I’ve had my baby – 7 days earlier than the estimated due date. The birth was not what I expected, but everything is good now.
My Birthing Story commences on the April 16th, 3 days prior to birth on April 19th in order for you to understand the circumstances of this rather traumatic experience in its entirety.
On April 16th at 9am – 38 w4d pg – I go for my weekly clinic visits at the hospital, the doctor is concerned that she can not feel the head, checks the file and notes that doctors at 35 and 37 wk appointments have baby as 1/5th engaged. He gets the ultrasound to check and finds that the baby is breech with her head up against the placenta at about 11oclock. Dr gets registrar to come in who then tells me about 4 times in 5 mins I’ll probably have to have a c-section unless they can turn the baby via an ECV.
I get booked for an ultrasound on Thursday to position the baby, an ECV on Friday to turn the baby. Only 65% of ECVs are successful, if it is not successful a c-section will be booked for the 39th week – i.e. Wednesday April 23rd, if something goes wrong in the process an emergency c-section is performed. On the Friday the doctor doing the ECV says that in 13 years he has never had to perform an emergency c-section from an ECV.
The ECV is successful and the midwife tells me to sit backwards on a chair and sleep on my right to keep the baby in position. I go home and do just that, all happy that I am going to get to have a VB. Can’t sleep much that night feeling very uncomfortable. Up from 3am sitting backward on a chair. 6.30am start to feel minor contractions, thinking that I still have a week to go push past them and think nothing of it. Go shopping and come home to have lunch and give DS afternoon nap. Go to lay down with DS for afternoon nap at 12.45pm. Too uncomfortable to lay down. 12.56pm first strong contraction happens, start to get them regularly feels like 3 to 4 minutes apart – have shower ask DH to time them. They are regular and 3-4 mins apart. After 30 minutes arrange to drop Ds at SIL’s and head for hospital.
Call hospital on the way there, tell the midwife regular contractions 3 to 4 minutes apart for last 40 mins, she tells me not to come in, I tell her I had an ECV and pamphlet says to call if you have contractions, she says okay we need to check the position of the baby and if that is okay I can go home and continue my labour there.
Get to the hospital around 2.05pm get put on CTG and ultrasound for positioning, quick internal and they move me by wheelchair into the birthing suite (remember I was told over the phone – I can go home and continue my labour there if baby is not breech.
I am forced to have an inactive labour, sitting on a bed hooked up to the CTG I can’t move to progress the labour and feeling intense back pain. The midwife is not the most caring type, in fact at one point I just wanted to tell her to “p!ss0ff”. She keeps telling me to breathe through my contractions as I am starving the baby of oxygen – “see how the heart rate goes down when you contract?”
I get to go to the toilet once and then the doctor puts in the drip for the antibiotics due to the fact that I was GBS positive. The midwife goes to get something, can’t find it, needs another midwife to read the labels on some drugs she is giving me at one point – blind bat. Suggests that I try to lie on my left side as I am feeling intense pressure and back pain with my contractions. The one contraction I have on my left is too painful and I am in tears – she thinks I am trying to push. The doctor is not happy with the CTG results of the foetal heart rate dropping with each contraction, they decide that they should rupture my membranes to speed up the process as I am likely to have this baby as soon as my waters break. The doctor goes to do so and feels the cord is presenting, she then has the midwife check it and she agrees. Another midwife comes in to keep an eye on the CTG and they then call in a consultant and another doctor. The first doctor tells me that the cord is behind the head and that I am not going to be able to continue with this delivery, they are going to have to give me some drug to stop the contractions and I will need a c-section. I am rather upset by this – again the bag midwife tells me to relax and breathe as I am distressing the baby – you try stopping the crying and breather when you get told you have to have a c-section – something I really do not want.
The other doctor also checks and tells me that the cord is behind the head and is compressing with my contractions, I will need to have an emergency c-section in order to have this baby – she needs me to sign a consent form. I look to DH who is getting asked to sign a consent for me to have an epidural – I say I don’t want an epidural and the other doctor has a consent for an emergency c-section in my face on the other side of the bed – expecting me to read it through tears and me crying I don’t want one. In the end I sign under duress. Whilst this is happening the bag midwife is shaving me and I just want to stab her as she is not being gentle at all. So I guess I was having a c-section consent or not.
By 4pm they are racing me out of the birthing suite up to the theatre. 4.06pm I say goodbye to DH as he is not allowed into the theatre as I have elected to have the general anaesthetic.
They can not sit me up for the anaesthetic due to the doctor having to keep the head from coming any further down the cervix, so they suggest rolling me on my side for it. The midwife says that she tried me on both sides and totally lost the foetal heart rate – only she never put me on my right. They roll me to the right and put a needle in my spine, which I later found out was a one-shot spinal block and not the general anaesthetic I had asked for. As they move me back into position the anaesthetist tells me I will feel some tugging and pulling. I feel them rubbing solution on my tummy and it tickles at this point. Then my waters break and they are green from the meconium. The situation is now more urgent, the doctor cuts and 3 minutes from incision to birth. The baby cries and I forget all about how I didn’t want any of the things I got in my birthing experience. After the paediatrician checks the baby she is put on my chest for while they cauterised and sewed me up.
