I Had A Baby: Our Birth Story

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In July 2020, I had a baby! His name is Finn and he’s the best thing that I ever did. Originally, sharing my birth story was not something I had considered. However, having gone through birth, and the amount of interest there has been from others in my birth story, I decided to write it down. Curious? Read on for the full account of how Finn joined us. Including all the best parts, the gross parts, and everything in between!

Warning: Yep – this is your first and final warning. I am telling you all of the details in this post, so if you want the whole truth, read on.

How It All Started

On Sunday night when I was already 9 days past due I went upstairs to bed. My husband gave me a lovely foot massage, because he’s sweet like that. The end of my pregnancy saw my feet puff up and I begged daily for him to help relieve the tightness. The husband was a good sport and obliged almost always.

Anyway, after this end-of-day foot rub I got up and walked across the room. As I walked, I noticed water had dripped onto the floor. And I was like “huh?!”. Thijs and I were confused why I was weeing without realizing it. Pregnancy sees a lot of changes to your body and quite a few weird thing have happened… so peeing without realising it doesn’t actually come as a shock! But a quick second to think had us realise it was my waters breaking!

Call The Midwife

We immediately got excited as this meant Finn was coming! After a quick clean-up I got into bed to relax. I started having mild contractions shortly after which we monitored. We timed the length of the contraction, and the length of time in between. Once it got to 3am, I was having regular contractions for over an hour so I called the midwife. She arrived at 4am and checked my dilation. I was 2cm dilated, which was a nice start! As it was almost 5am when my midwife went home, she asked that I try to rest a bit & call her again at 8am to give a report of the contractions.

By 5:30am, the contractions went away. So, I went to sleep.

I woke at 9am and still my contractions had not yet resurfaced. Being impatient, my husband and I wanted to do anything we could to try to get the contractions up and running again. We went for a walk and I did squats. I also meditated. Nothing happened with my contractions. Unfortunately, by 6pm (18 hours since my water broke) my contractions still hadn’t started up again. So I was sent to hospital to check that everything was still okay with me and baby.

Hospital Birth

At 10pm we had our hospital appointment to check everything with me and baby. 2 hours of tests showed everything was fine and we were sent home. Once a pregnant woman has had 24 hours without delivering the baby from when the water breaks, an infection can happen that could be harmful for both mum and baby. My water had broken 24 hours prior, so I was no longer allowed to deliver at home. I was also not allowed to deliver with my own midwives at the birth centre anymore. It was to be a hospital birth. This is so the baby can be monitored during the labour in case of emergency.

At hospital at the first appointment, we were told that the baby must be born within 72 hours of the water breaking, so I had 48 more hours before they would want to induce me, and if that didn’t work, it could turn to a C section.

For me – this caused stress and I was quite upset with how things were going. I had such a good pregnancy overall and was relaxed in general, with no fear for the birth. Yet somehow I felt at that moment, my body was failing me! My visions of a calm birth without intervention were looking like they were ruined.

Day Two

Tuesday came around and I was still without any movement from baby. Our next check-up at the hospital was that afternoon and I was disappointed it had come to this. As my husband and I were sat in the waiting area to be seen by a doctor, a pregnant women in labour was wheeled in. She was supposedly 5 centimeters dilated and she was having contractions right there in front of me. Due to my emotional status after 2 days waiting for baby to come, I burst into tears! Seeing someone else have exactly what I wanted to be happening to me was too much for me to take. I cried and cried. Eventually I was called into my appointment, sobbing.

But…

During the appointment, I began having mild contractions. We got excited and thought maybe this time it was finally happening! As there was no more time to wait for things to happen naturally, I was scheduled the following morning to be induced. If my contractions would pick up strength over night, then I’d go into labour naturally. However, the doctors did not expect this to happen. Their matter-of-fact-ness really put a dampener on my high spirits! I was sat there having contractions, and they poo-poo’d the idea of me having the baby without assistance. That was a hard pill to swallow!

We left the hospital both frustrated and emotionally drained. And so completely utterly ready to meet our baby boy! We took a drive (with me still having contractions) to find some peace with our mental exhaustion and have our last moments together as just the two of us. It is a weird thing, knowing you’ll have a baby tomorrow. In my head, I always thought the day I would give birth would be a surprise. But knowing tomorrow was the day, was a strange feeling! Oh and just in case you were wondering, those mild but steady contractions lasted until midnight and then disappeared. So no. It was not the time.

