Gabriella Edith Marks birth story

Our final little GEM 💎

Gabriella Edith Marks arrived 00:06 on Sunday 3rd July 2022. I was hoping for Saturday 2nd, obviously!

I went into Labour exactly one week after my due date, the first signs of it being a bit of watery blood leaking out of me at around 9.45am, as I sat on a fabric chair brushing big sister Isabella’s hair. Although I had experienced occasional Braxton Hicks from about 36 weeks of pregnancy. This was the first time I’ve ever gone into Labour naturally, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect, what was going on, and if this was really the start of it! For the next few hours, whenever I went to the loo and wiped, there was more of this faint watery blood on the toilet paper. I called triage who weren’t too concerned and told me to keep an eye on it, they had thought maybe my waters were trickling out rather than gushing as baby’s head was so low. Obviously at this point we didn’t know baby was a girl (although both James and I thought so, despite Cameron wanting a brother this time!).

Typically, it was all going on that Saturday! Cameron was at James’ parents house as is normal for a Saturday morning when daddy is at work, but Isabella was home because she had been running a temperature – typical!! I suspected this was the start of Labour, as I wouldn’t want to leave Isabella if she was unwell, but obviously would have to if I was in Labour! (I’m too high risk to birth at home, despite never getting any darn pain relief, however hindsight has proved I need to be in hospital for post birth which I will come to later!)

I let James know about the blood and said I suspected early Labour but told him not to hurry home as nothing much was happening at that point. I put a sanitary towel in my underwear but there was never anything on it, just faint blood when I wiped all day.

It must have been about 2pm when I decided that contractions had definitely started, and had been going on and off all day. Nothing major, quite far apart, and I still wasn’t really sure if this was Labour or not! The pain wasn’t that bad, quite literally felt just like tightenings, so I just carried on! I wanted to go for a little walk to see if it would encourage things along a bit, but the weather was awful and I didn’t fancy being out in it! Standard British Summer eh!

I also realised that I’d.. Err, TMI warning here… emptied my bowels, shall we say, a few times that day which I think is also a sign of imminent arrival of baby – having a good clear out! As such, I did not poo in Labour this time 😂!!

At 4pm Isabella’s temperature was 39.1degrees, and Calpol was taking an hour and a half to calm her temperature down slightly (not to normal) and 2 hours to perk her back up to her usual self. Of course Labour was definitely happening, my baby was poorly and my newest baby was coming!

I can’t remember what time James got home – I think about 3.30ish, with Cameron. At around5/5.30pm, we decided to alert our parents to the situation, the plan being my parents would come over to ours to help with the bigger two children, but OF COURSE, my Dad was also quite unwell with a chest infection. There was no way he could leave his bed. With Isabella also being unwell, my mum didn’t think she could manage both Cameron and Isabella for an indefinite period of time, so James took Cameron back to his parents for the night. We asked my mum to have dinner at hers and then head over to us.

At 6.30pm not much had changed! I was bored! I was bouncing on a birthing ball but it didn’t feel like it was doing much. Some contractions were really far apart (21 mins!) and not painful, others were painful, although again nothing major, and closer together (8mins!). We had our plans in place on the basis it seemed like something would happen that night, but now that we had that all sorted, it felt like nothing would happen!

Around 7/7.30pm I put a bikini on and sat in a hot bath. I had wanted to try a water birth so I thought getting in the bath would be a good way to start that off, and see if it helped the contractions as they started to become more frequent and more painful. It didn’t, but again I wasn’t in agony. Mum arrived around 7.30/8pm to me still in the bath. I think James managed to get Isabella ready for bed and even asleep (although she saw my Mum arrive, so she knew Grandma was around, which we wanted to do in case she woke in the night and we were gone).

Once Mum had arrived, things seemed to start moving a bit quicker. Contractions started coming closer together – nothing longer than 10 mins apart (& that was rare), and lasting up to a minute, from memory! It must have been about 9pm that I called the hospital for the third time that day (can’t remember what the second time was for!) as by this point, although I could breathe through the contractions, they were stopping me in my tracks and I was no longer able to continue talking through them. I wanted to go in and be checked over and thankfully as it was my third call for the day they say that’s when they want you in.

We arrived at the hospital at around 9.45pm. We left our bags in the car and just parked up in the emergency spaces by the door, for now, as at that point I did feel like I couldn’t walk very far. I was breathing through contractions ok, but they were definitely becoming more painful and more frequent.

