Gina's story - Joshua

JOSHUA

I was due on 26 July 2005 but was certain my baby was going to come early. However, the morning of 27 July dawned with no baby in sight. I spent most of the day feeling small, uncomfortable twinges in my stomach, so I knew something was definitely happening.

My husband was visiting friends when I sent him a text message at 5.30pm to say that I thought I was in labour. The pains had persisted all day and had started to feel a lot stronger, and were now about 10 minutes apart. He wrote back to say that he would come home, but I was trying to be brave and tough, so I wrote to tell him I was fine. But by 6pm, my contractions had quickly gone from every 10 minutes to 3-4 minutes apart, and I was feeling a lot more pain with each one. So I sent him another text saying, "Come home NOW!"

My husband rushed home and immediately rang my midwife, who determined that I was already 4cm dilated and doing really well. I was determined not to go to hospital too early or spend hours waiting around for the baby to arrive, so we decided to stay home and call the midwife when the pain got too hard for me to handle. 

An hour later, I was up and cooking my husband steak for tea! I didn't want him to be hungry and, to be honest, staying busy kept my mind off of the pain. Finally, at 11pm, the pains were getting to be too much for me. I was tired and hadn't eaten all day so really felt exhausted.

We were at the hospital by 11:30pm. I had chosen a delivery room with a birthing pool as I hoped to use the pool for pain relief. I'm terrified of needles so there was no way I was going to have an epidural. I was using the gas and decided to stay in the water as it felt so relaxing and it really helped my body to feel calm.

At 3.30am, I decided to have pethidine as I was 7cm dilated and absolutely exhausted. Only a few minutes after I had the needle, I told my midwife I needed to push, and, sure enough I was fully dilated. A few pushes later, at 3.43am, Joshua Shane was welcomed to the world. He weighed in at 7lb 9oz and came out with his hand up by his head, so I required a lot of stitches. That meant I had to be apart from him for the first hour of his life, but his daddy dressed him, cuddled him and brought him to me as soon as I was stitched up and could hold him.

I hadn't planned to have a water birth, but it turned out to be an amazing experience and one that I will definitely do again!