Heinz - Tinytums

Birth

'To the side of the room there's a bathroom with the biggest bath I'd ever seen in my life.'
Helen, 27, says she was information mad when she was pregnant with her baby George.

‘For the actual birth I had a water birth.  It was at what they called a ‘home from home room’ at the hospital, which is like a hospital room, but done up to look like it’s your house.  Ha ha, it didn’t really look like my house, it had really flowery curtains and things, but it’s nicer than being in a delivery suite.  Basically they just hide all the weird looking medical equipment in wooden draws.  Then to the side of the room there’s a bathroom with the biggest bath I’d ever seen in my life.

'It was really cool having my little sister there to share the experience'
‘I read loads about all the different types of pain relief beforehand and I’d decided that I really wanted to steer clear of an epidural if I could and really that I only wanted to use gas and air.  TENS sounded quite good, but someone had told me that it works really well until you stop using it, then you can have this endorphin crash and the pain’s even worse.  I don’t know if that’s true, but you can’t use TENS if you’re in the bath anyway, so I didn’t bother.  I’ve got friends who’ve used it since though and said it was great.  The gas and air was a lifesaver actually.  Though I think I got a bit dependent on it.  My midwife kept telling me to leave off it later on and feel what was going on. 

‘In the hospital I had my husband and I had my sister too as they said you could have two birthing partners.  It was really cool having my little sister there to share the experience with me.  I think my Mum would have liked to have been there, but no way was I going to have her there.  I love her to bits, but that would have been a nightmare!

 ‘When it came time to actually  having the baby I was in the water.  I’d been in and out quite a bit, wondering around.  And the midwives had changed shift halfway through, which was a bit weird, I wasn’t really expecting that.  But it was alright I suppose.  All the midwives I had in the hospital were really nice.  When the baby was coming I was on all fours in the water and the midwife didn’t really do anything.  She talked to me, but all she did was hold a mirror under me in the water so that my husband and sister could see the baby coming out.

 'They let my mum and her partner and my husband's mum and dad all come into the room and made us all a cup of tea.'
‘The loveliest thing was when the baby was born.  Because of the position you’re in in the water the baby kind of swims up in front of you and you just naturally come face to face and I could give him a hug.  It really was lovely.  The midwife got us out of the water and wrapped us in towels.  I remember shaking like a leaf, but we warmed up and I cut the umbilical chord myself. 

‘Because we were in this home from home room we had quite a lot of time to ourselves afterwards.  Probably about forty minutes, which is more than you’re supposed to have, but the staff were all really nice to us.  They let my mum and her partner and my husband’s mum and dad all come into the room and made us all a cup of tea.  It was really late then and the baby and I went up to the ward while my husband and family all went home.  I wished I could have gone with them and I really didn’t want to leave them.  I ended up signing myself out really quick the day after.  It was really nice to come home.  I’ve had two children since then and each birth has been really different.  I suppose that first one is very special.’