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Charlotte Scott’s Story

“My gorgeous baby boy arrived last Tuesday 18th January, we have called him Finlay James and he weighed 8lb 2 ½ oz. He is totally adorable and being a Mummy is such a wonderful feeling and way beyond my expectations.So here’s how he arrived, my waters broke at 2.30am last Tuesday morning, we went straight up to the Hospital, and my contractions started as we were on our way in the car. When we got there I was put on a monitor to measure the frequency and strength of them and I was having 4 within 10 minutes so they moved me to a room to stay whilst I was at this stage of early labour. I have to say the only thing that got me through the next 8 hours was the breathing techniques I had learnt in the classes with a little bit of paracetamol! My favourite technique was the straw breathing, the concentration on breathing out longer breaths really helped and gave me the ability to deal with the pain. I was examined at 6.30am and was 2cm, I had originally planned to have a water birth, however, for this to happen I needed to increase to 4cm by 10.30am for me to move into the pool. Unfortunately I had only managed to get to 3cm having spent an hour on my feet and using the birthing ball. So instead I was then moved to a delivery suite where they put me on a drip to increase the frequency and level of contractions. Timing of events are a bit blurry to me now, but I know I was put on the drip at 11am, by 1pm I think I had reached 5cm, they told me to expect a delivery at around 6pm, at this point the pain was getting worse and the gas and air wasn’t enough for me so I had a diamorphine injection which helped take the edge off the pain and relaxed me in between each contraction. During this time Finlay had moved back to back so I had to change position to on all fours to try and get him to move round, this was not easy as it felt I was moving a mountain getting over! Once I moved back to a lying position the contractions went very strong, at which point I turned into the Exorcist!! I started getting the urge to push, however the midwives were telling me I wasn’t ready and to stop trying to push, after a couple more like this and me letting them know how much I wanted to push they examined me and discovered they could actually see his hair! They then got the delivery kit out and told me I was able to push, I think I was pushing for approximately 30-45 mins, unfortunately Fin decided he wanted to come out waving with his hand alongside his shoulders which unfortunately caused me to tear! So there he was born at 3.40pm, a lot earlier than the midwives had predicted for 6pm, I had progressed to the 2nd stage of labour a lot quicker than they expected!

I just want to say how enjoyable and relaxing I found the Pregnancy Yoga classes, not only did the breathing exercises help me through labour, but it helped me throughout my pregnancy. I hope to join you in your regular classes once I am able to start exercise again, and certainly if I am lucky enough to have a 2nd pregnancy I will be sure to return to your Pregnancy Yoga classes.

Thank you once again so much, and please pass on my best wishes and luck to the rest of the group for their future labours!”

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