My Experiences in Pregnancy

Helen J
13 min readJan 22, 2024
Helen, 32 weeks pregnant

I remember falling to my knees in July 2022 when I came on my period. “Will I ever get pregnant?” I thought. I’m sure many millions of women think the same. I’ve been pregnant once before, at age 39, but miscarried in the early weeks. I was devastated.

I never thought I would want children. Then again, I never thought I would get married. However, when that right man comes into your life, your whole perspective on life can change. I married Christian in August 2021 after six years of us being together, and he wanted kids. I wanted kids too, but wasn’t that excited at the time.

My First Pregnancy

The first time I fell pregnant at 39, the pregnancy test didn’t show until 7 days after my period, and I’m every 28 days usually. I was six or seven weeks and remember having attended one of those drivers awareness courses for a driving accident I caused in 2019, and driving home that evening I had what felt like a heavy period cramp. After a brew and chill, I went to the toilet and there it was — blood pooling out of me. I screamed to Christian and we went immediately to the Urgent Care Centre. I couldn’t think straight. I was still bleeding heavily. We were not told that it was the Royal Oldham where the prenatal care is, and by the time we had arrived hours later, I had stopped bleeding, and just felt sad.

Days later it was confirmed by a vaginal ultrasound when the woman examining me said “there is nothing there”. She didn’t even apologise. I guess it is just a job to her. I couldn’t believe the coldness of the NHS. Christian was devastated too. “They” say that miscarriages cannot be stopped, but what if they can. I had called 111 and had a call back from a doctor about a week or so earlier after I noticed a large clot of blood, and that doctor could have referred me to A&E, but never did. I just wonder, what if this and what if that.

I tried to kill myself shortly after through various overdoses.

It took a long time to heal from that tragedy. I know God can chasten his children when they are living in sin, and Christian and I were not married at the time of me falling pregnant the first time. I’ve come to accept the loss, but I think when we miscarry, we may blame ourselves for something we have done, or not done, and others can judge us as failures. We will meet him or her one day in heaven.

My Second Pregnancy

I felt pregnant a year after our wedding at age 42, although I may have conceived at 41, just before my 42nd birthday. As women, we know our bodies and I just knew that I was pregnant on the first day of my missed period. I took several of the cheap £1 tests and thought nothing of it, until I looked again and saw a very faint pink line. I told Christian that I wanted to go to town for a Clearblue test.

Shortly after, I’d bought the £10 test and headed to the toilet in M&S. While I was walking down the stairs, my heart was thumping hard. “Please be pregnant” I kept saying to myself, and by the time I had reached the food court, there it was — 1 to 2 weeks pregnant. I was absolutely overjoyed, but also terrified after the first time.

I immediately began on the fermented cod liver oil for Vitamins A and D and pregnancy diet. My first midwife appointment was not until nine weeks, but just passing through week six and seven gave me hope that this pregnancy would be a healthy one.

First Midwife Appointment

She sat opposite me in her blue mask, asking questions. When she mentioned me taking aspirin, I declined. Her attitude changed toward me then. I also refused the bloods. When she mentioned vaccines, I declined. She assumed I knew what to eat in pregnancy, but didn’t tell her that I was following exactly against what the NHS advises to eat in pregnancy with a high Vitamin A diet. It was such a terrible time that I thought about hiring a private midwife. This first midwife also called me ‘high risk’ on my green notes.

I just want to go off subject for a moment. Where does the NHS get their information that women over 35 are ‘high risk’ in pregnancy? I mean I’d just completed the rowing challenge for August, the Dog Days of Summer, which is a total of 100,000 meters through 1 August to 28 August.

I’ve always worked out, eaten well, quit smoking a long time ago, and still get asked for ID on occasion in the supermarkets when buying the Crabbies Ginger Beer for my hubby. A lot of younger people may be skinny on the outside, but unhealthy inside through a sedentary lifestyle of watching TV, little activity, playing games and frequently eating junk foods like McDonalds. This ‘high risk’ label really irritates me, but I guess that’s my fault for allowing the NHS into my pregnancy.

I soon received my letter about the dating ultrasound. By this point I was reading up on this subject and listening to podcasts. It was scary! What bothered me more is that the prenatal ultrasound field is extremely profitable, so they promote it as safe, when it’s actual non-ionising radiation that is being put upon your baby. Most prenatal ultrasounds are not under three minutes long, but up to thirty minutes. There is a book by Jim West called 50 Human Studies, in Utero, Conducted in Modern China, Indicate Extreme Risk for Prenatal Ultrasound: A New Bibliography. I would enquire if they could perform the scan in under three minutes.

The Dating Scan

I decided that I would attend the dating scan at twelve weeks, but only to find out if the pregnancy was viable, as I’d had strange pains on either side and had read up on an ectopic pregnancy. The sonographer respected my wishes and conducted the scan in less than a minute. Yes, it was a viable pregnancy and our baby was just over 100mm.

