The Newborn Diaries - My birth story

Welcome to Norman Education's new blog series - The Newborn Diaries. I'll be documenting my journey through motherhood and sharing what I have learnt.

I write this whilst holding my newborn baby sleeping in my arms. Lesson no.1 of motherhood: learn to multitask!

I became a mum for the first time in April 2026 when my daughter arrived at week 41 of pregnancy. I had a fairly smooth and uncomplicated pregnancy and therefore expected a smooth delivery, but that wasn't the case. My birth plan was:

• have an active labour - I wanted to move around and labour in different positions - anything but lying on my back

• have a water birth - this was something that my heart was set on. My local hospital has nice birthing pools/baths with ambient colourful lighting that embodies a calm atmosphere.

• have an 'au naturale' delivery - by this I mean I wanted limited to no medical intervention unless necessary - no induction, no episiotomy, no epidural etc.

My daughter and my body however had other plans. Here's how labour and delivery actually happened....

On Thursday afternoon I was booked in to have a sweep conducted. I attended the antenatal clinic and the sweep was performed around 4pm at 41 weeks exactly. Due to my gestation the midwives and doctors wanted to induce my labour, something that I really did not want. I was trusting that my body knew what to do and that my baby would come when she was ready. As a result of this I had to spend the few hours after my sweep sitting in triage waiting for a doctor to come and talk to me about why I was declining induction. About an hour after the sweep pain began in my lower back and I was kneeling on the floor bent over a chair for a lot of the time I was waiting in triage. At 7:30 a doctor named Ashleigh came to speak to me about the risks of carrying on my pregnancy and not inducing. I stood my ground and explained that I wanted to wait a couple of days to see if the sweep would work. This was Thursday evening and they provisionally booked me in to be induced on the Saturday. I went home and planned to have one last night of sleep before potential arrival of baby. That didn't happen! By this point I was having contracting pains in my lower back that hurt enough for me to seek out a warm bath. I got out of the bath around 9pm and tried to go to bed but I couldn't sit, couldn't lie down or really move without discomfort. I deduced at this point that the sweep had worked and labour had started, and the only position I was comfortable in was on my pregnancy ball. I told my husband to try and get some sleep before it came time to go to the hospital.

Come 11pm I moved to standing under a hot shower for relief and I was now timing my contractions. I ended up standing in the shower for 2 hours or more. At some point I woke my husband and told him "this is it" and to call triage. We ended up heading to hospital around 2am on Friday morning. When we arrived I was only 3cm dilated and was given the option to either go home or stay an be rechecked in an hour. I opted for the latter and I am glad I did. First of all, the lower back contractions were agonising and leaning over furniture was the only comfortable position. Secondly, I went to the toilet whilst in triage and discovered that I was bleeding. This was terrifying. My husband called the nurses/midwives in who decided that I needed to be admitted upstairs in the birth suite. This meant that water birth was no longer an option and I was gutted about that.

Around 3am I was put into a wheelchair and taken upstairs to the birth suite. I was grateful to have my own room and it was lovely and quiet up there. Sadly though this unknown bleeding (and there was a lot of it) meant that I had to stay in bed and be hooked up for continuous fetal monitoring, so no chance of active labour (I did keep asking). This set off a whirlwind day of pain, doctors, midwives and my husband 'feeding' me water between contractions. I got to 10cm dilated with my waters intact and involuntary pushing began around noon on Friday. After a couple of hours the medical team became concerned that pushing wasn't getting me anywhere. The midwives broke my waters about 2am and they went everywhere! That was a weird experience. Doctor Ashleigh came to see me (the same from the previous night) and began to consider interventions as I had been pushing for about 3 hours now. As if my baby heard, my instincts took over and out she came at 3:25pm.

What a feeling it is to have your baby put on your chest! She didn't cry which made me worried but she was breathing. Instant relief was felt when she finally made a noise. There are of course many details of the day that I can't remember or didn't take in whilst I was in labour but all that matters at the end of the day is that I have a healthy, happy baby girl who was born at 3.71kg with a full head of hair. After birth it took Doctor Ashleigh an hour to stitch me up and many lap pads to absorb all the blood. Here are some of the medical elements from my birth that I do know:

• I ended up with two tears and an episiotomy

• I had excessive bleeding and developed a hematoma

• I needed a catheter and IV fluids

• I became severely anemic and at risk of sepsis and was put on IV antibiotics for two days

• I stayed in hospital until Sunday evening due to the IV and had to await an iron infusion

• I stayed in my own room Friday night as I still had the catheter in and doctors wanted to monitor my bleeding and hematoma

There were so many people who came in to that room but its all a blur now. Birth is really humbling and now I don't care about any doctor or nurse looking 'down there'.

My recovery is still ongoing and I will cover this in another blog entry.

I cannot praise the hospital team enough. They were all lovely, friendly and helpful.

Don't focus too much on your birth plan, as you cannot always control it and to be honest, once in labour I did not care anymore - I just wanted the baby out. I do hope though that your birth goes to plan more than mine does.

Here's what happened that was against my birth plan:

• birthing on my back in a bed

• being confined to the bed

• having an episiotomy

• a student midwife in the room (she was lovely - thanks Jade!)

• staying in hospital for a few days

But all that doesn't matter now. We're so in love with our baby girl.

Until next time,

Chloe