Rachel’s Rainbow Baby Birth Story

 

Next up for my Mama Stories Blogger Takeover, I welcome Rachel! She writes at RachelBustin.com. I really wanted to feature her as a guest poster as I was touched by her difficult story of trying-to-conceive and then a tricky birth too. It’s all worth it though as her little girl is just gorgeous! Here is her story…… 

My husband and I had been trying for a baby for nearly 3 years before I found out it was a viable pregnancy. I use the word viable because that’s what I wanted to hear for all those years. Our journey to become parents has been hard. In 2013 we got married and I found out I was pregnant when we got back from our honeymoon. Unfortunately this pregnancy wasn’t meant to be and I miscarried 12 weeks later.

Our second and third pregnancies were not meant to be either. After the third miscarriage on 14th February 2015 we decided to have a break. If it wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be for us.

In May 2015 I started being sick. Feeling generally unwell, tired, grouchy and snappy. I had a niggling feeling that I just may be pregnant. I didn’t want to believe it because of all the heartbreak we had been through. I couldn’t get my hopes up again……

I found an old pregnancy test tucked away in the bathroom. I had used so many over the past few years that I already had a plentiful stash hidden out of sight.

It was positive. It was one of those ones that told me I was 4 weeks+ pregnant. I screamed for my husband downstairs and he came running up. We both sat there for ages letting it sink in.

This time we were going to be alright. I just knew it. I had an early scan straight away due to my previous history and when I saw the heartbeat I cried with happiness.

My pregnancy was just perfect. I have always had slightly low blood pressure so that was the only thing they kept an eye on and I had to take a low dose aspirin throughout as my BMI was over the threshold. But apart from that I sailed through it all. Feeling contented. Happy. Looking forward to meeting my baby girl.

Before I knew it I was going on maternity leave. I left work at 32 weeks as I had 5 weeks holiday to take before my maternity leave began. Those weeks I was busy cleaning, preparing and waiting. My due date came and went. Baby girl was obviously happy and contented in my belly and didn’t want to come out. We had waited so long for her, but I knew she was worth the wait.

12 days after my due date I went in to be induced. It was 8am Saturday morning nearly exactly a year ago today. Storm Imogen was raging. I felt like an elephant but nearly got blown off my feet walking to the maternity unit from the carpark. My husband was loaded like a pack horse with all our things and we were both drenched by the time we got there.

They started me on the pessary to get my cervix relaxed and going. This did not work. We were wondering around the hospital all weekend trying to get things going. At tea time Sunday they decided to take me up to delivery to start the drip. At least in the delivery room we had a TV. The hours went by and still nothing. I was only dilated 4cm so they decided to break my waters to see if this would help me progress. My husband all the while was enjoying watching the Superbowl eating a McDonalds. I was starving but not allowed to eat anything.

By Monday morning I was still only dilated 4cm and I had the maximum from the drip so they made the decision that I had to have a c-section. I ended up having the two things I didn’t want. A c-section and an epidural. I was so tired and hadn’t slept since Saturday night and was accommodating to anything at this point.

I was taken down to theatre and baby girl was born at 14:29 on the Monday. I didn’t get to hold her for a while as they ushered my husband and baby to the room next door while they tried to stop me bleeding. I had lost well over 4 pints of blood by the time they finished. Due to my rare blood group they managed to recyle my lost blood and clean it before I had it put back in. I can tell you it made me feel so much better after. I’m positive they would not have let me go home the next day if they hadn’t done that!

Now here we are a year later with a happy, contented, walking toddler who means the world to us.

Thanks to Lyndsay at Fizzy Peaches for allowing me to share my story with your readers!