The drive to the hospital was bliss. I was expecting an excruciating ride but with my iPod and holding my mum’s hand I enjoyed the bumps and turns and used them to focus on instead of the power of each surge. The drive was so easy I was worried that maybe it really was just pre-labour, or at most early labour, and I contemplated telling DP to just drive around for a bit as I was so comfortable. We arrived at the hospital and I had a surge at the car, and another in the lift. I stood in the lift as someone held the door open until I was done.
We got to the birth suite and I felt nervous. I smiled at the midwife and felt suddenly very self-conscious that I wasn’t wearing a bra! Bit silly considering how much she would see eventually... The midwife showed us to the birth suite, and had a quick chat between another surge. She stood and watched a surge, and I felt ‘watched’ and quite uncomfortable... where was my dark corner!?! She took my birth intentions sheet, and told us she’d be back in a bit. She read it, and it was evident in everything that she did. Afterwards another midwife on the ward told me I had “hit the jackpot” with that midwife, apparently she was a bit of a VBAC queen and had no fear of the Obs, and it showed!
It was 10.30pm when she did an exam; we had been there for maybe 10 minutes. . We had on our birth intentions sheet that DP would be the only one to tell me the results of any exams, so they went out of the room and then came back in and they both had massive smiles on their faces so I knew something was right! I cried when DP told me I was 8cm, that her head was “right there” and that there was a lot of pressure and my membranes would probably rupture very soon. MY BODY WAS WORKING! I felt renewed strength, pride and a bit of awe at the amazing work my body and baby had done. And the emotional work I had done to get that far.
Initial monitoring showed a happy baby, and the midwife was happy to allow me to be off the monitoring and go to the toilet. The monitoring didn’t bother me like I worried that it would, and they were happy for me to stand and move so I agreed to go back on. I didn’t really want to move far, I just wanted to be off the bed, and the midwife brought the birth stool over and I had a lovely little corner set up for me. My membranes ruptured a little bit after and there was meconium in there, so the midwife told me that there might have to be a slight change of plans. I waited for her to say that I would need a caesarean, but she just said that the baby would need suctioning at birth by the paediatrician, but that she would just be across the room and she would be brought back to me straight away. I worried for a bit about if she would be ok, but both mum and Cass were quick to reassure DP and I that it wasn’t all bad, and that both of them had dealt with VBAC bubs born through meconium liquor, and all had turned out ok. The midwife also mentioned that the monitors showed that she was still happy inside so we were right to keep going for the VBAC. I felt a bit better after that – knowing she was ok on the monitors and knowing that the midwife was really working with me to help me achieve my VBAC.
A short time later the midwife noticed that the baby was having decelerations after each contraction had finished, which is a sign of distress. The midwife told me that she unfortunately had to inform the Obs about the decelerations (I think she actually used the words unfortunately – she was a pretty awesome midwife!). I was on the (space age) birth stool which was quite comfortable, but she encouraged me to change positions which seemed to help a little so it seemed bub hated the birth stool. With the position change the decelerations seemed to go away, and I remember hearing the midwife say that to the Ob, and I think they were a bit happier knowing that.
I stood for a while and then my body felt very, very pushy about two hours in, and with each surge I could feel myself bear down with a force that was almost unstoppable. It felt good, and right, and seemed to work with the intensity of each surge so I went with it. I remember the pressure, and my legs going shaky. I really wanted to be on the birth stool, so a close second was having someone behind me supporting my weight under my arms while my body took over to try and get this baby out. It was two hours after my initial exam and the midwife asked to do another exam, which I let her do, and she took DP outside and told DP that I was only 9cm and if I kept pushing my cervix might swell and stop dilating. DP came back in the room and just said “you have to stop pushing”.
HOLY CRAP? Are you serious? Stop pushing. I don’t think I have ever done anything so difficult in all my life. Everyone coached me through breathing away the pushing feeling. Cass was across the room for one surge where I found the pushing instinct almost impossible to stop, and she yelled at me “LEASH! BREATHE!” and it echoed in my head, it was all I could hear. I screamed back at her “I’M TRYING!”. That seemed to help actually, as I forced the energy up and away with my voice instead of down and out. Oh my goodness I was trying. I was trying to focus on my breath, and I was repeating over and over “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.” It felt like hours and hours, but apparently it was barely 20 minutes before the Ob came on the check me.
