DD2 was footling breech. She was my fastest labour - after 42 hours with DD1 and nearly 2 days in labour with DS1, I was nearly fully dilated after 45 mins and only a handful of contractions with DD2. I wouldn't have even been at the hospital except that I was meant to be having a c/section in the morning because she was breech and they wouldn't let me deliver her like that. I had to lie completely still while they got everything ready and told me if I moved, my waters would most likely break and they would give me a GA and get her out that way.

They gave me an injection in my stomach to stop my labour and performed an emergency c/section. She was wedged so far up in my ribs that I think it took a lot longer to get her out than planned. DH told me later the nurses were distracting me but he could hear what was going on and they were panicking that they couldn't pull her out. Her APGAR scores were quite low (I can't remember now what they were but I was shocked when I realised). I came up in massive bruises across my scar afterwards and I was in considerable pain - I think it is because they ripped all my muscles trying to pull her out.

The staff at the hospital have never been able to answer my question about why I was not allowed to birth her naturally. Through my own investigation I think it is because footling breech births carry a 20% risk of cord prolapse. And none of the staff are trained to deliver a footling baby - because they don't do it, none of them have experience with it. They told me that I would have been able to birth her naturally had she been bum first. They also don't try to manually turn footling babies because if your waters break, cord prolapse is also an issue. Bum first and they would have tried.

My labour came as quite a shock to me because the doctor told me the week before that due to her being breech, it was unlikely I would go into labour by myself and if I did, labour would not progress. It was my fastest labour ... and my most traumatic because of how it ended and not getting any answers.

I am still weary of the unknown though. I wish that someone who knew what they were talking about could talk to me about what happened rather than me having to google it all to get answers. But no-one can tell me if there really was any risk or if it was just hospital policy. It was pretty terrifying though. I don't understand the urgency of what happened.

I have a feeling if the operating theatre was busy that night, I would have had her naturally.