Once I got into triage and into the bed they hooked me up to monitors to check baby’s heart rate and the contractions. They mentioned about doing a covid test but then got distracted with other things as I needed a wee just as they arrived to do it, and as they wanted a urine sample they let me do that first. They could see I was having contractions but were not yet overly worried. I asked if we should bring our bags in as James went to move the car to the car park and the midwife said not to worry as she thought we may still be going home yet – this must have been around 10.15pm. I knew by this point that I wasn’t going home without a baby! Shortly after I randomly felt like I was going to be sick. They got me a kidney bowl just in time and I threw up all my lunch into it! They got rid of that one and handed me a new one and a bit more came up and then I felt fine again. They came back to take a covid test and to check my dilation which the midwife did first – she as astounded that I was already 7cm and said I had been managing that pain incredibly well, but I’d say it was from here that I felt like I was no longer managing it! She called a midwife up from Labour ward to come and get me, and as Grace the midwife walked me down, I said I’d like an epidural.

I knew as I was walking, just like with Isabella, that I was NOT getting an epidural 😂

Obviously, I still kept asking for it! I was even laughing as I asked for it as I knew it was too late. As we got into the delivery suite, I couldn’t stay still. Grace asked me if I remembered that I would have to stay still to have an epidural and I told her I’d manage – HA! I was bent over the bed, naked from the boobs down (still had my bikini top on!), gritting my teeth through contractions. Baby, was coming, and, it turned out, that watery blood was not my waters. My waters, had not broken.

Grace asked me if she could break them, to which I said yes of course, but once again, she couldn’t as I couldn’t stay still through any contractions. Baby was quite literally coming thick and fast, just like big sister did in the end. I chopped and changed through quite a few positions – some brilliant ones for birth – bent over the bed – facing the bed headrest and holding onto it, on all fours, but in the end ended up in a slightly less optimal position, sat/squatting on the bed with my back against the backrest. It came time to push, and baby was still in its waters! I told James to grab the camera because I knew being born in your waters was rare so I wanted pictures of the baby on the bed in them.

Obviously, because it’s me, this didn’t happen! I had all the extra pressure and extra pain of birthing a baby in its waters, and just as the shoulders came out, the waters popped! So no lovely, amazing pictures of baby in its waters, just unsharable pictures of baby in waters, coming out of my gaping hole 🤣🤣!

I’ve no idea how many pushes it took. I actually don’t think it was many – 2 or 3 and our second girl was out! Whilst James and I both felt baby was a girl, both of us were still surprised at the lack of boys considering his male dominated family! However, we were only settled on a girls name, neither of us were sure about the choices we had for a boy, so it worked out well! By some absolute miracle, despite her coming out in her sac, I didn’t tear at all! So zero stitches for me this time, yay!

Gabi came straight out and latched onto the boob like a champ, just like her siblings, for 45 minutes before she was weighed! 7lbs 5.5oz

Now 14 weeks already, time has flown! Huge eyes like her siblings – but blue! Different but equally gorgeous! She’s a super smiley little soul. Lighter hair too, I think she’s my most Scottish child – my Dad’s mini me!

Post birth was similar to Isabella’s – I only lost around 800ml of blood, but I couldn’t stand or sit without fainting. Once again I’d had no pain relief in birth but still needed the dreaded cannula to get fluid into me… could anyone get a cannula in? Could they hell! My veins collapsed and there was a point when James was snuggling a sleeping Gabi (probably asleep himself!) and I was dazing in and out of consciousness on low iron, very low blood pressure and very dehydrated – despite drinking quite a bit through labour! Who knows why my body keeps doing that.

Gabi had also done a poo in her sac, so there was water, blood and meconium poo all over the place! Whilst she was feeding on me she also very kindly did a poo on my naked tummy. I felt sorry for my wonderful midwife who didn’t only help bring my baby into the world, but had to give me a bed bath because all I could smell was poo but I couldn’t stand to get showered! The job of a midwife is not glamorous and not all bringing sweet little babies into the world!

1.5L of fluid later and I was finally able to stand up slowly. I was then later transferred to a ward, even though I hadn’t had a covid test done (fairly sure I was covid free though!). My big babies, daddy and Grandma (my mum) came to visit Gabi and I in hospital briefly – it was hectic because once Izzy had said hello, all she wanted to do was jump and climb as usual which didn’t feel good with a catheter in! I was desperate to get home to my bigger babies, despite saying all pregnancy I was staying in hospital for a week for a break! I pushed for discharge and once I could wee (oh yeah, once again my bladder went into trauma and wouldn’t release any urine for roughly 20 hours after birth!) that was that, we packed up and went home! In hindsight, that was a daft thing to do as my iron levels turned out to be dangerously low and along with still being dehydrated (should have probably had another bag of fluid, plus some blood!) I had constant headaches for weeks post birth and was frequently feeling very faint (although thankfully no more fainting) and breathless. My community midwife got me onto iron tablets and after that course ended, I’ve felt fine. And here we now are, as a family of 5 ❤️ (6 if we include poor Rufus who mostly lives with James’ parents now for a quiet life!)

First swim 14 days old!

Absolutely adored by her big brother and sister ❤️

Our 3 beauties ❤️❤️❤️