Victoria’s Birth Stories

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Today we are sharing the birth stories of the lovely Victoria. Her different births changed her in many ways. We are pleased to be able to share this transformation with you.

Who Is Victoria?

Victoria is a home Educating mother to four children.

She is a blogger, bar manager, allotment gardener and a gypsy rights activist.  She vlogs about family life, body confidence, and homeschool on her YouTube channel Home Educating The Mad Lads.

Find Victoria on Facebook

Today, we are sharing Victoria’s birth stories. I want to thank Victoria for sharing her experience with us.

If you want to share your birth story on Nourishing Parenting, check out the guest post page.

Our Miracle Baby and The Best Midwife

Back in 2010, at the age of 23, I woke early.

My husband was a chef and when he had to leave early to do the breakfasts shift at work I’d get up, waddling in my nightie, usually stuffing a banana into my starving heavily pregnant mouth and see him to the door before crawling back into bed for a few hours.

That morning was different though. I had belly ache. I nodded off, waking a few times as the pain came back. At 8am, I called my mum to say I was feeling too ill to come visit her that morning. Concerned, she asked what was wrong. I told her I had a belly ache that kept coming and going, very annoying, especially as the day before I’d wet the bed. Mum told me I was in labour, it was probably very obvious to everyone else but it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me my ‘accident’ in bed might have been my waters breaking. 

The baby wasn’t due for another four days and everyone had told me first baby’s are always late.  Not that I’d given the birth much thought.

It had been a long, hard road to get pregnant. I’d under gone fertility tests, two operations and self hatred, only to loose the baby and attempt suicide when I’d finally gotten pregnant. This pregnancy had been an answered prayer from God and everyday was a present. 

Mum came round immediately and we ate sandwiches and watched Jeremy Kyle on the tele as she told me it’d get worse before it got better.

When the husband’s boss finally let him home from work we headed to the hospital in an ambulance.  A quick examination at the hospital said I was already 8cm dilated and we were sent straight up to the labour ward.

This was about 1pm.

The ward was run off its feet. One midwife trying to attend to multiple women at once. After a quick check, I was okay and my husband and I were left alone with a promise that first baby’s take their time.

At half two I said I needed to push.

The husband pressed the button on the wall to call for help. A trainee midwife in her forties came in, “right I’ll get someone.” she said before doing a double take and coming back to the bed. 

The labour hadn’t been that bad, the horror stories people had shared during my pregnancy had made me imagine it was going to be much worse. I had been told by multiple people that you pooed whilst in labour if you weren’t careful and I’d felt a similar sensation and was fighting it all I could. That is until I couldn’t fight it anymore and thought sod it if I poo, I poo – he’s married me now he can’t run away.

So I gave in to the urge.

Only it wasn’t feces, turns out it was the baby’s head!

Suddenly it felt like a lighter was being put at my bits.  “It hurts.” I whimpered.  “I know love. I’ve had four boys myself.”  the trainee midwife said.  Mere minutes later, I was clutching a gorgeous bundle, wrapped in a towel and head slightly cone shaped, in shock.

After all the years of heart ache and longing for a baby, here he was.

Here he was. At last. 

Suddenly a angry faced midwife came in screaming at the trainee. How dare she deliver a baby? The trainee tried to explain there’d be no time to do anything else. I wish I’d stood up for her but I was too much in shock to react but I often think about that moment and hope the trainee didn’t quit after that because she is the best midwife I’ve ever had. 

After six hours we took our miracle baby home and it took a while for me to calm down at night. I was so frightened he’d be took away from me after all we’d been through to get him I used to wake myself up every half an hour to check he was still breathing, resting a hand on his little chest. 

And that was baby number one. 

The Baby Caught On Camera

In the autumn of 2012, we’d been through a rough patch.

The husband had lost his job, through no fault of his own, but the struggle of unemployment had left us broke and him depressed. I’d put on nearly five stone in this pregnancy and was often crying and out of breath.

The husband took on the first work he could find but our relationship still wasn’t great from what we’d had to deal with.