Finally, The Day I Had A Baby

Finn’s birthday was here. We woke up and discussed how we’d be parents later today. So bizarre! After getting ready for the last time without a baby, we drove to the hospital. Thijs wheeled me to the waiting room of the maternity wing  – even though I wasn’t in active labour.  Usually, when the pregnant woman arrives at hospital, the partner wheels her on a wheelchair to the birthing wing of the hospital. So my husband felt it was part of his job, and something he felt he had to do, regardless of how our birth was going. After a few minutes wait (which felt like forever), I met my maternity nurse and was taken to my birthing room. It was called New Zealand & it was huge!

The Suite Life

Inside the birthing suite was a birthing pool, all of the technical gear for after the birth, a couch and a nice view. Not that I had time to enjoy the view! After settling in, the maternity nurse hooked me up to the drip and began my induction. I was induced with oxytocin, which is the love hormone. It’s the same hormone you release when you have an orgasm. It’s also the hormone that brings the baby into the world naturally! So, love hormones create the baby and also bring the baby out. Pretty cool right?!

& It starts

Once my induction began, the midwife placed a cord on the baby’s head to track his heart rate. At the time I did not know how she did this – I assumed she stuck it with a sticker. Once I birthed Finn, I found out she had punctured his scalp skin to have the cord attached! Horrifying, I know! This is a lesson in making sure you actually ASK what the doctors/midwives are doing. Whilst the head tracker is common, that does not mean my baby needed to have it done. I would have loved to have understood what I was being asked to decide together with my husband if we were happy to have the heart rate tracker placed that way.

Anyway, from 9am until around 11am the nurses were slowly increasing the amount of oxytocin I was receiving into my wrist to help speed up contractions. I had my zen music playlist going and was fine during the contractions to keep conversation going. From about 11:30am is when I had to start really focussing on my breathing during contractions! This is when it got a little heavier!

It is here I will mention, leading up to the birth I read Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method. This style of birth really spoke to me. As part of my birth plan, I had breathing and visualisation exercises ready to practice during contractions.

4cm to 6cm

From 12noon I was around 4cm dilated & this is where it picked up. With a higher dosage of oxytocin, my labour progressed relatively quickly. From 4cm-6cm the contractions became uncomfortable & with each new contraction, I tried to find a comfortable position. I stood, I leaned on the bed, I bounced on a skippy ball, I laid back down. Eventually standing bent over leaning on the bed was the best position for me.

6cm to 8cm

From about 1:30pm I had reached 6cm dilation. I moved with my hospital drip to the bathroom as I needed to use the toilet. But whilst there I had a contraction so I moved from the toilet to lean on the bath. This became my new best position. During contractions I ordered lunch, and ate half of my sandwich standing by the bath. One bite in between each contraction. During this time, my maternity nurse suggested we try getting into the birthing bath for some respite, which was perfect timing as I was really starting to struggle. One thing to know – the birthing baths are so big, they take what feels like hours to fill up enough that you can begin using it!

8cm to 10cm

Around 2:30pm I got into the bath and had my dilation checked – we were at 8cm! The midwife and maternity nurses were all really pleased it had gone so quickly and were giving me positive reinforcement that everything was going to happen soon. The good vibes around me and the bath were my birthing saviour, I think!

It took just 45 minutes for my body to go from 8cm to 10cm, but this was the hardest part of the labour! There was nothing that could help with the pain during the contractions and I went into my own animalistic world. (I also puked up that half sandwich). The noises that I made during contractions were noises I have never made in my life, nor could repeat. I yelled the F bomb quite a few times too and asked (read: begged) my maternity nurse to give me drugs. She assured me that from looking at me she could tell that I didn’t need the drugs and was going to get through this medication-free. I’m glad she refused me the drugs because my goal prior to going into labour was to deliver Finn medication-free.

The Water Boy

My husband’s job during the labour kicked up a gear in my final 2cms. Whilst I was in my own birthing world, I ordered my husband to hold a battery operated hand-held fan next to my face. If he moved or took the fan even slightly away from my face I got mad & commanded “FAN.”  I got really hot in the bath and the contractions never seemed to end before a new one began. If I felt I had a quick break after a contraction, I would command “DRINK”. My husband would then have to hand me my blue Powerade, with drinking lid open. If it was closed – oh boy was he in the bad books. Other than my two commands, I couldn’t speak. I was focused on my hypno-breathing and gathering my will power between the contractions to get through the next contraction.

Go Time

Around 3:15pm things kicked up another gear for me. One minute I was having a heavy contraction and the next I was kneeling in the bath, hanging over the side of it and yelling that I needed to do a poo. Feeling the urge to go to the toilet is a key sign you are 10cms dilated and ready to push baby down the birth canal! Upon hearing my need for the toilet, my maternity nurse called the midwife in to check my dilation. After checking my dilation she enthusiastically said “congratulations – you are at 10cms dilation so you can push this baby out!”

