Birth story - Bek and baby boy

*Trigger warning* - mention of forced pushing, instrumental delivery, epidural, c-section, long labour.

I just realised my sons 1st birthday is next month and I still hadn't done my story. So here we are - It’s a long one!

Pregnancy:

Pregnancy was pretty straight forward - I suffered morning sickness and extreme nausea and fatigue (which the sickness and nausea disappeared in the third trimester). But in the third trimester I got round ligament pain for a short duration that made it impossible to walk and then bad carpal tunnel in both wrists to the point in the 2 weeks leading up to labour, I got VERY minimal sleep. My pregnancy was pretty good other than that and all the tests and ultrasounds always came back with no issues.

Labour:

I had SO many stages of thinking labour was starting based on everyone else’s labour symptoms. From about 35 weeks I was constantly asking “is this is it?!”. My due date rolled around and I was little sad baby wasn’t here yet but I reminded myself constantly that he would come when he was ready.

The day after my due date, I had a midwife appointment and everything was fine. He seemed very content in my belly when she did the Doppler and was squirming around non stop, like he was trying to say hello and play with her whilst she was using the Doppler.

I felt a little funky on that day of the appointment but all the other labour symptoms people mention had stopped so I thought nothing of it! The pains felt what I expected contractions to feel like, and they were coming in waves but they weren't intense at all - but they didn't feel like braxton hicks either. I mentioned this to my midwife but she said it didn't sound quite like labour was starting so to just relax. We didn't do a vaginal exam and I'd never experienced labour before so I just shrugged the pains off as just regular pregnancy pains.

I went back home and relaxed, lovingly annoying my partner and cats until I went to bed since there wasn’t really much else to do being heavily pregnant in a COVID lockdown. I still felt a little crampy and funky going to bed but once again, thought nothing of it.

I woke up at 2am on Friday morning to go to the bathroom and had pretty intense pains in my belly. I put it down to my son using my stomach as a punching bag during my sleep so I went to the bathroom then crawled back into bed. I woke up again at around 4:30 to go to the bathroom and had a little bit of a shock when I found that I just had the bloody show! (It was definitely more “showy” than I expected which threw me off a little). I got excited and woke my partner up to tell him what happened and said “babe, I’m in labour now!!!!”. I don’t know why I said I’m in labour now instead of saying I had my show but it turns out, I wasn’t wrong!

Throughout the whole of Friday I was having contractions. They were bearable, through breathing, but were very intense already. I timed them on an app and it said I was in established labour but then all of a sudden after eating lunch my contractions calmed down and weren't so painful for a few hours. Eventually the contractions came back on quite strongly and regularly so I started timing them. Once again, the app said I was in established labour but after an hour or so of intense consistent contractions, they would drop to 20 minutes/half an hour between.

I hadn’t called the birthing unit yet because I hadn’t actually convinced myself this was labour - despite the fact I needed to stop and breathe through the contractions - as they were just so touch and go.

I had the contractions all Saturday consistently and then finally called the Birthing Unit at 7pm that night to let them know I’d already had my bloody show and was having constant intense contractions. They weren’t regular enough for any concern from the Birthing Unit so they said to just see how I go and then call back.

Later that night I had a shower and the contractions ramped up crazily. They were still anywhere between 3 minutes to 10 minutes apart but they were lasting up to 2/2 and a half minutes or longer each and were more painful than before. I asked my partner to ring the birthing unit and let them know what was happening because I struggled to speak so I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell them myself. They requested to speak to me and surprisingly I was able to speak through the contractions to explain properly what was happening/had happened - and because I could speak through them, again the Birthing Unit was not convinced that it was definitely established labour.

Once again they said keep it up at home and see how I go, take a couple of Panadol and try and get some sleep and then call back if things progressed. And well, it progressed alright. I managed to get 10 minutes of minimal relief from the Panadol until the contractions became even more intense. I completely struggled to breathe through them at this stage and found myself on my knees on the bed resting with my arms on the head board moaning through the contractions until I felt this strange popping sensation and my waters going everywhere.

I woke my partner back up by yelling my water had broken and ran to the bathroom to see more blood and mucous mixed in with my waters. My partner rang the birthing centre back again and they told me to come right in - finally! Whilst he was on the phone, adrenaline must have kicked in because my whole body had just changed and I remember feeling completely different, like I was no longer in labour. I was shaking uncontrollably and just stood there staring at the fluid and blood dripping down my legs.

I quickly got changed and we jumped in the car and headed to the hospital. I had a few contractions on the way there but I noticed that after my waters had broken, the intensity of the contractions wasn’t as high so I could breathe through these again. My partner and I had a good chat on the way to the hospital - only stopping our chats for the contractions - and joking about how much everything had changed since I last was out and about due to COVID. I felt like this helped the oxytocin to flow again.

By the time we got to the hospital, it was 4:30am. We jumped out of the car and I practically ran - contractions and all - to the birthing unit. When we got in, they did a few checks and assessed my contractions. Unfortunately the assessment took a very long time so I had been laying there in so much pain whilst they did the CTG.

I remember the midwife saying part way through the assessment that I’d be getting sent home and me snapping back that I was refusing to leave.

Eventually they found out why they thought I wasn’t in established labour - because my contractions were “coupling”. I was having two or more contractions in one hit (with the same intensity of two or more contractions at one time) instead of single contraction, break, single contraction. They did a vaginal exam to check exactly how far I was to determine the next steps since I was refusing to leave and I was 6cm so they knew I was definitely in labour and I got to get ready in a room to finish off my labour and start the birthing process!