The squeaky Ob with devil fingers. LOL. That’s all I thought as she did the exam, and I remember screaming at her to stop about a million times. I considered kicking her away. Then I seriously considered kicking her very hard in the head. Whatever she was doing HURT. I didn’t know at the time, but she thought she felt an ear presenting, and so that warranted an exam that felt like she was poking me with a million red hot irons for hours. I’m glad I didn’t know that she thought it was an ear, because the caesarean birth was the result of asynclitic presentation. In reality, the exam probably only took a minute, but it seriously HURT. But the good news was that I was 10cm, and it WASN’T an ear presenting, and we were good to go.
The midwife told me that even though she knew I wanted to birth gently and use Hypnobirthing techniques to breathe the baby down in our own time, that the Obs were starting to get antsy and were putting us on a time limit of an hour. I had one hour to push her out. She said “I want to coach you. You will push this baby out”. To be honest, I was happy to push, my body really wanted to push, and I wanted this baby coming out of my vagina. We had an hour. “Tell me what to do.” I said. And so we began...
Last edited by Indadhanu; December 6th, 2012 at 01:40 PM.
1.20am, 40w1d, I started to push out my baby girl. It felt awesome, and terrifying! I could feel her inside moving down, making teeny tiny progress with each wave. The midwife said “it’s like two steps forward and one step back” which frustrated me because I felt like I was giving it everything but only making tiny steps, and then hearing that afterwards it was going BACKWARDS! Ugh! I was still also only have surges every 4-5 minutes, and I was pushing from very high, which apparently was going to make it a bit more challenging, plus the fact that we were on a time limit. I remember Lyn mentioning the ‘2 in 10’ surges, although another midwife just said “I’ve seen that done before”, and it made me feel better and it wasn’t mentioned again. My surges never got any closer than that, and later on the ward a midwife told me that was probably my body's limit, not going any further/closer/stronger than necessary to preserve the scar, and a very good reason why they don't recommend chemical induction/augmentation for VBAC mums. I decided to merge the coached pushing with Hypnobirthing, in between surges I relaxed and focused my energy at keeping her where she was so I didn’t feel like I was starting back at square one every time I started pushing. It seemed to work because the surge after I started doing that Lyn got excited and told everyone to look, and there was a head.
As my mum so lovingly said later, it looked like brains without a skull coming out. Lovely, thanks mum... but kind of true. In between a surge the midwife ran out and came back with a mirror, and I saw the weirdest sight I’ve ever seen. There was a tiny flash of white emerging. Her head was white, covered in vernix, and pointy, which in hindsight was obviously her skull overlapping to fit down. I told everyone that it looked wrong, and I asked if the baby was ok – she was fine, of course. Lyn looked at me and said “no going back now, this baby is coming out of your vagina!” and I don’t know if I smiled at the time but on the inside I was wearing the biggest grin in my life! I reached down and touched her head, it was smooth and hard, and again I felt renewed energy. A VBAC! My VBAC! I was going to birth my baby! She said the exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the right time.
The Obs were getting itchy fingers around now I think, but it felt like the midwife had built a wall around me, to protect my birthing space. She said to me very seriously “Alisia, I need you to look at me, I need you to hear what I’m saying.” She told me she wanted to do an episiotomy. On my birth plan I specifically stated that under no circumstances could they cut me without good reason and my explicit permission. She explained what she was seeing as I pushed, a colour change which indicated that I would likely tear. She also said that I had been pushing for a while (I think around an hour), the Obs would come in soon and they would want to use the vacuum to pull her out. I shut my eyes and thought. I could feel I was being held back, there was something I couldn’t push past and this time it was a physical barrier not a mental one. I trusted her judgement; everything she had done was with respect and with reference to my birthing intentions. I felt like she wouldn’t have done anything that wasn’t necessary for me to have this VBAC. “Ok. Yes, ok.”
I felt relief after the cut, and I knew it was right. The Obs came in and asked how long I had been pushing for, and the midwife said to me “this contraction Alisia, she is coming out in this contraction, use the pain and push her out”. I pushed so hard, and made some good progress, but she wasn’t coming out in this one. I opened my eyes and said “sorry, I’m trying!” and then I saw the squeaky Ob with devil fingers holding the vacuum. The midwife said “THIS ONE! Alisia! Do it! Don’t let the doctors steal your thunder! We’re having a baby right now! Do it!”. I gave the biggest push I’d ever given, with power I didn’t even know I had, and I felt her move quickly down and at the time I was sure they were using the vacuum because I didn’t think I had that much power in me to move her so quickly. The midwife told me to stop pushing and breathe like I was blowing out candles. And then I felt it. I stretched. I was fairly sure I was splitting in half ... splitting in all directions. I felt her turn – I think the midwife helped her turn - and then heard her say “another big push now”, and I did and I felt suddenly empty, and an intense rush of relief and exhaustion and exhileration. At 2.34am, 40w1d, I breathed and sighed, and I knew my marathon was over. And then I heard it.