We were filming ourselves for a TV documentary about young couples having babies.

When it was broadcast the following March most of my segment was me crying, which was hardly surprising . The baby was nearly two weeks late. I felt so tired and heavy.

In the morning of the 6th September, I felt a few twinges and went about the day as usual. By the evening it was clear I was in labour. I figured my last labour had been so quick and easy this one had to be.

They say labour gets easier the more you do it, right?

So I waited up for the baby to ‘pop’ out. We went to the hospital around 2am. This time the ambulance men were rude to us for having an ambulance (the hospital is long way away, they shut all the small maternity homes near us, we don’t drive and didn’t really know anyone else who did and it was 12am!) but I didn’t really hear I was in too much pain. 

A quick examination at the hospital revealed I was only 4cm dilated. I was shocked. How could I be in that much pain for so long and be hardly any way along? 

When we were finally told I was dilated enough to go to a Labour room, a midwife said the birthing pool was free did I want it?

I said yes of course.

I’d heard water is a great pain reliever. I’d only had gas and air with my first labour and thought I’d go totally drug free with this baby. I sat in the water. Fairy lights twinkled in the darkness. Some music left by the previous labouring woman played. It was peaceful to start with.

Until the minutes turned into hours.

I had been pushing for hours. The midwife said my waters were bulging but she couldn’t break them for me.  By this point I was wrinkled like a prune and freezing. There’s only so many times cold water can be let out and warm water poured in comfortably.

If I’m honest, if I heard anymore of the looped music I’d have gone mad too.

The husband was either asleep or filming me for the documentary. Either way he was the other side of the room but at the time our relationship was hanging by a thread so I suspect I’d have felt just as alone if he’d have been in the pool with me. 

I said I needed to get out.

The midwife helped me out, gave me a dry hospital gown to wear and left to go home. Two young midwives came in who seemed to think my idea of a pain relief free birth was funny and continually tried to push the gas and air into my face whilst saying “you get no prizes for being brave you know?” until I snapped at one of them.

They did however break my waters though.

I gave birth standing up, screaming my head off, not so much because it hurt, but because I felt like a trapped paralyzed animal at the mercy of two midwives who talked to each other like I wasn’t in the room.

All this was caught on camera. 

But my son came into the world at a whopping 9 pounds 6 ounces and six hours later I walked out of the hospital and we took him home.  And that was baby number two.

Christmas Eve Baby

 On the 23rd December 2015, I had a midwife appointment. I’d declined to be induced on Christmas day (we had two other kids to consider) but I agreed with a heavy heart that if I hadn’t had the baby by boxing day day they could induce me then.

Being induced is a fear of mine.

As is spending hours and hours in hospital after my experience with baby number two. I also didn’t think the baby was overdue. I knew when he was conceived and, by my dates, he was due on Christmas day.

The midwife said no way. By his scans he was now two weeks over due and needed evicting. The husband went to bed that night and I stayed up to watch a docu-drama about the comedy show Dad’s army. I was too worried about being induced to sleep. Because of my raised BMI this time, I’d had to fight every inch of the way to insist on a natural birth on the birthing centre.

The last thing I wanted was to give all that up to be induced. 

Anyway, I watched the programme and laughed. I felt a twinge. The twinge came back. I timed the twinges, every twenty minutes. I went upstairs and woke the husband. “I’m not sure but I think I’m in labour. I’ll go to sleep and see what happens.”  I curled up next to the husband, our relationship was back on solid ground and I’d learnt from my last labour that not resting in the early parts of labour is a big mistake. So I slept, waking occasionally to pain, the husband would rub my back and hold me and we’d drift back off to sleep.

It was warm and safe and loving. 

Around 4am I couldn’t sleep anymore – the pain was too regular, too great. We went downstairs so as not to wake the kids. I walked, I rocked, the husband kissed me and rubbed my back.

All was peaceful. 