We managed to get into the room around 5:30/6am and there was a midwife swap so I ended up with a young gentleman midwife even though I had expressed in my birth preferences that I was more comfortable with females. He ended up being incredible throughout the process so despite my preference of not having a male, I was grateful for his support.

He let me do absolutely anything I wanted to help with my labour, kept up the encouragement and let me be when needed (he knew without me even needing to say anything). I had been trying everything to progress the labour that was comfortable to me - squatting with my partners support in the shower, swaying my hips, squatting in the bath, etc. Whilst in the shower, I thought I was making good progress and I was dilating further as the pressure in my bottom area was getting intense and I started having a meltdown saying I couldn’t keep going and I felt like I had to push. I thought that this meant I may have been transitioning to the next stage of labour.

I asked to have the bath filled as ideally I wanted a water birth so once the bath was filled, I jumped straight in. I was SO excited for the bath but I actually ended up HATING it! It was so uncomfortable and hot and gross.

After another hour or so in the bath my midwife and partner noticed I wasn’t progressing much and exhaustion was hitting me BADLY. I agreed to another exam and he found I was only at 8cm at around 1:30/2pm.

He suggested having some Pitocin to help my contractions and progress labour but I knew with how exhausted I was, there was no way I could endure more intense contractions unless I had the epidural. I also kept declining this because the contractions were so intense with the pressure that I couldn’t sit still from the pain and was scared of having the epidural and getting a contraction. I thought I was close to having my baby so I declined the offer numerous times.

My partner was frustrated at this choice as he could tell I was too fatigued to continue further and was worried I wasn’t making the right choice - and he was right, I wasn’t using BRAIN and made the wrong choice because I was so determined to avoid ANY intervention. I ended up changing my mind after my partner tried to his best to explain to me (which was not easy with how exhausted and grumpy I was, the poor guy) how beneficial this choice would be to me and bubs.

I knew I would struggle to deal with the contractions whilst getting the epidural so I sucked on the Gas like no tomorrow and managed to sit through getting the epidural. I felt absolutely horrible from the Gas but once the epidural kicked in, my whole attitude changed. I finally felt the relief that I so desperately needed. I went from ripping heads off unintentionally to making jokes with all the team and telling the Anesthesiologist what an absolute legend he was for doing the epidural.

During the process of getting the epidural, there was a shift change and I ended up with a new midwife. I was a little disappointed I’d lost such a supportive figure in my labour but little did I know the next one would be just as supportive.

The team let me relax for a little and then they asked if I would consent to another VE which I said just do whatever needs to be done and check what you got to check. Once they did this check, they called in a couple of obstetricians and completed an ultrasound - it turned out my little guy was on his side, up too high still and his head was angled in a bad birthing position. They suggested doing some pushing to see if we could bring him down and straighten him a bit, which I was very hesitant about doing forced pushing but I just wanted baby out and in my arms.

We gave the pushing a go but we were not having luck. I wasn’t able to make him budge and the Pitocin also didn’t do anything to increase contractions - my body reacted to the epidural by slowing things down more.

On top of this, my sons heart rate just continued to drop.

During the pushing, I had a few more VE’s to check if baby was moving his head into a better position but again he was not moving. The obstetricians discussed options and then advised me of my options: an episiotomy to avoid tearing with a forcep delivery or a c-section. They covered off all potential side effects, risks for baby and myself.

By this stage, my partner was so overwhelmed with what was happening and felt so defeated. He was no longer able to use BRAIN either so he said the choice was mine. I didn’t push my partner for his opinion because I could tell he was feeling traumatised from how my labour had unfolded.

I chose to try the episiotomy and forcep delivery because I was so scared of having a c-section as I had never had any major surgery before. Again, I did not use BRAIN correctly because of my own stubbornness to avoid things I hated the sound of. I didn’t think logically that by choosing the episiotomy and forcep delivery, I still left myself open to a potential c-section anyway if the vaginal instrumental delivery failed.

They got theatre prepped and in the mean time I tried calmly breathing and some more forced pushing but we still had no luck with getting him moving. Overall the pushing stage was just under 3 hours.

Once I was in theatre, they tried to manually rotate my son however, as soon as they moved their hands to get the forceps in, he would rotate back to the position he was just in. This then meant that there was no vaginal birthing option and they rushed to prep for the c-section.

I voiced my anxiety about the c-section and everyone in the room kept me calm and assured me it would be fine. The team in the operating theatre were absolutely incredible, I could not fault a single one of them at all. They started the c-section, the team did all they could to ease my anxiety and I was so excited I just commented on how fabulous it felt to not feel anything at all! Everyone had a little chuckle in the theatre about my reaction and it lifted my spirits up higher knowing how supportive this team was.

And just right after that, they pulled the curtain down quickly in time for me to see my son and hear his first cry… my partner and I just looked at one another and cried tears of joy.

After giving him a clean, cutting the cord and wrapping him up, they popped my son down next to my head and I was just amazed at how I grew this child and he was finally here. I had completely forgotten about all of my labour and the birth. I just felt so grateful that he was out and he was healthy.

Once I was stitched back up, my partner headed back up to the birthing suite with our son and got to hang out with him/move to the maternity ward whilst I was in recovery. I wasn’t in recovery for very long so I was able to meet my son quite quickly.

From there, things became a bit of a blur from the fatigue, exhaustion, anxiety and adrenaline. I just remember constantly looking at my son and thinking how amazing he was.

I'm still dealing with some aspects of my labour and birth due to personal reasons, but I've moved passed viewing the whole experience as negative and have accepted and appreciated the experience and lessons learned - and most importantly I'm grateful that my son and I left healthy and happy.