Her cry. And I looked down, and there was a baby, laying there on the bed. A beautiful bloody vernix covered little mess, arms out, fists clenched, eyes closed, practically bald, and making the most beautiful sound in the world. And it hit me. I did it. A baby! Look what I did! I did it! And I birthed her! I pushed her out! And there she is! My baby! Making the most amazing sound in the world! I did it. She just came out of me! I got her out. I JUST HAD A VBAC! Nothing else existed, and it felt like hours that I stared at her, but it was a matter of seconds. They quickly moved her away to suction her, and all of a sudden I had everyone on me, hugging me, and all I could hear was her little newborn cry and everyone around me saying “you did it!”. I heard my mum cry and say “Leash, you did it, look what you did!”.
I came back to reality as I heard Lyn tell someone else not to give me the Syntocin injection because I wanted a physiological third stage (as per my birth intentions), and she looked slightly concerned. “Do you think I need it?” I asked her. She said yes. I sensed some sort of commotion, and told her to do what she need to do. I looked for my baby, thinking the commotion was for her and I felt sick thinking that something was wrong, but there she was across the room, looking amazing and crying perfectly on the resuscitation table. It was a few seconds before I realised the commotion was surrounding me. I was bleeding and it wouldn’t stop. I was told later that the Ob was scooping blood off the bed with her hands and into a bowl, there was quite a bit. They worked at getting the placenta out; it was being stubborn and was difficult to get out. There was a rush to get it out because apparently the bleeding would stop or at least slow once it had separated and been birthed.
And they brought my baby back quickly, and we had skin-to-skin, she was there, on me, and it felt amazing and awkward. She was calm, so calm, with her eyes wide open. I wanted to hold her forever but I told them I needed someone to take the baby because I felt dizzy. Apparently that created panic stations, and people jumped out of cupboards (not really), the placenta still wasn’t coming out and I had lost a lot of blood, and I had oxytocin hooked up to the cannula on one arm, someone putting another line into my other arm and hooking up something else, there was pushing on my stomach, and squeaky Ob with devil fingers was being a ***** again and sticking things in awkward places to stop the bleeding, and I protested half-heartedly by crying out “OW” every time her devil fingers came near me. I think she apologised, but I’m sure she enjoyed torturing me. I lost 800mL of blood but the haemorrhage eventually stopped and the room was calm again. I started to feel better, and they brought my baby back to me.
Devil fingers told me I had tore a little beyond the cut and that it was now considered a third degree tear and they wanted to repair it in surgery under spinal anaesthetic. Devil fingers was going to repair the tear, and I remember thinking that she probably would have preferred to do it without any anaesthetic because at this stage I was fairly certain she was an extreme sadist...
I breastfed as they did their preparations for surgery. She latched on so perfectly one of the midwives told me they could use her lips in an ad for Special K. I felt proud that she had got it so right first go. They asked a million questions getting things ready for surgery, things that I honestly couldn’t have cared less about. Yes, knowing if I have ever had a reaction under anaesthetic is important, but didn’t they know I just had a baby? Half the time all I could hear was noise coming out of their mouth and I just nodded as I stared at my wonderful baby and enjoyed the moment with DP. I couldn’t believe how much she looked like DD1, except that she seemed so much smaller! They said they were ready and DP took the baby, unnamed at this stage but very much loved already. The wheeled me in, and gave me the spinal. I kept doing my HypnoBirthing breathing, and it helped during the surgery. They thought I was asleep and were talking about whether my stats reflected that I was asleep - it surprised them when I opened my eyes and said, “no, I’m just doing my HypnoBirthing breathing” and closed my eyes again.
I stayed in recovery for 20 minutes, and they brought me back to the room. I could hear my baby crying as I was wheeled up the hall and I had tears in my eyes hearing her cry, and the intense need to hold her was overwhelming. It was almost 5am, and I could see the sun was already coming up. What a beautiful day! I was wheeled past the visitor area where DP and mum were waiting, and into the next room. They followed in after, and the midwife gave me my baby and all was well.
I’m so thankful for the HypnoBirthing, which helped me stay calm and in control, even when unexpected twists and turns popped up. People ask how the birth was and I just say “perfect”. I was respected, I was supported, and I was safe. I had a support team who were responsive and knew exactly what I needed at every step, I had a midwife who respected us and worked with us through the different turns birthing took. I had a body that worked perfectly. I worked so hard for so long to prepare for this calm birth experience. I am so happy. I am so proud. I am healed.
Last edited by Indadhanu; December 6th, 2012 at 02:07 PM.
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