The very long birth story of Mr A
After 3 years and 3 months of TTC, we finally achieved our one and only BFP in September 2009. It had been our 7th FET and we had no more embryos left of the original 15 we had obtained in January 2009, so this transfer was pretty poignant. Unfortunately LTTTC and IVF had taken it’s toll on me, and on the very day that the 6-week scan confirmed there was one heartbeat, I was also diagnosed with Antenatal Depression and Anxiety.
I was extremely lucky with the support I received from my DH and through a counselling program directed at ANDA sufferers, and by the time I was 16 weeks pregnant my anxiety had dissipated to normal pregnant-lady levels.
The rest of the pregnancy was smooth and healthy, albeit with support from my naturopath and acupuncturist. I had the usual symptoms of killer reflux, breathlessness, swollen ankles and frequent trips to the loo, but whenever anyone asked if I was sick of being pregnant, I just stared at them curiously. I know I was lucky to have such an easy pregnancy, but at no point did I ever stop being completely grateful for this little one being in my belly.
DH and I hired a Doula to support us through the pregnancy and birth. At first having a Doula was my little indulgence, but it quickly became a necessity. My Doula supported us so much during every stage of the pregnancy, labour, birth and postnatal period that we feel like we hired a Guardian Angel. We also attended Rhea Dempsey’s Embracing the Intensity birth classes, and prepared ourselves for a natural birth. I was signed up for the Birth Centre, so knew that my only options for pain relief were the natural kind, or gas. I was adamant I wouldn’t be using pethidine, or anything that could cross the placenta and affect the baby.
The baby was still in breech position at 36 weeks, and after a lot of acupuncture, moxibustion, osteopathy and Spinning Babies tactics, we opted for an ECV. We were lucky enough that it worked and that he stayed in cephalic position, although the ECV itself was unpleasant and painful.
My EDD of 4 June came and went without incident. I had lots of BHs in the weeks leading up to the birth-day, and some pre-labour cramping, but nothing else. DH and I pulled the phone out of the wall about that time, because everyone kept calling to ask whether I’d had the baby yet (my personal favourite response: Have you had that baby yet?)
I saw the MW on Friday 11 June and was told that the baby was still not engaged. As I was also 41 weeks at that stage, I was booked for a S&S the following Tuesday. I went straight to my acupuncturist and had more induction treatment, and later had a massage. The next day, Saturday 12 June, I had chiro treatment to try and open up my pelvis to help Baby engage.
Despite all the natural interventions to get the baby to engage and to induce labour, I honestly believed I would be induced at the hospital a week later. So I was quite shocked when the BHs started coming frequently and painfully on Saturday evening, and I thought for some time that it was just false labour. It was only when my Doula took them seriously that I realised it might be the real thing.
The contractions were irregular but I was getting them about 3 times in 20 minutes. I put the TENS machine on at around 9:30 and DH and I went to bed. I didn’t sleep, but thankfully DH did for a few hours. I got out of bed at about 2am and called my Doula. She arrived and we decided to go to the Birth Centre at 4:30am, although my contractions were not regular at all. At that point, I thought I was in established labour, and thought DH and my Doula weren’t taking me seriously enough!
I don’t recall all the details about the next 8 hours, but I know that the TENS machine worked for awhile, and then I got into the bath, which was heaven. I remember telling DH that “next time, we’re doing a home water birth” because the hot water was so relaxing. I spent more time in the shower with the jets on my belly and back. We had read Juju’s book and I got a lot of help from banging stress balls against the wall, or anything that would take the hit. I stamped a lot. I got back in the bath. I remember that the pain moved from my back to my front and to my back again, making me think that he baby was posterior. The back pain was a killer. At some point, I started taking the gas.
Finally, at about 11am, I accepted the MWs advice that I have my first VE. On my Birth Plan, I had stipulated that VEs were to be for medical reasons only, not “just to see how dilated you are.” I knew from the birth classes, and my Doula, that many women opt for a VE to find out their progress, only to be told that they were “only X centimetres dilated” which could be devastating if they’d been labouring for hours. The MW wanted to do a VE on me because I’d had a fleeting urge to push. Trying to lie on my back during a contraction and having a VE was hell – and the news was not what I’d wanted to hear. I’d been labouring for 15 hours and “only” dilated 3cm. Despite all my knowledge about the first 4cm being the hardest, and that VEs cannot predict how fast I would dilate in the future, I was pretty peeved. I’d already used the hot water, TENS machine, stress balls and was on the gas – I hadn’t planned on needing any other pain relief, and here I was only 3cm dilated. So I screamed for the epidural.
