Birth story - Cat and baby Quinn

After reading so many PBC stories and loving them, I wanted to share mine. So it's quite a long story....and not at all to my original plan, but still very positive for me.

Pregnancy

I found out at 4 weeks I was pregnant. I had quite a straight forward pregnancy with no complications, just sickness up until 13 weeks and intense pelvic pain from about 16 weeks to birth - I struggled with this badly and towards the end barely slept and struggled to get around. Now I know his weight, the pelvic pain makes total sense.

At 36 weeks I had a growth scan where his estimated weight was 6lb 15oz with an estimated birth weight of 8-9lb. Growth scans are definitely not accurate!!

Labour

I woke up at 5.30am on his due date wondering if my waters had broken or if I'd wet the bed. I popped in a pad and waited and had another few trickles but I think I was in denial as I never expected him to show up on time. We phoned triage an hour later who said to come in to get it checked but there was no rush. We had a cuppa and got up and then headed in as we were keen to know if baby boy was on his way! We arrived and as we sat in the waiting room, a huge gush of waters broke, very dramatically and was all over the floor and chair! There was slight tinge to my waters and they suspected meconium but it was so light, they weren't worried and the midwife sent us home to labour - which I was very happy about.

Once we got home I took 2 paracetamol and ran a nice bath, as I was getting contractions already quite often and thought it would ease it. I quickly got out as it wasn't really helping being on my back and they seemed quite close together. I was expecting to have a pain every 20 or 30 minutes to start but they seemed to be every few?! They got quite intense and so I used my Freya app and they were 3 in 10. It confirmed I was in established labour but it all felt extremely quick and not possible?! I didn't get much time to relax in between the contractions, by this point it was about 9am and my parents had come to bring us supplies as we'd had none of the time we expected. I was knelt on the bedroom floor, lent over the bed ..while my partner and my mum frantically tried to pack the rest of my bag (I had thought labour would slowly start with lots of movies and I could pack my last few toiletries etc - how wrong I was!) We tried to call triage but were waiting on hold and I was struggling. We eventually got through and they said to come back for a check, so we just drove straight back - luckily we live 5 minutes from the hospital.

As soon as we arrived I was sick, probably from the pace and intensity of everything happening. They examined me and I was only 1.5cm I couldn't believe it was this intense at this stage and had a wobble but then remembered to just stay positive and tried to focus on this being part of things progressing. They confirmed I had more meconium in my waters so they asked me to stay for monitoring. This was really hard as I had to be on my back, which was a lot more painful than the other positions. They were happy with baby but wanted me to stay incase. My home labour plans were out the window but we got a nice private room on a ward upstairs and I tried to focus on my breathing and making this room just as comfortable and, our place, as at home. In the quickness of it all, I totally forgot about my tens machine and my comb, which remained in my bag so focused on up breathing.

The contractions were still pretty intense and close together. After 2 hours they got to the point where they were back to back...I was struggling as I had no pain relief and felt like I wasn't getting a break at all. My partner got the midwife, who examined me and I couldn't believe it - I was 7cm dilated! She was really excited and said we'd be meeting baby soon. This was a huge boost for me - I'd got this far with only breathing and paracetamol! I felt reenergised, like I could do this. The ward midwife contacted MLU and they had a pool for me..I was very excited!!

We went down to MLU (slowly with lots of stops for contractions) and within 10 minutes I hopped in the pool and it was instantly so relieving! Really recommend the pool, it was incredible! The midwifes were lovely and really supportive of my wishes. They also offered me frankincense to sniff which was lovely and so calming. For the next hour I enjoyed the pool and just used gas and air and breathed through contractions, chatting in between. They were now more regular length and gaps (not back to back) but each one was definitely more intense. They said I was nearly there and to just go with how I felt.

This next stage was quite a difficult part for me. After about an hour my body started automatically trying to push, so they said to go with my body and at this point I tried to change to down breathing. I struggled as I felt like nothing was happening and had to really focus on my breath and using it to push down, but I couldn't feel any movement or change. I think at this point I knew something wasn't right, but being my first time I wasn't 100% sure. They thought at first my bladder was blocking baby and tried to use a catheter to empty my bladder, but nothing was coming out so after 3 attempts, we decided it can't be this. After a bit more time, the midwife began coached pushing, which I'd never wanted, but at this stage I just wanted to feel like something was moving.

After another hour and a half - still no signs of him moving down, so they got me out of the pool to be examined and I got the disappointing news that I was still at 7cm, with a lip on my cervix at the front so even though my body was pushing, he couldn't descend into my birth canal. Also as I'd been heavily pushing for an hour and a half, I'd aggravated my cervix and it was swollen. At this point the midwife suggested she could try and push the lip out of the way - as although I was 7cm, I was very stretchy and she could stretch to 9cm so felt she could help his head pass my cervix and get things going. We tried this during a contraction and the pain was so intense, I knew it wasn't what my body wanted, so I asked her to stop. The midwife said I had to try not to push, but my body was just automatically going for it and holding back felt so much more painful. This was the worst part of the whole labour for me. They quickly got the doctor who said she thought I should get an epidural to stop my body pushing and let my cervix recover and dilate further. Again not what I'd wanted but I really couldn't stop the pushing, so agreed and went down to labour ward for this.

The team were super nice on labour ward and made me feel really supported. After the epidural I felt relief from the pushing sensation and got a bit of rest while they put me on an oxytocin drip and we waited for my cervix to recover and fully dilate. I discussed guided pushing and my wishes for birth with an epidural and felt positive they knew what I wanted when the time came. After 3 hours of chatting and getting excited for this stage, we had a midwife check my dilation. To my disappointment, nothing had changed at all. The lip was still there and I was 7cm. I was totally gutted and felt so exhausted - why was everything stuck? The doctor came back and discussed options with us - my heart rate was really high and baby was now showing signs of distress. The doctor said she really felt she didn't want to push either of us to more stress and have to intervene if things got worse, but that of course, it was up to us if we wanted to try and wait to see if I progressed, but that she recommended a c section as I'd been stuck at 7cm for many hours now. My partner and I discussed it and we decided to go with a c section, as we felt this was safest for both myself and the baby.

We went to theatre and although you feel no pain in a c section, I asked my partner to practise the breathing with me as they got him out, to help with my anxious feeling and the pressure of them pulling at my body. This really helped calm me. When they delivered him he was 11lb 4oz and huge!! The doctor said this was probably the reason he was stuck at my cervix and that there was no way I'd have gotten him out even if I'd fully dilated, he'd have gotten stuck because he was so huge. This then all made sense to me why I'd struggled to push so much and why nothing was happening - as much as it was my first time, it made me realise that you really have to trust your body! This all reinforced that we made totally the right decision each step of the way and made me feel less disheartened that I didn't get the pool birth I'd originally wanted.

He was absolutely perfect in every way and even with all the changes to my plan, I feel so positive about the whole experience and how I managed to handle all the decisions so calmly. The intense speed of the whole thing to start would never have been able to handle without the knowledge I got from PBC and practising my breathing throughout the whole thing.