The birth of baby Winter

9.30pm I was finally dozing off to sleep as I felt a warm gush. I dove out of bed and the gushing continued all over the floor. I called out to my husband to bring a towel. He immediately saw the water on the floor and ran to grab the car keys. He knew we didn’t have much time. The pain was intense and immediate. I felt the burn through my lower back wrapping tightly around to my stomach as I calmly grabbed my phone charger and checked for anything else we may need. My husband standing at the door jingling the keys..... “let’s go Breigh, now!!” I told him I was just going to call the hospital and let them know we were heading in. “You can do that in the car, we don’t have time... let’s go.” I said goodbye to my parents and told them to give my babies a big kiss. I made the call to the hospital and told them we were on our way. I opened the contraction timer app as they started to feel very close together and intense. I fell quiet. Luke at this point became concerned. “Why are you so quiet? She’s coming isn’t she? Do I pull over? How far apart are they?” He asked. “3minutes” I responded. I knew we wouldn’t have much time and I did feel a little nervous that we may not make it to hospital. We arrived and for the first time I was able to walk myself in. Both our previous children were almost born in the car park when a midwife caught me and wheeled me to a room with seconds to spare. I was monitored for 30mins with contractions extremely strong. I needed to move, my body needed to be upright, I asked to be taken off the monitor and they agreed to move me to a birthing suite. The birth suite was amazingly calm, it was dark and quiet with candles and soft music. I quickly told the midwife my intentions of a water birth to which she agreed. I explained I had a bleed after my son, so she inserted a cannula to be safe. Contractions at this point we’re back to back there was no break in between as I positioned myself over the bed. “Can we run the bath?” I asked. “Now?” She responded in a perplexed tone. “Do you think she’s coming?” I nodded. She began to run the bath and left to get another midwife to deliver. As she left the room, I calmly removed my pants and squatted on the floor as I felt my body instinctively bearing down. The midwife returned to the room and asked if I wanted to get on the bed. I shook my head no, so she positioned herself behind me as she helped to guide our baby’s head out. One strong contraction and some panting and I felt her head out the second strong contraction was immediate as the rest of my baby quickly decended into my hands. I lifted my baby girl up to my chest as she let out a big cry and I let out a sigh of relief. We did it! It was 11.47pm - labour was 2.5hrs. She was here and perfect. The midwife directed me onto the bed to quickly deliver the placenta in hopes that I wouldn’t have another bleed. The placenta felt stuck as the midwife tugged and tugged. Eventually I birthed the placenta, the midwife looked concerned as she examined it. The doctor arrived to do my stitches, I tore with all 3 babies but this tear was by far the worst. I tore muscles internally and right the way through externally. The doctor stitched me up, we were getting ready to weigh our girl and head to our room when I felt as though I’d wet myself. I knew what was happening. “I think I’m bleeding” I nervously told the midwife, I knew I was, I suddenly felt cold and weak, I was shivering as the gushes continued. The emergency button was hit and I was stormed with midwives and doctors I had needles in both legs and arms, legs up in stirrups and 2 midwifes pushing on my stomach with all their weight to contract the uterus. The bleeding was graphic and continued, as I winced in pain with tears running down my cheek. Still holding my baby as she cried and attempted to feed. “Where’s the placenta” I heard the doctor call out “was it in tact?” The midwife informed the doctor it wasn’t in tact. The room fell silent, I felt sick, sore, weak and tired. I had lost 2L of blood as they told me I required surgery, rattled off the list of risks involved and took my baby off my chest and handed her to Luke. I was told they were performing a manual extraction, that part of the placenta was stuck inside me, so they were going to use their hand to tear apart the stitches they had just done, insert their hand into my uterus and scrape away the retained placenta. I was wheeled into surgery. When I woke the pain was so intense I couldn’t move, I was informed a balloon was placed inside my uterus and was packed with what looked like 10m of bandages to stop the bleeding. I felt as if the babies head was crowning for 12 hours until they finally removed the bandages and balloon. IV antibiotics, IV iron and pain medication were pumped into me all night and the next day. I felt like I’d run a marathon, my whole body hurt, I was weak and tired but I had the most precious baby girl, the last piece of our puzzle had arrived and she was more perfect than I ever imagined and just like that, time stood still for a 3rd time, I was in love and I knew I would do it all over again in a heartbeat ♥️ (don’t worry, I won’t) 😂