Thankfully the epidural isn’t offered in the Birth Centre, and DH and my Doula knew that I hadn’t wanted to transfer to the main part of the hospital just for an epidural. They distracted me very well. I think at some point I was on the gas, in the hot shower, stamping my feet and slamming those stress balls into the wall all the same time – if I couldn’t have an epidural, I was going to use everything at the same time instead. I remember despairing that I was in so much pain and couldn’t see the end of the tunnel – but desperately wanting to avoid an epidural. I think me screaming for it was my way of saying “I don’t really want it, but I can’t do this without it.” I think in reality I used the F-word a lot.
I was lucky that my Doula is a trained MW, and suggested that I might get some relief from the water injections. I had been feeling a lot of pain in my back, even though the baby didn’t seem to be posterior. My Doula convinced the MW to try saline injections in my lower back, which would provide some relief from the back pain and hopefully give me some more time before opting for an epidural.
The water injections hurt like hell when they went in, but they did give me relief, at least from some of the back pain. The contractions were still awful, and I was still sucking on the gas. At some point I had a show, albeit very bloody. I didn’t know what a show should look like, but apparently in retrospect the amount of blood that came out was a bad sign.
I went back into the shower again and after another few hours of strong, heavy and sometimes back-to-back contractions (“cascading contractions” they are sometimes called), I started bearing down. I remember thinking that the end was nigh, and that finally I would get to meet my little man. But instead of pushing out a baby, I started passing blood clots. I remember watching blood pass down the shower drain and asking my Doula if that was meant to happen. Seemingly her response was to go and get the MW, although I didn’t know that she was concerned at the time. The MW arrived and put the Doppler on my belly. I remember telling them all to stop touching me, but what I didn’t know was that the baby’s heartrate had dropped to about 70bpm – and wasn’t coming back up. I was still having cascading contractions, and the baby wasn’t able to recover from each one before another would start.
The MW insisted that I be put on the CTG to check the baby’s heartrate, because they weren’t sure that what the Doppler was picking up was his heartbeat rather than mine. I don’t really remember the CTG being attached but apparently the MW still had trouble locating the baby’s heartbeat. When they finally found it, it was still only about 70bpm. The MW then decided that another VE was necessary to work out where I was at – because obviously the baby was not doing so well. Again, the VE was hell. It was established that I was only 8cm dilated (amazingly, it took less than 3 hours to dilate 5cm), and I was not ready to push. The MW advised that I needed to transfer to the main part of the hospital and that I was not to push.
I had no control over what my body was doing, and every contraction came with an overwhelming urge to grunt and push. I sucked on the gas to try and stall the pushing urge, but I don’t think it did anything but make me foggy. In fact, whilst I’d been using the gas for several hours, it never gave me any pain relief, only distracted me from the pain.
Upon transfer to the main part of the hospital, a Registrar performed another VE, to attach the fetal monitor to Baby’s head. As my waters hadn’t broken, he also did an ARM. Still sucking hard on the gas, I didn’t see that the waters were brown. I remember passing out on the gas and waking up to absolute chaos - I was confused about where I was, but I knew that my Doula was on one side and DH was on the other. The MW from the Birth Centre had come through with me, and I could hear her as well. I remember people yelling at me to not push and to keep breathing. I remember the Registrar saying to DH that they believed I needed to have an emergency c-section because the baby was in distress and needed to come out fast. I was still only 8cm dilated and couldn’t push him out myself. I remember pulling off the gas and screaming “Just do it! Just get him out!.”
Within moments I was being rushed to theatre for a c-section. I sucked hard on the gas during each contraction and tried desperately not to push. DH left me at the door of theatre so that he could get into scrubs, and I remember his voice breaking as I was wheeled away, screaming at me to keep breathing.
I remember that I was in a lot of pain, and that I’d been promised pain relief for the c-section. So I screamed for it. I remember trying desperately trying to make eye contact with everyone around me to plead with them for pain relief, and not getting any. Apparently I could be heard in the hospital Waiting Room screaming and screaming. I know that the gas gave me no pain relief, but gave me something to do other than scream. I sucked so hard on it that I passed out a few times. I remember trying desperately to understand why no one would help me and thinking that I had arrived in hell.
Upon arriving in theatre, the Registrar performed another VE – and established that in the short moments it had taken to transfer me from the Room to theatre, I had fully dilated. The c-section was taken off the table (and so too, my promised pain relief!), and I was told that I could deliver him vaginally. I remember vaguely being quite relieved, but also terrified that I now had to do it without the pain relief I thought I would get once I arrived in theatre.
