In HuffPost Birth Diaries we hear the extraordinary stories of the everyday miracle of birth. This week, Rosalind Weinberg shares her story. If you’d like to share yours, email amy.packham@huffpost.com.
Birth never scared me. I was actually looking forward to doing something new, excited for the whole experience. But I kept my pregnancy quiet, only telling close friends and family. I’m laid back and generally quite a private person, despite spending a lot of my working hours on social media for my job. But the main reason I didn’t share the news more widely was because of a meeting I had with a client.
It had gone well – she really liked my ideas – so after three hours of getting along, I decided to tell her I was a three months pregnant. I never heard back about the work. When I emailed to ask why, she replied: “I thought you’d have a lot on your plate being pregnant!” She was the first and last client I told.
My bump was easy to hide during meetings because it was winter and the midwives always told me I had a “neat bump” anyway. I worked right up until I was nine months pregnant – and it kept me sane. I was just so excited.
At eight days overdue, I was close to being induced. In fact I was due to go in the next day if my waters didn’t break. But, break they did. Or full-on burst – then leak for hours. That’s what it felt like anyway. It was 6am and I woke up thinking I’d wet the bed. When I got up, the waters were streaming down my leg. I assumed when your waters broke it would be like a burst, and then it would be over. But it was nothing like that – it carried on for hours and hours!
I had mild contractions and was told to stay at home until I felt like I was actually going to give birth. I soldiered on with a hot water bottle on my back, where the pain was the worst, and carried on working on my laptop, taking regular baths and chilling in our front room. At 10pm, I tried to get an early night.
But of course, I barely slept. I used hypnobirthing techniques I’d learned to breathe through my contractions, which helped. At 6am the following morning, I couldn’t do it anymore. The pain was horrendous. We headed into hospital and thankfully, the ward was empty, so I was given my own room while I waited to be checked.
When the midwife looked to see how dilated I was, she pulled the emergency alarm. My husband hates hospitals as it is, and I kid you not, the colour completely went out of his face. He turned white.
We had no idea what was going on.
Out of nowhere, 20 members of staff came rushing in. I was wheeled down into the emergency area, which was a lot busier. Someone later told me that when the midwife had checked on me, she’d touched my baby’s head and his heart rate had instantly dropped. I was hooked up to machines and monitored, and managed to get to 9.5cm – mainly through my breathing techniques – naturally.
By this time, it had been 48 hours since my waters first broke and I was completely exhausted. So much so, that I started hallucinating from the feature wall in front of me, imagining it was the Lake District and that I was walking up mountains with my dad – he does a lot of hiking! Add to that the double contractions I was having with no break in between – I was shattered.
Finally, I asked for an epidural. My husband hadn’t wanted me to have one – he wanted everything to be natural – and my grandma had talked me out of it, too. But it was amazing and gave me a new lease of life – I was no longer in pain.
Still, the hours passed and I couldn’t reach 10cm. The doctor came to chat to me and it was then that he identified my son was lying ‘back to back’ – so that every time I pushed, it was putting pressure on his head and making his heartbeat drop.
A C-section it was. You just can’t plan these things, but as weird as this sounds, I really enjoyed the experience. It was very chilled. I was calm – there was no pain, just excitement to meet my baby boy. Half-way through the surgery, I was distracted by a female member of staff assisting in the room. “I know you!” I said. She had been the year below me at school. That was funny.
I don’t clearly remember the moment Leo was put on me – I’d had so many drugs pumped into me by this point that it became a bit of a blur. And, shortly after he was born, I was sick (I hate being sick, I’d rather do a bungee jump!). I remember feeling freezing, my teeth chattering.
But as the drugs wore off and I warmed up, the nausea subsiding, I was able to properly meet my son. Leo and I were taken to a private room, where I had wonderful bonding time with him. He lay in bed next to me, as I stroked and comforted him from my bed. It was a wonderful moment. We both passed out and slept straight through the night
My birth advice?
Don’t see visitors straight away! Have a bit of a break, shower, and freshen up and then see people. Try and enjoy the experience and take as many pics and videos as you can. Oh, and the epidural was a lifesaver for me.
Follow Rosalind on Instagram.