DP and I were somewhat surprised when I got a BFP so soon after having our first born. DS was almost 7 months old, and while we weren’t trying to prevent conceiving another child we both thought it would take a while to happen. We had talked about having our kids close together and the advantages that came with two little siblings growing up together and we were ecstatic to have the next member of our family baking away.

Our thoughts soon turned to planning the birth of our second child. I had a last minute c-section with DS after going into labour normally. He had flipped into breech position in his last week on the inside and no-one knew until I arrived at the Birth Centre in labour. I was determined to do everything I could to achieve a VBAC after feeling so disappointed about his birth. I was unable to go through the local midwifery program this time around so just booked into the normal hospital antenatal clinics and accepted that fact that I would have to fight the hospital to refuse a lot of the standard and unnecessary restrictions placed on women who have had a previous c-section.

It wasn’t until after an appointment at about 14 weeks that I became increasingly uncomfortable about birthing at hospital and we started thinking more about our options. I knew that my best chance to achieve a VBAC would be at home with an Independent Midwife. So after more discussion and research, DP and I decided that homebirth was the best option for us and we set about finding a midwife to help us reach our goal. I was just past 20 weeks when we found a midwife that we liked so we were booked in and started planning to welcome our baby in the comfort of our own home.

So much for best laid plans!

For a week leading up to DD’s birth I had felt different. I’d had a day where I had a tummy upset (related to my irritable bowel syndrome) and from that point on I started to lose a lot more mucous. There were moments over the subsequent few days where I thought I was leaking amniotic fluid, but it was just A LOT of mucous that continued and reassured myself it was just a normal part of pregnancy. I had noticed a couple of days where her movements had changed and she was more quiet than usual.

I called my midwife a couple of times and she reassured me that an increase in mucous was very normal and to just monitor and call her if I was still concerned. She dropped in to check on me one day (I think about 3 days before DD arrived) and we listened to bubs and everything was normal. She said my belly felt normal and that bubs was nice & happy on the inside. So I put the niggles to the back of my mind and continued to get on with things. Both DP & I were working full weeks so we were stressed & tired and juggling DS around to different people each day. Life was busy – I put it all down to being tired and the fact that it was my second pregnancy and it was just all part & parcel of the experience.

On the Thursday evening I had left work, picked up DS and headed home. Prepared something that resembled dinner and did the normal bath & bed routine for DS. I was exhausted, so was DP. We both had a cuppa and I sat down to relax a bit at the computer. At about 9pm I started to feel a bit crampy and jumped onto BB to post about Braxton Hicks! The cramps were light but annoying so I put myself off to bed for an early night to try and relieve things.

I dozed for about 3 hours the whole time noticing that the cramps weren’t going away and trying to ignore the fact that they felt a bit like my early labour with DS. Around midnight I woke DP and said that I’m calling the hospital. The midwife on the phone encouraged us to come in to get checked so we called MIL to stay at our place with DS. By the time she arrived the cramps had intensified and I was getting very anxious. DP got me into the car and things kept getting stronger and I really had to start breathing to get through things. I knew I was in labour by this point but I spent the whole 10 minute car ride hoping like crazy that I wasn’t very far along and they could do something to slow it down. I said to DP on the way down that we needed to be prepared for the fact that our baby might not be alive.

We got to the hospital and checked in through emergency. DP pushed me in a wheelchair up to the labour ward and we were greeted by a couple of midwives and taken into a room straight away at around 1:10am. The pains were getting very intense and not subsiding – they were asking me a few general questions but when they saw me stand up and groan through a contraction they started to hurry things along a bit. An Obstetrician was with us soon and got me up on the bed for an examination straight away. She confirmed what I was desperately hoping wasn’t the case – that I was fully dilated, there was no cervix there at all. Very quickly we had more people in the room – more obstetric staff and a couple more midwives plus the neonatal team were on hand too. The Ob began to scan me to try and find a heartbeat and establish what position the baby was in. After what felt like an eternity of pain as she pushed around on my belly she told us that the baby was alive, albeit distressed but there was definitely a heartbeat present. We were relieved but more focussed on what was ahead of us. She also established that our baby was head down. At that point the Neonatal Registrar was at my side talking us few a through things about what was going to happen. She mentioned that we would need to be ready to make some choices about resuscitation etc, and we talked briefly about our baby’s chances of survival at such an early gestation. To be honest a lot of it was just passing me by as I was so focussed on what I had to do to get our baby out. A drip was put in my arm and I was given a dose of steroids in my leg that were meant to help strengthen our baby’s lungs. Things happened so quickly from that point it’s unlikely these would have reached DD anyway.

