Olivia Waddington: My birth story

We bought a test in Boots and I rushed into the toilets, shaking like a leaf as Vinny nervously waited outside. I did the test, threw it into my bag and waited until we had found a place to sit before actually looking at the result. And that place ended up being Nando’s! 

We sat and ordered some food, looked in my bag and saw two clear lines. We were gobsmacked. So much so, we can’t remember even eating our food! We rushed back to Boots for a second test before we left. It was positive again.  

As you can imagine, our holiday to Italy wasn’t the trip we’d expected and the excessive travelling and city hopping made me so exhausted and nauseous. I played the part well, posing with mocktails and sending them to my friends and family back home! 

*Fast forward (almost) nine months* 

Gio arrived three weeks early – seven days after we moved into our first home and just one day after I finished work.  

Pregnancy was far worse than labour for me. I struggled with high blood pressure and had other symptoms of pre-eclampsia such as swelling of the hands and feet (they were huge!) and headaches. Thankfully, after lots of testing they were always able to rule it out. However, they never really solved the problem and said I was basically a ‘case study’ the whole way through my pregnancy.

My partner was at a fancy dress party the day I went into labour, dressed as a punk rocker with a maw-hawk, zebra pants and blow-up guitar. We’d joked about it for weeks saying, “Imagine if you’re sat in the hospital, dressed like that, whilst I’m giving birth.”  

Before he left, I made him pack a spare change of clothes just in case. A short while later my waters broke, so I called him and he obviously thought I was winding him up! 

I jumped in my car and drove to get him. We came home whilst waiting for our triage appointment and Vinny started to build the next-to-me crib whilst I fuelled myself on toast and the remains of the BBQ I’d hosted earlier that day. 

We went to the hospital earlier than advised due to the contractions being short and very painful. I was told to keep my legs crossed until 12am if I wanted a birth pool, as legally you’re not allowed on the birthing suite if you’re more than three weeks early. I was currently 36+6 and it was 9:30pm. 

Finally, I got to the birth pool and I was so happy to see it was my community midwife on duty. 

The birth pool was incredible. I felt so peaceful, the contractions eased off and everything felt calm – until Gio’s heart rate increased due to the water being warm. Paracetamol did nothing and gas and air was making me sick, so I asked for the next thing – diamorphine. Although I should’ve listened to the midwife when she said it would wear off after four hours. It did. The last two hours were TOUGH!  

Just over 10 hours since my waters broke, Gio arrived. Seconds after placing him onto my chest, they rushed him off to the side of the room as he had stopped breathing. It felt like forever waiting to hear his little scream, although the midwives and doctors were incredible.

A short while later the midwives asked if I’d like to see my placenta – so I said yes of course. To my surprise there were two. I had two placentas. At this point my midwife reminded me I was a case study! 

They said they’d never seen this before and asked if they could take it to their staff meeting to do some research. Usually, if you have two placentas you have twins and there’s a cord from each placenta attached to each baby. But I had just the one cord… 

I never got any answers!