I didn’t even have time to realise I was going to be having a baby. I just moved to a new position in the water and began pushing during contractions. My husband got emotional at this point, a moment I’ll always remember. His expression was both pride and realisation.

No To The Bath

I pushed in the birthing bath during my contractions for about 20 minutes, but I found it difficult to focus in the bath. This was because I was hooked up to a drip with an IV in my wrist and was attached to a pole. I couldn’t put one of my hands into the water as it had the IV etc attached, but there was no where to hold onto.

During one contraction, whilst I pushed I slipped out of my pushing position and was rolling around in the bath trying to find some grip! So, a beautiful birth in the bath like I had envisioned was not going to be the thing I did. I had to get out of the bath. With a break in the contractions for a short period, I got out of the bath to continue pushing on the bed. On my 2 metre journey back to the bed I had 2 contractions – so I pushed standing up in the middle of the room!

Almost There

Once back on the bed, the nurses were able to see the beaded cord which was attached to baby’s head. When I would push, they could see if more beads became visible, which showed them how much progress I was making.

During the pushing phase I was not in pain, the pushing didn’t hurt. What was hard was getting enough oxygen to be able to put together 3 big pushes! I felt like I was running a marathon. The pushing seemed to take hours and hours but in total the pushing on the bed took 1 hour.

I was thinking during the pushing that I was disappointing the nurses because the baby didn’t come out yet. And whilst I was thinking this, the main midwife strolled into my birthing suite carrying a huge mug of tea! She smiled at me, sat down and just sipped her tea while watching me. I guess I could take this reaction as she felt things were going well and I was doing great. Or that I was taking too long. I felt the latter! I got worried they would move me to an emergency c section if I kept going much longer because I really thought I was taking far too long to get baby out.

Clueless

But then at some point during the pushing of the baby, all of the nurses started moving around the room. They were setting up a table at the end of my bed. I guessed this was because the baby was almost out. At the time though, I really had no idea what it could be. Was baby close? Were they bored of waiting so they were just finding things to occupy their time? For me, doing this for the first time, I really had no idea what to expect or what was happening at any time. But for the nurses, this is their job – so really ,I shouldn’t have been confused as to why they were all so relaxed. I was going through the craziest most amazing experience of my life! But them? Just another day at the office!

Is this it?

During one contraction, I felt a burning sensation at my vagina, which I had read is what it feels like when the head starts coming out. I knew in this moment I was going to meet baby Finn really soon! I looked over to my husband and saw tears in his eyes. He told me he could see the head. Yes – he looked, and no he doesn’t look at me differently now! We heard before the birth that looking at the baby coming out was like watching your favourite pub burn down…! But I guess, for my husband it was super awesome to watch.

The Head

After hearing from my husband that he could see the head, I immediately reached down to feel the head! One of the weirdest things I have ever done. Such a bizarre thing to know the head is poking out and to realise it was the first time I ever touched my child! My husband also touched the baby’s head after I did it – such a special moment &  I would recommend to any mum and dad!

Here He Comes

During contractions the midwife asked me to push 3 times. With each contraction, I would push with all my might, stop to take a quick breath, push with all my might again, then take one more quick breather before using any energy I had left for the third push before the contraction would end. During the contraction after feeling baby’s head, I pushed 3 times, and during the 3rd push a couple of the nurses grabbed the baby to help guide him out during my push.

In this moment, I had not a clue what was happening and actually asked if the baby was okay. I thought for a moment something had gone wrong because the room had gone from super relaxed to ACTION. What had actually happened was that I had pushed the baby’s head out with 2 of the 3 pushes and with the final push of that contraction, his shoulders appeared and I pushed his body out. The nurses just held him to guide him out.

He’s Here

With no time to think or understand what was happening, Finn was laid on my chest! My baby boy was born! It was over! I had my baby! It was the most surreal moment – that I actually birthed our baby! He was born at 4:46pm, an hour after I began pushing on the bed.

Post-Birth

After birthing Finn, we were pretty busy with looking at him & saying things like ‘omg this is our baby’, all the while the nurses were giving me more oxytocin to help dislodge the placenta & help me birth it, & then check my vagina for tears etc. Within a couple of minutes I pushed the placenta out (yes – birthing doesn’t end with the baby!). Thankfully, pushing the placenta out only took me one push. I think a lot of women don’t know this, but after birthing your baby, the contractions do continue until the placenta is out! So – the quicker it’s out, the better! Although, I cannot remember feeling pain from the contractions after my baby was born. Perhaps this is due to the amazing amount of adrenaline, happiness and exhaustion you are feeling!