All of these things happened in the space of minutes, it was all so fast. The Ob and midwives encouraged me to push when I felt the next contraction, so I pushed with all my being, clinging onto DP for dear life. The Ob still had her hand / hands inside me to feel where our baby was and all hell almost broke loose when she felt the umbilical cord come down before DD’s head. Suddenly she’s calling out to prep for an emergency c-section and telling me that the only safe way to deliver our baby was under GA. DP was at my side asking me how I felt about another c-section and I was so confused – everything was happening so fast – and instinctively I just knew there was no time. I looked the Ob in the eye, and I could see she was struggling to know what decision to make too. I don’t blame her based on the stress of the situation. I looked at her and said that this baby is so close – that by the time they had me transferred to theatre and under anaesthetic, I’d probably have the baby in a corridor somewhere. I told her that I could do this and thankfully she listened to me and she made her next move. They asked me to hold off pushing for a moment and the bed was tilted backwards to allow gravity to help move the cord back, and she used her hands to successfully get it back past DD’s head. The bed came back to normal and I was able to push again, so with every part of me, I pushed. The Ob was still feeling her as she came down and was also helping stretch my perineum a bit too. I heard her ask one of the midwives to get a pair of scissors. Somehow in the middle of a contraction and pushing at the same time I managed to yell at her in the nicest possible way “Don’t you dare cut me!” She just looked up at me, shocked, and said “OK.” I think there was probably a big rude swear word in there somewhere from me too! Then after one more great big long push, our tiny darling girl was earthside at 1:27am, just 17 minutes after we arrived on the labour ward. I remember seeing how tiny and purple she was, and immediately choked up. DP just grabbed hold of me, buried his head into my shoulder and briefly cried after watching her come out. We just held each other, and our breath for what seemed like an eternity as the neonatal team took care of our precious baby. DP asked if I wanted to know the gender of our baby and I had to shake myself out of the zone I was in to realise that of course I wanted to know. The neonatal nurses told us we had a daughter and we just held each other close and cried together.

We were fixated on what the neonatal staff were doing just a few steps away from us and just waiting for something, anything they could tell us. They ventilated DD and stabilised her in the room and told us that she had responded very quickly which was a great sign. I noticed that the OB was still fiddling around downstairs and remembered that I had the placenta to birth. She was applying a fair bit of cord traction, and it suddenly occurred to me to ask her to stop. I said “Do you really need to be doing that?” and asked if the syntocinon had been put into my drip and they nodded so I asked them to just give it some time and let my body do what it clearly knew how to do. And with a few minutes and another contraction the placenta was out. It was a few minutes after that the neonatal team were preparing to transport DD to the NICU and she was brought up close to us for our first peek. She was so tiny, yet so beautiful and a very feisty little girl. She had wee-ed not long after birth and was moving around a lot which were both good signs. I was able to reach out and touch her tiny little hand which was just amazing. We had to say goodbye to her as they took her to get her stable and settled in NICU.

I was so thirsty so the midwives brought me a much needed drink of water and I started to slowly come down from the pace of events that had just taken place. DP and I were locked in closely together just talking and muddling through all the thoughts running through. Crying with each other about being prepared for the worst case scenario and agreeing that if our tiny girl wasn’t meant to be with us this time, that we would let her go peacefully. We were both so stunned about how quickly she had arrived and DP was telling me how determined I looked while I was pushing her out.

I got up and showered about 45 minutes later. They had weighed DD and came to tell us she was a tiny 1 pd 10 oz, or 730 grams and that she was nice & stable. We would be able to go and see her in the NICU as soon as we were ready. At some point we called the MIL and told her our news. DP broke down over the phone as he told her we have a daughter – he was so emotional and yet such a pillar of strength. It wasn’t long before we were taken around to NICU and could have a closer look at our baby girl and get some more information about how she was. The poor little chicken was very bruised and swollen as they think she was presenting face down for part of the labour. After talking to the specialists about what to expect we returned to a different room to try and get some rest and to process what had just happened.

Physically I was fine and really wanted to discharge as early as I could so I made the nurses aware early that morning that we wanted to go home to rest. We were taken through to see DD again and then we headed home for some much needed sleep in our own bed before going back to be with our darling girl.

The journey from here is a long one for us. DD will be in NICU for a long stay, but she has a fighting spirit and she is clearly very determined and very impatient. We can only stay positive and hope for a smooth ride as she continues to grow and develop. Looking back on that week before she was born, all the signs were there but nothing called for any serious action. I didn’t have any bleeding, and certainly no cramping until the night I went into labour. Even then I was still only feeling a bit off until the hour before she was out. It’s likely that the reason for her early arrival will remain her little secret – there was nothing obvious at birth that indicated why she arrived prematurely, and neither of us has shown any sign of infection. It really doesn’t matter anyway now that she’s here and doing so well.
AND, I can’t forget to celebrate the fact that I achieved my drug-free VBAC! Albeit under slightly stressful and less than ideal circumstances, I have to say it is a wonderful feeling.

Thank you for reading and a big thank you to the wonderful BB community and those who have followed our journey and offered support & encouragement. It means a great deal to us and our baby girl too.

Heidi’s stats:
25th June 2010 ~ 1:27am @ 25 weeks & 6 days gestation
Weight: 730grams (1pd 10oz) Length: 34cm
Apgars: 6 and 10