Steph's Speedy Second Birth
- thebirthbase
- Nov 6
- 6 min read
My gorgeous client, Steph, shares her epic second birth story with us.
Steph first joined The Birth Base for my Northampton group hypnobirthing course during her first pregnancy. She absolutely smashed her first labour, and of course, went on to do the same with her second! She truly is superwoman.
Often people talk about labours, especially first time ones, being very long and drawn out. But this was not Steph’s experience at all! With her first labour being only 5 hours from start to finish, her second was even faster, with Steph experiencing what is known as precipitous labour (less than 3 hours).
Steph’s story shows how important it is to trust your gut, be informed and have a birth partner who can confidently advocate for you in a fast paced situation (Lee, Steph’s husband did this brilliantly).
I’m SO proud of Steph, she dealt with an overwhelming situation like an absolute queen. Grab a cuppa
'My birth did not go as I had planned, but there are still positives. Principally, that both my husband and I were informed, he knew how to advocate for me and I trusted my gut. This helped us be taken seriously and made an overwhelming situation feel a little more manageable.
My plan had been for birth pool in hospital like I had for my first. My experience at KGH last time had been great: I was 7cm on arrival, they read my birth plan and got the pool ready, they dimmed the lights and put out electric candles without us asking. I did have continual monitoring but they were able to facilitate this whilst I was in the pool so I was actually unaware it was even happening. It was a great experience and so my plan was very much: same again please!
My first labour was quick (5 hours from waters breaking/first contraction to my son being born) so I was expecting a similarly fast labour this time, but the speed ended up being much faster than I expected and things quickly became chaotic. I was 40+2 and woke in the night to go for (another) wee and couldn’t go back to sleep. There was nothing to suggest anything was happening, but I was just awake. At around 4am I became aware of a mild stomach pain, but I didn’t think much of it. The pain wasn’t coming in surges (it was just a background slight ache), I hadn’t lost my mucus plug and my waters hadn’t broken. But at 5.30am the pain was still there so I called my mum to ask her if she’d come over to look after our 2yo, just in case. I apologised as I thought it was likely a false alarm and I was over-thinking things, but as he’d be waking soon I thought better safe than sorry. I told her not to rush.
By the time my mum arrived half an hour later it was clear this wasn’t a false alarm and my background stomach ache had become full on contractions coming every 5mins. Things then continued to escalate very quickly and within 45mins the contractions were coming every 2mins, so my husband called the hospital and they told us to come in.
I went through transition in the car on the way to hospital, which wasn’t fun, but my husband knew what was happening when I was shouting that I couldn’t do it and just focussed on keeping me calm and getting us there as quickly as possible. Obviously when we arrived there was no parking (IYKYK) but luckily there was a disabled space free so we parked there and headed to delivery.
Having first asked my husband how long I’d been in labour I was asked to wait in the waiting room (they clearly thought I wouldn’t be that far along yet.) After a couple of rapid contractions I was quickly moved to the assessment bay where they said someone would be there soon to examine me. They asked me to lie on one of the beds which I declined and instead marched up and down the middle of the 4bed room, probably terrifying the poor women behind their curtains! After 2 contractions in there I told my husband he needed to get someone in as things were happening. The midwives were doing handover so said they’d just be a minute. By the time he got back I could feel my body starting to push so I told him to go back and tell them. At this point the midwives realised we wernt messing about and ran in. I told them the baby was coming and they did an examination and confirmed they could see her coming. At this point my waters finally broke. I asked for the pool and they tried to suggest it was too late but I was insistent so, bless them, they humoured me and told someone to go run it. My body did a couple more pushes and my daughter was born. It had been around 10mins since we arrived at hospital.
After Aurelia was born I was very disorientated and confused by the fact we were still in the assessment bay. I was still in my t shirt as had only had time to take off my bottom half. I wanted to do immediate skin to skin and the midwives helped my husband take my T shirt off whilst I still held my daughter. They asked about my preferences for cord cutting and they were happy to wait for white. They answered my questions and explained that they had moved all but one couple (who couldn’t be moved) out of the assessment unit during the birth as it had been clear that if they’d tried to move me I would have delivered in the corridor.
Once the cord was cut and the placenta had been delivered I was moved to a delivery room for us to be with our baby in private. They helped me into a wheelchair whilst we were still doing skin to skin, covering me with some towels to move us. They were happy to wait to weigh and check her over, and just said to buzz when we were ready. This was really important to me after such a chaotic birth and we had skin to skin and fed for around 3hours before she was weighed. This helped bring some calm back to the experience and gave my husband and I chance to get our heads around the fact she was actually here. We were asked if we wanted to go home or stay in but we were happy to be discharged, again it felt like we had control of the situation.'
At 5.30am when I called my mum wondering if this might be the start of labour I didn’t expect that I would be holding my baby at 7.25am and introducing her to our son at home by 4pm. It wasn’t the birth I had planned, and delivering behind a curtain in a 4 bed assessment unit wasn’t on my bingo card. But understanding what was happening and trusting my body definitely made it easier. As did being able to advocate for what I wanted after she was born. Having those golden hours were so special and I felt completely confident to say what I wanted and wait until we were ready before she was taken for vitamin k and weighing. I think for me it highlighted the importance of being informed. Being aware that your birth might not go to plan, but knowing about your rights and understanding the process of labour are so important for when things aren’t going to plan. This is why I think doing an informative and empowering antenatal or hypnobirthing course is so important for every expectant mother and their birth partner. Without the knowledge I gained I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to say exactly what I wanted after my daughter was born and could have been left feeling very overwhelmed by the birth.'
If you enjoyed this blog post and would like to read some more birth stories you can check out...
If you'd like to do some hypnobirthing with me, you can join a Northampton Group Hypnobirthing course here (just like Steph did).
Or work with me on a 1:1 basis, you can see some more info here
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