didn't think twice, I wanted my baby out as quickly as possible, so I went straight into theatre.
My c section was really calm and peaceful, it wasn't rushed and chaotic which was so good - despite how scared I was, I was really shaking. Aspen wasn't brought out to me quickly, she was left to work herself out of my tummy which was really amazing.