I needed clarity on what happened when I gave birth | Cheryl Gibbs

It was a weird experience going back to the Grange Maternity Ward at Petersfield this week.It was where I went regularly during my pregnancy to check up on how the baby was doing.
Cheryl went back to hospital for her post-birth review.Cheryl went back to hospital for her post-birth review.
Cheryl went back to hospital for her post-birth review.

I went back to have a post-birth review because there were a lot of things about my labour that I wanted to have clarity on.

I strongly urge anyone who may have had a difficult labour or birth to ask their health visitor or midwife for a review because it helped me find a bit of peace with what happened.

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My waters actually broke on one of the beds at Queen Alexandra Hospital when I went in February 4 to check how the baby was doing because I hadn’t felt it move much.

The midwife looked round to me and said: ‘You won’t be leaving here now without your baby.’

I was terrified as I was only thirty six and a half weeks pregnant and one of the things Matt and I wanted so much was to not have our baby early.

We wanted the little bean to cook for as long as possible, but Harley clearly had other ideas.

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What I wanted clarity on was why I was consistently being told by the nurses and doctors that I wasn’t in labour when my waters had broken on the Tuesday and by Wednesday afternoon I was in crippling agony with waves of pain coming and going.

But I was still being told that what I was feeling wasn’t contractions.

I recall begging the doctors and nurses to explain why I was feeling such awful cramping pain that lasted a bit, then went, then came back if it wasn’t labour pains.

I delivered Harley at about 1.20am on February 6 after insisting that a doctor examined me at about midnight.

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I will never forget him telling the nurse: ‘There’s the head, she needs to push now.’

It was just a weird, surreal experience that, if I’m honest, I’ll never forget.

But I needed to understand why it happened this way in order for me to move on from it.

I’m so glad I had the post birth review and it’s helped me regulate it all in my mind so that I can move with a bit of peace.

Motherhood is one massive juggling act and I am trying

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Being a mum basically means juggling a million things at once and I usually fail, but I’m a tryer if nothing else.

You may have seen a crazy lady, aka me, driving around Clanfield this week holding a baby bottle out of the window and you may have wondered what on earth that was all about…

Well, Harley is fantastic, generally really happy, but my god does she get ‘hangry.’ If her bottle isn’t ready on time, boy are we in for it. So if I’m driving somewhere and she’s due her bottle but it’s too hot, I’ll stick it out of the window while we’re driving so it cools down quicker in the wind. What I’ve learnt about motherhood is it’s basically one juggling act after the other – literally.

Huge congratulations to Katy and Orlando on their baby

Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom have announced the safe arrival of their little bundle – a girl called Daisy Dove Bloom.

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What a wonderful play-on-words with bloom, as in Orlando’s surname ,which also means flora and fauna – just beautiful.

The couple announced her arrival on Instagram and Katy had a little daisy etched on her finger nail.

I just thought the whole announcement, which was done via the charity Unicef’s Instagram page was extremely classy and I congratulate them both.

Welcome to the world of parenthood!

You’ll love and loathe it at times.

But I can guarantee you won’t change it for the world.

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