"Birth"

I recently uploaded my story of the pressure I was put under to induce my son in May, however after reading it I realised I did not give due to the midwives who were actually involved in helping me deliver him and I wanted to remedy that. 

I had a stressful upsetting time in the last few days of my pregnancy that overshadowed my memories, however the midwives involved once I was in the labour suite, and especially the student midwife Claudia, were wonderful.  They were following procedure by trying to have me hooked up to an ECG for the full birth but were respectful of my informed choices and conceded when I said no more after half an hour and plenty of good movement and a good heart rate.  They respected my wish to use the pool and were consistently polite and consistently asked for consent to touch me and monitor me.  

The student in the room examined me with my consent and was very gentle, and stayed long after her shift to see my son born as she had never seen a birth with no use of G&A or drugs in a pool before.  She held my hand and maintained eye contact with me during the pushing phase which was so lovely as everyone was in full PPE (due to covid) and it had felt quite impersonal up to that point.  She made me feel seen.

Following the birth they were respectful of all of my wishes and helped in the ways that they could.  I felt like I was in a completely different hospital to the one I had visited during my antenatal appointments and I will always remember that student.