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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
YoIn 10 weeks, I have to expel an entire human being from my body. I understand this is never a picnic, but this year, giving birth feels more fraught than ever. It hasn’t been a great year for the experience of motherhood. In May, the all-party parliamentary group’s report on birth trauma was published, identifying damning concerns from patients, midwives and doctors about NHS maternity units. Social media hasn’t helped either – Instagram and TikTok are fertile ground for horror stories about everything from emergency caesareans to unwanted inductions, tears, episiotomies and births lasting several days, neatly packaged into 30-second nightmare scenarios and served up on the feeds of mothers-to-be.
Don't get me wrong: it's fantastic that women are given a voice when it comes to traumatic experiences and poor childbirth care. I want the typical NHS childbirth experience to improve as much as anyone else. But with all this noise, it can be hard to imagine anything other than the worst.
Actually, the conversations that have most motivated and encouraged me have been the good birth stories, the ones told to me by a few friends, quietly, almost apologetically. It's not fashionable to say “I loved it,” but it happens. People have told me they felt powerful, in control, or that they'd come into contact with an intensely feminine and communal magic when working with their midwives.
Some argue that there is no point in highlighting these stories – they will only make women who suffered through childbirth feel bad or give first-time mothers like me an unrealistic picture of what is to come. Last month, presenter and influencer Ashley James dismissed the need for them to be aired on Jameela Jamil's show I weigh “I find it a very toxic and irritating thing that people say, ‘Oh, you only hear negative birth stories,’” James said. “But do you think people want a positive story? No one wears that like a badge of honor. Maybe if we were all more open about negative or traumatic birth stories, maybe we could push for healthcare to improve and become better.”
I agree, but I also think we hear a lot of the bad stuff. According to some experts, wallowing in the darkest “what ifs” can be physically counterproductive. What pregnant women need for a smooth birth is plenty of oxytocin (the hormone of satisfaction and security), some sleep without nightmares, and a dash of optimism. So, with ten weeks to go until the birth of my own child and a range of possibilities, what I want now is balance, perspective, and good news. So I set out to find women who had had birth experiences that weren’t horrible, in the hopes of entering my third trimester with a bit of calm.
Sarah Walker
Sarah, an estate agent living in Richmond, south-west London, was nervous about the birth of her second child, as her first ended in an emergency caesarean. For round two, she was determined to make things easier. She turned to hypnobirthing – a combination of deep relaxation, breathing techniques, visualisation and self-hypnosis to encourage pain relief – and says she had a transformative experience.
After the birth of my first child, my doctors wanted to arrange a second automatic c-section, but I felt strongly that I wanted to try a vaginal birth. To achieve the birth I hoped for, I researched everything from nutrition to the right exercises to do. A friend from NCT classes encouraged me to try hypnobirthing. I listened to a series of visualisations with audio guides to help me through labour, often while I was sleeping and emerging from an afternoon nap.
The night before I was due to give birth, I slept for 10 hours straight. I felt refreshed and had a very good breakfast just before my first contractions. Once at the hospital, I didn’t know the midwife I had been assigned (a fairly mature, slim woman), but she was lovely – everything she said was very kind and calming. I told her about my hypnobirthing philosophy and asked her to reframe the negative terms “pain” and “contractions” as more natural “waves.” Fortunately, she had no problem with me following my instincts.
I wanted to stand up, swing my hips, and lean over the top of the bed, and she was fine with that. We chatted a lot during the power surges – talking about my job and my real estate business, and it turned out she had a property she wanted to rent out, so we did a bit of networking. She remained my client for years!
In the visualization I had created, I was standing on this beautiful beach on a deserted island, and I imagined each wave as my baby moving toward me and then away again. It was January, but I honestly felt like I was bathed in sunshine. Toward the end, I felt the compelling, almost animalistic urge to reach down. My midwife, always supporting me, got down on her knees to catch the baby. Then my daughter was here. I can’t say it wasn’t painful, but it was like the most beautiful pain.
Liana Fricker
When business consultant Liana moved from the US to Guildford, Surrey, she imagined that the birth of her first child would take place in a private facility in the UK. She was sceptical about using an NHS hospital because of the horror stories she had heard. However, she was ultimately pleasantly surprised by the quality of care in her local area.
In the early weeks of my first pregnancy, I had appointments at a big NHS hospital in London and I felt overwhelmed – it seems like they're seeing 8 million people and you hear all these horror stories, like “You never see the same midwife”. I assumed all NHS hospitals were like that. But when I was about 12 weeks pregnant, we moved to Guildford, Surrey, and everything was better than I expected – nice, quick, no waiting. And I could make appointments close to home. So we decided we didn't need to go to a private hospital.
I'm a big planner, so I did all the research – I was browsing Mumsnet from the time we were trying to conceive until we gave birth. But on Mumsnet, people don't post about their amazing, boring birth. I guess I didn't have any frame of reference for birth beyond Mumsnet stories and movies.
So it was a surprise when everything went smoothly. Not only was my oldest born right on the due date, but it was much quicker than I expected. My water broke very early, at 6am, and he arrived five hours later. The birth centre was very quiet early in the morning, I asked for an epidural and it was given quickly, and I felt very cared for from the moment we arrived.
Between that and the five-hour labour, it was pretty painless. My son eventually came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, but it wasn't traumatic at all – he was fine. I had to get a couple of stitches, but what I remember most is that I got a huge adrenaline rush, took a shower and went into the delivery room for a bit. I had imagined a private room in a private hospital, but being in the delivery room was so much better. We had no idea what we were doing and the midwives were so helpful.
Ella Burke
When Ella, a speech therapist for the NHS, became pregnant with her daughter, she quickly decided to have an elective caesarean section. She was surprised by how receptive her midwife was to the idea, and it made everything easier and more organised. She could decide the day the baby would arrive, even down to an hour. She loved the predictable calm.
I never thought I would have a C-section, but when I got pregnant I realised I was really scared – not so much of the birth itself, but of the possible after-effects and long-term problems. I had already had surgery to fix a recurring urinary tract infection problem and I was anxious to make sure nothing changed. So when a midwife friend had to have an elective C-section, it got me thinking: she has seen a lot, she knows a lot about births and she went for that option. She also wanted the most predictable option – to know, as much as possible, what was going to happen.
I work for the NHS myself and always try to present patients with all the options. However, maternity teams often present vaginal birth as the primary option, with caesareans reserved for emergencies. I actually found out that you have the right to ask for a caesarean, as long as you understand the potential complications. I raised this at my eight week booking appointment with my midwife. She was very supportive and arranged an appointment with a specialist, and we went from there.
The wait is weird, because the date you'll meet your baby has been marked on the calendar for months. I was still nervous about possible complications and did a lot of research on the matter. The night before I didn't eat anything from midnight, then I got to the hospital around 7 a.m.
Once in the operating room, I was left practically lying in the middle of the room, naked from the waist down, with the catheter in place. It was all very quick; the worst part was probably having the anesthetic injected into my spine, but even that was probably 10 seconds of discomfort. I asked to see nothing, have the curtain up, and not get too many updates, which the team did brilliantly. It was very “do what you have to do.”
My husband had prepared a series of questions to distract me from everything. Then, within 15 minutes, my daughter was born. We had our playlist on at the time and everything was pretty relaxed. I was a little worried that I wouldn't feel that immense, rewarding joy that people talk about after a long and difficult birth, but it was still beautiful to see her come out and hear those cries.
