British Birthing Stories

Lou woke up at half twelve thinking her first labour was only just starting. By the time anyone examined her in triage she was 8cm, and her daughter was born on gas and air at quarter to four that morning.

Lou is a first time mum from northeast London and a former clinical geneticist. She has white coat syndrome, so her blood pressure goes up whenever it’s taken in a clinical setting, and seeing the same midwife, Chloe, ev...

Holly’s first birth was an induction for obstetric cholestasis that ended in an emergency caesarean. Eight years later the cholestasis came back, and this time she had her VBAC at home on her living room floor.

Holly is a mum of two from Hull. Her first pregnancy was low risk until the itching started at around 38 weeks, and she was diagnosed with obstetric cholestasis just before her due date. She felt a lot of pressure t...

Charlotte’s first baby was born in theatre with forceps after 40 hours of labour. Two years later her daughter arrived in the birth centre pool after 15 minutes of pushing.

Charlotte is a 31 year old mum of two. Both her children were surprise pregnancies, two years and two months apart. She felt sick the whole way through both pregnancies, did a hypnobirthing course, and planned a water birth in the birth centre each time.

Steph’s first birth ended in an emergency caesarean after she’d pushed all the way to 10cm. Two years later she had the healing NHS VBAC she’d been quietly preparing for since before she was even pregnant again.

Her first pregnancy was straightforward, but at 41 weeks she felt more and more pressure to be induced and eventually agreed. Labour started quickly after the pessary, then stalled once she had an epidu...

Two completely different births, one five weeks early and one planned down to the day. Alex works for a small legal firm and has two little boys under three, and she's on the pod today to share both.

Her first labour crept up on her. She lost her mucus plug, then spent a day unsure whether her waters had actually gone, baking wedding cupcakes and packing up the house because she genuinely didn't believe she was in labour at thirty f...

Today on the show, Lisa is back to share her second and third births: two positive NHS home births after a first birth that ended in forceps, a third degree tear and a haemorrhage.

Going into her second pregnancy, Lisa was high risk on paper. Instead of the glucose tolerance test, she used her old meter to check her own blood sugars four times a day and controlled them with diet. She declined the consultant appointments, protect...

I spoke with Lisa, a birth doula and mum of three from Wimbledon, who shares the first of her three births: an NHS hospital induction at 42 weeks after a late gestational diabetes diagnosis.

Lisa was planning a home birth when a glucose tolerance test at 34 weeks came back positive for gestational diabetes. She controlled her blood sugars with diet and a scan showed a normal sized baby, but she was removed from the home birth te...

Today on the show Chloe shares both of her births. The first was an induction that ended in an emergency caesarean at Liverpool Women's. The second was a planned NHS home birth after caesarean that ended with her daughter being born in the back of an ambulance.

Chloe was 23 and hadn't done any birth prep when she booked her induction. A pessary and a sweep she wasn't told about got things started, and after two nights on a busy ...

I had Erin back on the pod to share the birth of her daughter, her second baby and her VBAC. Erin lives in Glasgow with her husband, their two little ones and their dogs. Her son was born by emergency C section after a 71 hour induction. This time she wanted to see what her body could do if labour started on its own.

She asked to move to the NHS home birth team at her eight week booking appointment, then chose the hospital's mid...

Nicole is an Australian mum living in the UK who welcomed her daughter Rosemary after a long IVF journey. Her pregnancy was smooth until a late scan flagged Rosemary as measuring small, and Nicole was booked in for an induction at nearly thirty seven weeks. She leaned hard on hypnobirthing and a strict no contact with the outside world rule to stay calm through days of waiting in hospital before anything even started.

Everything cha...

Steph is a first time mum from South Devon who spent her pregnancy hypnobirthing and hoping for a straightforward delivery. Instead she got appendicitis at fifteen weeks, gestational diabetes at twenty six weeks, and preeclampsia at twenty eight weeks. She was induced at thirty six weeks, and what followed was, in her own words, hell on earth.

The turning point came hours into pushing, when a doctor and a midwife came in to exam...

At her twelve week scan, Georgie was told there was a problem with her baby's heart. The tests that followed gave her daughter a one to two percent chance of surviving the pregnancy.

Georgie is a mum of two from London who shares her first birth story. Her pregnancy started with severe nausea that kept her housebound for weeks. Then at her twelve week scan, everything changed when the sonographer found signs of a heart condition. Wh...

Gigi's labour moved so fast her body started pushing before anyone realised what was happening. Then the pethidine kicked in, and she was left alone in the room, unable to call out for help.

Gigi is a mum of two from London, and this is the story of her first birth, her son Rupert. After an early miscarriage, her second pregnancy came quickly, though the nine months that followed were not easy. She had planned to ease gently int...

Four hours. That is all it took from her first contraction to holding her son in her arms.

India is a yoga teacher, outdoor enthusiast and mum of two from the Kent coast. Her first birth left her with a 40 hour labour, a forceps delivery, and months of physical and emotional trauma to recover from. When she fell pregnant with her son on her very first attempt at trying again, she felt joy and fear in equal measure.

This time she did ...

She had planned a calm hospital water birth after miscarriage, but gave birth during COVID restrictions with no birth pool, continuous monitoring, an epidural, forceps delivery, episiotomy, and a postpartum recovery that took far longer than she expected.

India is a mum of two from Kent who shares her first birth with her daughter Maloo. After a miscarriage during lockdown, she fell pregnant again quickly and carried the anxiety of ...

Jazz is a content creator and mum of two who shares her honest, informed take on birth. In this episode she shares the birth of her son Drew, a second positive birth in an NHS birth centre that started with hours of labouring at home.

Twelve days overdue and booked in for another induction, Jazz went in ready to push back and buy her body more time. She never needed to. Her contractions started spontaneously the night before, and sh...

Jazz is a content creator and mum of two who has been sharing her life online for sixteen years. In this episode she shares the birth of her daughter Bluebell, a positive birth in an NHS birth centre after thirteen days overdue and a booked induction that never actually happened.

She went into hospital ready to be induced, only to be told twice that there was no room on the labour ward. She stayed both nights anyway. When a consulta...

She had been awake for hours, then asleep for two, when she woke up to the strongest contraction she had ever felt. Her waters broke. She looked at the clock. It was 4am, exactly when she had known it would be.

Kirsten is an independent midwife who shares her second birth, a home water birth that gave her everything her first had not. Her second pregnancy brought hyperemesis again, a baby measuring on the 97th centile who turned out...

She planned a home birth and got one. Right up until she didn't. And what happened at the hospital, at the hands of a registrar who did not ask her permission, is something she eventually made a formal complaint about.

Kirsten is an independent midwife, mum of two boys, and half Dutch, growing up in a culture where home birth is simply normal. Her first pregnancy was dominated by hyperemesis gravidarum so severe she lost 10 kilos an...