We couldn’t stop smiling in reception, hubby and I. It felt so wonderful to know that our little one was alive and well. Staff were not respecting of my decisions not to follow their advice. For example, I declined all blood tests at the first nine week appointment. I wasn’t trying to be troublesome, I just thought what was the point. Then my refusal of the ultrasounds, and of course the 20 week anomaly scan, made them wonder how they would deal with me. One of the male obstetricians actually told me not to contact the NHS, as they couldn’t help me. Those appointments were very distressing for me.

Hubby has been supportive of my wishes for our baba because he knows that I am always reading and learning, just like the subject of Vitamin A in pregnancy. Wow does the female body require Vitamin A to build a baby, and it’s such a shame that the NHS now does not recommend liver products to pregnant women because of this Boston study paper, as mentioned in this article. I ate liver pate twice weekly throughout my entire pregnancy, plus 20,000 IU of Vitamin A and 2,000 IU of Vitamin D in fermented cod liver oil daily.

I began to show around 18 weeks and I took pictures weekly of my growing bump. I had no morning sickness, although I was tired most days but still attending the allotment to do weeding about two or three times a week. I suffered with GERD in my second and third trimester, which made it difficult to sleep most days. Also there was the frequent weeing during the night. I had several coughs during this pregnancy, to which I drank my own urine, which quickly eradicated this.

Other than those issues, I had a lovely pregnancy. I just didn’t enjoy the NHS appointments because I felt judged for my decisions, which were always done after lots of reading. I read various books by Dr Sara Wickham on Anti-D Explained, Vitamin K, In Your Own Time (about induction), and Inducing Labour. We agreed that I would have a placenta check at 32 weeks.

Week 17

It was the day when we would hear our little baba’s heartbeat. Of course, the midwife got their doppler out, to which I asked if they could use a pinard. I had attended a week earlier for the heartbeat, but she had no pinard. However, this midwife knew what she was doing. She showed me on my leg how fast the baby’s heartbeat was. 132 beats per minute. I almost cried with joy, as did hubby.

As the weeks went on, every time we went to get my belly measured, heartbeat measured, I had to ask them not to use the doppler and to use the pinard. Some midwives didn’t mind, others clearly had very little experience of using it because of the time it took them to gather the heartbeat.

I’m also B negative, so I had to take a test to find out baby’s blood group regarding the Anti-D prophylaxis. Turns out baba had B positive blood, so they talked to me about the Anti-D. That’s when I read Dr Sara Wickham’s Anti-D Explained.

Second Trimester

Into the second trimester, my blood pressure was measuring high on some occasions. I had heard of preeclampsia and it worried me. I couldn’t help thinking the worst. However, I came across a video on toxemia (preeclampsia) and high dose vitamin B1 (megathiamine), so I began taking this once daily.

Unfortunately the book The Natural Way To A Trouble-Free Pregnancy: The Toxemia/Thiamine Connection that found the correlations between toxemia and Vitamin B1 is out of print and difficult to find anywhere to buy. Anyhow, this protocol helped because my blood pressure was steadied throughout the rest of the pregnancy, and it also remedied the protein in my urine, which had shown to be high on several occasions prior to taking the 100mg of thiamine (B1).

The second trimester also included the 28 week Anti-D shot, to which I attended with my hubby but decided to decline the shot, as I hadn’t had any accidents or blood loss. The nurse was very understanding. I showed her the Anti D Explained book that I had been reading, and when I saw that same nurse weeks later at another appointment, she told me she had purchased it. That is a nurse who cares enough to perform research to share important up to date data with her patients.

There were also several midwife appointments where my belly was measuring too large, to which they wanted me to attend a scan. Again I declined each of these.

Third Trimester

At 32 weeks, I attended the placenta check. The sonographer was lovely. She respected our wishes for a quick check, as it was a doppler which is even higher in non-ionising radiation. Placenta was healthy and exactly where it should be and baby’s head was already down. Just to provide evidence that the doppler and ultrasound machines do cause distress in babies, when I asked for baby’s heartrate she said it was 170. Through all of the previous weeks from week 17, baby’s heartbeat has been a consistent 130 with the highest 152, so it makes me wonder what stress babies are under with these machines.

This was another grinny moment in reception for hubby and I, while we waited to see the midwife. We were kept waiting for over and hour and saw an obstetrician who kept on badgering me to book a C section with him, stating that first time mums over forty have a 50 percent chance of never having a vaginal birth, which results in a C section. This was after I told him about the good news of the placenta check with baby’s head down and a healthy placenta. And, he said, if they do give birth vaginally, the average time for first time moms was a twelve hour labour. It made me wonder if he earns a commission doing C-sections.

I was 32 weeks pregnant and we would not be able to have a break away for quite a while, so we travelled down to London by train to see several theatre performances — To Kill a Mockingbird, Dirty Dancing, and Back to the Future. It was such a wonderful relaxing break.