DH was ushered back into theatre for what he now thought would be a forceps delivery, but at some point it was decided that the Vacuum would be sufficient. I was on my back, in stirrups, and told that I could push on at the next contraction, and that the doctor would pull the baby out with the Vacuum. I think it was done in one contraction. The blessed relief from being allowed to push was heavenly, although I was sucking on the gas so much that I don’t remember a whole lot. I remember it being very fast, and that there was a sudden gush of warm fluid around me. DH went to see the baby and I think he came back and reported to me that he was nice and pink. I didn’t see him born, partly because of my position on the table and the screen that had gone up above my chest, but partly because by that point I had no capacity to comprehend what was happening. I remember feeling relieved that it was over. I remember the MW telling me that my baby had arrived and pointing him out to me across the theatre room.
The doctor announced that I had third-degree tearing and that they needed to stitch me up. Apparently I thrashed around so much that the doctor suggested that I might be better off having the stitches put in under a GA – which I accepted without hesitation. Anything for some relief.
I woke up from the GA with DH next to me, telling me that the baby was doing fine and was on oxygen in the NICU. Apparently I announced brightly “I birthed him vaginally,” although I don’t remember feeling particularly bright about it. I was allowed to visit the baby in NICU before being taken to the Ward, but I was feeling pretty dozy and didn’t pay much attention to him whilst we were in NICU. I think the enormity of everything we’d been through was sitting under the surface and I wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. He was on the CPAP and looked small and unfamiliar. DH and I announced to the nurses that his name was Archie.
I expressed some colostrum straight away which DH took back to Archie. At 2am the following morning another MW arrived at my bedside and helped my express more colostrum, which I then took to NICU myself, and had my first skin-to-skin contact with him. He was taken off the CPAP and didn’t go back on it, as he was recovering so well.
The following morning DH and I visited Archie in NICU and were told that we could take him back to the Ward with me. I spent another night at hospital, and probably would have spent more time there were it not for how awful it made me feel. The constant shift-changes and different faces and advice from different people made me feel anxious and depressed. One MW told me to leave Archie to cry to “strengthen his lungs.”
Before I left hospital, I was able to talk to one of the doctors who was in theatre when I delivered. She told me that they believe that I may have had a placental bleed, (which would explain the bleeding and the bloody show), which possibly indicates that the placenta had started to break away from the uterine wall, thus depriving Archie of oxygen. The cascading contractions I was experiencing may have been my body responding to Archie’s distress by trying to get him out fast, but the contractions themselves would have placed more stress on him. The meconium in his waters and the fact that I hadn’t fully dilated further complicated everything, meaning that a fast delivery was going to happen one way or another, and that Archie really did need to come out fast.
DH, my Doula and I have debriefed and processed everything from that day, and I am 100% reconciled to the events that took place, although we’re all traumatised regardless. DH and I always said that if we were going to accept medical interventions, it needed to be for medical reasons. I am lucky that I was able to deliver him vaginally and not have a c-section, although the third-degree tearing has left me feeling a little fragile, both emotionally and physically. I know that delivering on my back in stirrups was not the ideal way to avoid tearing, and I’m sad that I didn’t have the opportunity to have some control of the situation.
The first few days after the birth left me wondering why anyone would sign up for a natural labour and birth when the outcome could be so traumatic. The last few days however, I’ve started recognising just how powerful my body is, and I’m now more convinced than ever that my body is geared for natural birth and I can do it again. I might not be doing it very soon, but hopefully one day I’ll be comfortable enough to try again.
The first few days after the birth also left me quite anxious and frightened. I looked at Archie on a number of occasions and thought “I don’t know you. Where did you come from?” I didn’t see him born, and I’ve found myself feeling some disconnect between being pregnant and now having a baby in my arms. The anxiety has dissipated and my attachment to him is great, but my sadness about the birth is still heavy and it will take me a long time to grieve it. I don’t know that I’ll ever stop feeling sadness that I didn’t give him the birth I had hoped for, and most importantly to me, that we spent his first hour apart – him in NICU, me under a GA. My main motivation for wanting a natural, low-intervention and drug-free labour and birth was for that sacred first hour – and it’s gone, forever.
Having said that, I am proud that I was able to give my baby a drug-free birth, and immensely proud that I was able to labour and birth him with minimal intervention. My labour was exactly what I wanted it to be. The birth, whilst traumatic, was exactly what it needed to be for him to arrive safely.
I cannot thank my Doula and my DH enough for the enormous support they’ve given me throughout all of this. If I had one piece of advice for any pregnant woman, it would be to hire a Doula. I wouldn’t be where I am now without her.
I also wanted to thank all the girls on BB who have supported me through TTC, IVF and the pregnancy. The information and support I’ve obtained on here gave me the strength and power to believe in my body and the natural process of labour and birth. Thank you so much.
Archie George was born on 13 June 2010, on my brother's 23rd birthday.
7 pounds, 6 ounces
Labour was approximately 21 hours from the first painful contraction to the birth.
Established labour was less than 4 hours.
2nd stage was less than one minute.
He is beautiful and delightful. My life is complete.