After birthing the placenta, the nurses were all pretty interested in it. Who’d have thought that it could be so interesting? One nurse was holding it up, stretching it, and checking out every part of it to make sure it was in tact. We took a photograph of it, because what else do you do? No it is not something I ever want to look at again. BUT that placenta was my baby’s lifeline for 9 months and so I’m proud of my placenta. Absolutely nailed it’s job, so bravo.

After the placenta birth, two nurses checked my vagina for any tears and I am happy to say – they found none! This mumma birthed her son, unmedicated, and without any tear or rip of the skin!

Cut The Cord

The next stage was waiting for the umbilical cord to stop pumping. Delayed cord clamping was important for us. This means the umbilical cord is not cut until all of the possible nutrients from the placenta has passed to the baby via the cord. If it is cut before it has stopped beating (yes it beats, like a heart), then not all of the nutrients have made its way to baby.

Once it was time for the cord to be cut, my husband was excited to have his special moment. We made sure to photograph this moment because that is sort of when baby goes from womb to world, in a way! My husband described cutting the cord as like cutting a steak with scissors haha… so there you go.

After baby Finn was free of his placenta, one of the maternity nurses weighed him and gave him his APGAR score. The nurse then brought him back to me for his first feed and more skin-to-skin time with me. During this time is when I noticed I was still bleeding downstairs, so I had a nurse check this. She decided that my body wasn’t stopping the blood loss on my own so I needed another hit of Pitocin to clog my blood and stop the blood loss. This was also something I wasn’t aware of – the birth blood loss. In my head, the baby is born and that’s that. But there’s 30-45 minutes post-birth where you have different things going on.

Once my bleeding stopped, the nurses left us alone to enjoy Finn!

Post-Post-Birth

We received dinner shortly after being left alone, so I ate first whilst my husband had some skin-to-skin bonding with Finn. I took Finn back whilst my husband wolfed down his dinner and then we began video calling our families to introduce them to our newest family member! Half an hour after we ate, I was asked to walk to the shower to rinse off. This moment was carefully watched by a nurse to make sure I didn’t faint from the exhaustion/blood loss. As I was totally fine, we were signed off to be wheeled to our room for the night, where we stayed another 18 hours.

During the next 12 hours we had nurses visiting us every 3 hours to check Finn. And when those nurses weren’t there, we had other nurses visiting us in between to discuss things like post-partum mental health, how the birth went, if I was happy with the nurse team, breast feeding assistance etc! However we did get some rest, and when we rested, I think we both rested hard!

I woke up in the night at one point (when we weren’t being woken by nurses)  and saw Finn across the room sleeping and I just started crying from being so happy! It really was the most incredible feeling to realise I was now a mum to the most darling little boy I had ever laid eyes on.

Post-Birth Shower

One thing I didn’t realise would be a memorable experience from giving birth was my post-birth shower. I did rinse off quickly in the labour room, but it was my first real shower in our suite which was incredible. I don’t know why – but the post-birth shower is truly amazing.

It’s basically the first piece of actual alone time I’d had in 9 months! I no longer had a baby in my belly. I was lighter on my feet. Exhausted yes, but feeling euphoric. I was sweaty, obviously, so the shower really felt like a cleanse! Anyone out there reading this who is packing their hospital bag – make sure to take some nice (mini) products with you and let yourself enjoy this shower moment!

The Morning After

Usually in the Netherlands, parents of new babies leave the hospital within 3-5 hours after the birth. However as I was induced, I was kept for observation and was meant to stay until 5pm the day after the birth (24 hours). The morning after the birth we had a couple more nurses visit us and were then cleared to leave at noon!

I was so grateful to have had the night at hospital to rest and have help through the night, I almost didn’t want to leave! In hospital, we were in our own little bubble – and with leaving, we would really be taking our baby into the real world! But, we were ready!

We left the hospital almost the same way that we entered. My husband wheeled me in a wheelchair back to the car park, though this time, I had my baby on my lap. All I could do was stare at him. This pure innocent little being was mine!

Today

My son is now almost 7 months old and there have been many amazing experiences since the moment I birthed him. I can honestly say being a mum is the best thing in the world and I can’t imagine my life before having Finn in it! To all expectant parents, there is a joy you never knew existed coming your way! For expectant mums, enjoy the ride and just know – your body was built for this! You can do it.

Thanks for reading!

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About Lesley

Australian expat, married to a Dutch guy, living in Amsterdam. Previously lived in London for 3 years, too! Lover of travel, coffee, brunch, beaches, fresh flowers, and family. Now a new mum, navigating life with a baby!