Helen & Christian at Back to the Future Theatre Performance (32 weeks pregnant)

We even met Matthew Modine, who was the star of To Kill a Mockingbird, and got his autograph.

Helen & Matthew Modine, star of To Kill a Mockingbird

I was still going to the allotment and doing weeding at least once a week.

I missed baths, after giving them up because I love them hot, so I started to have warm baths. GERD would keep me up coughing.

I had measured ‘big’ on most of measurements, so they wanted me to go for a growth scan, to which I refused. I wanted a home birth, and the midwives were kind to me, but then they wanted me to visit the antenatal clinic for further discussions to which they were talking about shoulder dystocia and really trying to plant the fear into me. They refused to hear me about my home birth.

I knew I was eating healthy with plenty of eggs, butter, cod liver oil, bone broths, sourdough bread, raw milk, and believed baba would be born a healthy weight, but I couldn’t tell the health services I was going against their own dietary advice.

I was so distressed at 35 weeks that I immediately hired a doula and put in a separate complaint to the head of midwivery, which was dealt with quickly. My home birth was put into place. I spoke with two midwives at 36+5 and another midwife 36+6. I asked her what the numbers meant to head down and I was reassured that baby’s head was nowhere near close to labour. I told her I was getting my hair cut tomorrow with my sister, unless baby came.

36 weeks 6 days pregnant

Fast forward to week 37, Friday 28 April 2023. Three days earlier I had walked to the butchers, which was perhaps just over an hours walk there and back. I woke up early and began watching the episode of Friends where Rachel is in labour for days. I remember dressing about 7AM and sitting on the bed putting on my socks when I felt a long trickle of something. It didn’t feel like urine, so I wondered if it was my waters breaking.

I didn’t have time to think about it, as I had an English breakfast to make for my sister and I. I mentioned this trickle to her, and then phoned Royal Oldham Hospital for advice. They advised me to come down and bring a pad with me containing the fluid. It had been about two hours since this trickle of fluid. I visited the toilet and had a pain which felt like a deep period pain. I wrote down the time, 9.10AM. I felt my next one fifteen minutes later, but it was getting more intense. Each time they were getting closer. My sister began to drive us to the hospital and these pains were every four minutes in the car. By the time we arrived at the hospital, they were every two minutes, and it was difficult to walk. There was a faint pink fluid on the pad. I begged hubby to get a wheelchair. The pain was so intense.

I was wheeled to the birthing centre and a midwife took me into a room. I kneeled against a chair in pain. I remember thinking about what that obstetrician had said, first time moms over forty are an average twelve hours in labour and thought ‘I can’t do this for twelve hours’. Christian was on the phone to the doula, I was alone to face this pain. I sat on the toilet and it was comfortable. My sister returned quickly and grabbed my hand the next time the contraction started. The nurse wasn’t much help. Just because I wouldn’t let them examine me for dilation, they were cold toward me. Finally she admitted that I was in labour, but I had insisted on no dopplers to check baby’s heartrate, but the pinard.

My sister helped to strip me out of my woolly dress and I was on a crashmat on my side on the floor begging for gas and air. They refused. I’m not sure if it was because I had said I didn’t want gas and air in my birthing plan, but right now I was in agony. My blood pressure was high and they wanted me to go on medication, but I refused. They said they couldn’t hear baby’s heartbeat so I let them use the doppler. My sister told me that she could see the baby’s head. ‘Oh f***’ were my words out loud, in shock, probably not the best choice of words.’ The next contraction came and I begged for someone to help me, and requested gas and air again, and this time they gave it me. I didn’t really know how to use it, so I tried. I was told to give another final push and it felt like I was pushing out a wet wriggling frog.

Grace April, born at 37 weeks, 8lbs 4oz

Our beautiful Grace was born around 12.10PM. The cord was short and it took about fifteen minutes before I birthed the placenta. I wish I had taken a picture, it looked so purple and beautiful — the nourishment for my baby. Blood was still pumping through the cord for about an hour, then finally when it had stopped pulsing, it was cut. She was 3750 grams, which is 8lbs 4oz.

I believe that the intense contractions were through precipitate labour, which occurs in just 3 percent of births. Apparently, I didn’t go through the first stage of labour, but straight into the transitional painful time. Bloody hell did it sting. The midwife let me use the gas and air to examine me for tears, and I had only first degree tears.

This was ALL God’s timing. Had my waters not broken that morning, I might have been giving birth in unfamiliar circumstances in a hairdressers without my husband, but God made it all good.

We were home by 9.30PM and it was wonderful. To God be the glory.

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Helen J
Helen J

Written by Helen J

First time mom at 42. Sufferer of Borderline Personality Disorder and Dermatillomania. Believer in Jesus Christ. Passionate about fitness and nutrition.

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