Hello! My name is Jessica Vickers, and I would like to share with you my birth story. After reading some of the stories on your website, I realised just how lucky I was!

On Monday, the 18th of March it was a terribly hot day. I had just returned home from doing some shopping up the street and was enjoying a cool shower when I felt a small pop. Thinking this may have finally been my waters breaking, I put a sanitary pad on. After half an hour I noticed that I was leaking a pinkish fluid so I called the maternity hospital right away. I was somewhat reluctant to go up there as I had had several false alarms in the past few weeks. But the midwife reassured me that if I was leaking fluid (especially if it was pink), it might mean that labour was underway.

Going to the hospital

My mother came and took me to the hospital and the midwives did a trace to see if contractions had started. They hadn’t. They were about to send me home AGAIN when I asked for an internal to be done. I was 2cm dilated! They told me that I needed to get to Nepean Hospital ASAP as they didn’t have an anaesthetist on at that time.

Mum drove me back down to my flat where my best friend met me. She drove my husband and me down to Nepean Hospital. She stayed for about an hour, but labour wasn’t progressing very quickly, and it was about midnight. I had a hot shower while my husband dozed on the bed in the prep room. My contractions were easy to breathe through at this stage, but soon I had one that was unbearable, and I let out a shriek while buzzing urgently for the midwife. My husband leapt off the bed and the midwife escorted me to the birth suite where I climbed into a hot bath.

Jessica’s birth story

I was given gas, and this helped for about four hours. I got out of the bath as I had heard it can slow labour down. After a while, the contractions became REALLY painful so I opted for a shot of pethidine. As soon as I had the pethidine my waters broke and I went from being 5cms dilated to being fully dilated in a very short period of time. When I told the midwife I needed to push she wasn’t sure I should, but did an internal and said she could see the head! I pushed twice and my baby’s head came out and with two more, there she was!! Anastasia Sarah Vickers was born on March 19 at 7:53am weighing in at 4040 grams and was 55cms long. I breastfed her right away and then was transferred back up to Katoomba Hospital’s Maternity Ward.

Well, there’s my story. Hope you enjoyed it!

Revised on 7th December 2021