Before we could go to the hospital we decided to try and wait till 7am, hoping that’d be a more reasonable time to get my mum to mind the kids and the husbands brother, who we had only just started a proper relationship with, to drive us to the hospital.

At 5.55am I said to the husband “we can’t wait any longer. We need to go now.” 

My sister in law is a mother herself and knows about labour. She’d laid all puppy pads and absorbent towels on the back seat of their car as the husbands brother sped down the highway. Later he was to say, by the noises I was making, he thought we were having sex on the back seat. I retorted that I was in pain so God knows what sex with him is like!

At one point in the car I said I wanted to push and the husband said “you’re not having our son in my brothers car!” like I could hold him in. 

Once at the hospital, there was no time to examine me. I had to stop every other step as I went down the corridor to have a contraction.  “looks like they’ll be a baby any minute.” the midwife said jovially. 

She was an older midwife with older ways. 

Within twenty minutes I’d had the baby with just the minimal of gas and air whilst pushing.

He shot out so fast he was born not breathing. The husband and I looked at each other as a blue floppy baby was placed on me. The midwife slapped him hard across the back. His whole body jerked and finally the cry we’d all been waiting for came from our sweet boy. The blue was replaced with a scrumptious pink.

The dense hair on his shoulders confirming my believe he wasn’t over due. 

With the first two kids I’d had an injection to ease out the placenta. This midwife slapped my stomach hard and the placenta came out.

It was a quick and efficient technique but I’d have liked some warning first.

I’d lost a lot of blood but as that night was Christmas eve we had to go home for the other two children’s sakes.  And that was baby number three.

Our Baby Girl

 Our fourth child was to be our first girl.

She was due in July so we had planned on calling her ‘Cherry July’ but I guess she didn’t like that name because she hung on till August.

I’d have liked a home birth this time.

Labour seemed to go a lot better for me if I felt loved and safe at home. But the midwives said with my raised BMI they couldn’t possibly allow it. Also the day after baby number three was born, a midwife came to our house to check the baby and rung social services on us because the house was messy.

It was Christmas day!

I had just had a baby and had lost a lot of blood, kids were opening presents and the husband was trying to cook. Social services said the midwife had wasted their time and, duh! it was Christmas day. I’d just had a baby and I got a long letter of apology from the head of the midwifery department but it caused a lot of unnecessary upset and I didn’t trust a midwife snooping in my house while I was immobile in labour.

So, once again, I fought my corner to get a place in the birthing centre despite my raised BMI. 

All night I’d laid on the bed with the husband, once again sleeping and only waking up to be comforted by him during any surges of pain.

I wished I could stay on the bed and give birth like that.

Just me and him.

Finishing the journey we’d started together. The next morning it was the 1st August. My mum came round. I was pegging out washing, laughing, and talking. Even when the contractions were a minute apart, I didn’t want to rush to hospital.

We only went in the end because my mum said we really must get going. 

The husband’s brother drove us there again. When we arrived I refused examination. If I was only 4cm I thought I’d go mad. Also, this was the first Labour where I’d been told I could refuse them.  The midwife said it would be ages yet so the husband left to get a drink. The midwife stayed the other side of the room and said “after all your natural births you don’t need me.”

I was relieved to be left too it but also annoyed.

If I didn’t need her, why had there been such a fight to let me birth naturally and why couldn’t I have just gave birth at home with my husband? 

Anyway, next thing I’m bend over pushing my girl out and the husband came in just as she was crowning and our daughter was born! 

And that was baby number four. 

We haven’t been blessed again yet.

When I had fertility treatment, I was warned I could be I fertile again at any time but I live in hope that one day we’ll be blessed again.

And we have got four beautiful children. We are luckier than  some. 

I fantasize about having a natural free birth at home one day.

 
Victoria is a home Educating mother to four children. She is a blogger, bar manager, allotment gardener and a gypsy rights activist.  She vlogs about family life, body confidence and homeschool on her YouTube channel and on her Facebook page: Home Educating the Mad Lads. 

If you want to share your birth story on Nourishing Parenting, check out the guest post page.