Birth of Baby Easterlow - Empowering Birth during COVID, even when your birthing journey changes completely!

Paige’s story

Baby Easterlow had an estimated due date of 26th January 2021. There were no signs of impending labour at all until 11.45pm on Saturday 6th February, when I woke up with a few painless tightening’s. Come 3am on Sunday 7th, I woke Ryan to let him know that I thought something had started. By 8am, we were on our way to University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire with our pre-set labour playlist featuring ‘It’s the final countdown’, a song which showed our excitement to meet our son.

On arrival at the hospital, we masked up in line with COVID-19 restrictions, took a few selfies to show the soon to be Grandparents the arrival of their first Grandson was imminent and headed on into the Lucina Birthing Centre. Following examinations, we settled down into our own room and began putting up pictures and affirmations to aid the journey of birthing our baby boy.

Using the breathing techniques learnt via Body to Baby’s Hypnobirthing course, I began working my way through the surges, with the support of my amazing husband Ryan, to encourage the flow of oxytocin. We put on a comedy and had plenty of laughter between surges.

Around 3pm, the surges were coming thick and fast, lasting around a minute each time. Reluctant to use any pain relief, I got into the birthing pool and continued with the breathing techniques, continuously guided by Ryan. Surge strengths were monitored during each examination and the midwives commented on the strength of them and how well I was doing to be breathing through them.

Shift change at 8pm saw another examination and it was mentioned that I was 6cm dilated and that things had slowed down. We all discussed that if my waters had not broken naturally by the next examination, it was agreed for baby’s sake, that they would be artificially ruptured.

Things escalated quickly, with the waters being broken at around 10pm. When the waters were broken, there were traces of meconium, which meant a transfer to labour ward was needed.

After being wheeled through to labour ward, it quickly became apparent that baby was struggling, and I was feeling the surges much stronger. As the surges were flowing, baby’s heart rate was falling. It was agreed I would go on to gas and air as it was becoming more and more difficult to keep up with the breathing techniques due to being so tired.

After close examination of myself and Baby, the consultants came in at 11.45pm to explain they needed to cut Baby’s head to take a blood sample and depending on the result, an emergency caesarean section would need to be performed.

I had worked so hard up until this point and both Ryan and I were beginning to fear the worst for their little boy and decided to request the C-section was done without cutting baby’s head as they did not want to put him through any further distress when he was already struggling.

The consultants agreed and I was immediately prepped for theatre. At 1.40am on Monday 8th February, weighing 9lb 1oz Baby Easterlow was lifted into the world and whisked off for checks. Proud Daddy Ryan was able to meet the little guy very soon after and went through to cut his umbilical cord whilst they finished the operation on me.

It was a rollercoaster of a journey for us all, however, we were able to start the journey exactly as we had wished, and we are both so happy to have our son in our world. The hypnobirthing course aided the journey and gave us the tools we needed to keep my fear of hospitals at bay. Both Ryan and I were able to remain positive throughout the pregnancy and birth, despite the actual delivery not being how we had planned it to be. But we made the right choices for us all and we were listened to and respected, which helped us both make the most of the situation and our experience.

We are both besotted with Baby Easterlow.