My labour and delivery story

Disclaimer: this entry will discuss in detail the graphic events of my birth. You have been warned!

Sunday 23rdAugust at 11:45pm. I was in bed, reading Harry Potter (surprise surprise) and I felt the need to head to the toilet. Before I could get there, I felt something ‘plop’ out of me. I had a look and couldn’t tell what it was. Was it my water breaking? It seemed like it, but it wasn’t really ‘water’ per se- it looked more like clear watery cough syrup. And it certainly wasn’t a gush. A few minutes passed and more seemed to ‘plop’ (I know, but it’s really the best word to express it!) out of me. I went and woke up James and got him to inspect the liquid too. After a few more times of it coming out of me, we decided to call the hospital and get them to admit me. At this point, I had had no sleep!

Off to the hospital we went, and I was feeling strangely calm. I think there was a real sense of relief that this was finally happening. The midwife inspected my fluid and confirmed that it was my waters. She hooked me up to a CTG machine and monitored my and baby’s heartbeat and movements. My contractions had not started yet, and after about 2 hours being on the machine, James and I headed home, ready to come back to the hospital later when contractions were well under way.

After a quick phone call to my mum to let her know that I was in labour, my contractions started. This was about 3am (still no sleep!) I laboured through the contractions as best I could til about 6am, and then I told James that we needed to go to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, we got admitted into a room and I immediately started taking the gas to help with the pain. It worked for a bit, it pretty much made me high straight away. However, it also made me vomit. I moved my labour to the shower, and while sitting with James, worked my way through the contractions under the hot water, on an exercise ball with the gas. It was not great. I don’t know how women do it without pain meds. Eventually, I had to abandon the gas as it was making me too light headed to breathe properly. Time to move onto the epidural. I kept asking and asking and asking for it; I think I asked about 5 times before they finally started to get it ready for me! However I was very dehydrated as I had vomited yet again, and they needed put me on an IV drip to rehydrate me before they could administer the epidural. Two hours later, I was finally sitting on the bed and getting the epidural injected into me. I was terrified of moving and just kept chanting to myself “don’t move, don’t move” while the needles got injected into my spine. Just before they administered the epidural, they checked to see how dilated I was- 7 cm! This baby would be coming soon! Great, I thought, I have the epidural ready for transition, and I will probably have my baby in my arms by about 2pm (it was 11am at this point). How wrong I was.

After the epidural took effect, the midwives informed me that they would check back on me at 1pm, and once I was 10 cm dilated they would give me an hour for bubs to bear down and then I would start pushing. The epidural was BRILLIANT. It was really effective and I was feeling great! This was going to be so straightforward and easy. I was eating food (no longer chucking) and having fun with my husband- we were so excited.

Well, 1pm rolls around that the midwives check me out. Something isn’t going to plan though. My blood pressure is high and my contractions are behaving strangely. I am basically having one big long contraction, with no break in between them. They decide to put me on Syntocinon to regulate my contractions, and hopefully my contractions begin to even out. The midwives told me that they would check back on me in four hours (groan!) It was at this point that I realised that things were starting to go downhill, but I didn’t want to believe it. I tried to stay positive, but the midwives stayed with me for a long time, trying to monitor my contractions. Meanwhile, bubs kept moving around, she wouldn’t stay still. The midwives were struggling to monitor her movements and keep track of where she was. At one point she moved into the posterior position and even with the epidural the pain was bad. That was tough- I ended up on my side with a peanut ball between my legs while the midwives massaging my back and hips to relieve some of the pain. My Syntocinon was boosted as the contractions still weren’t evening out. Eventually, bubs moved around again and was in a different position offering me some relief. After a few hours the midwives decided to take me off the Syntocinon, hoping that doing so would make my contractions have more a break between them. It worked for little bit, but not at the rate they were hoping for.

Then, I was checked to see how far along I had dilated: bad news. For some reason, my cervix had gone back to at 4cm, not the 7 that it was before. Because bubs had moved around so much, her head was not applying even pressure into my cervix. So half of my cervix was effaced, and the other half wasn’t (hence the only 4cm dilation). They thought that maybe the 7cm reading before was incorrect because it might have been during a contraction. What’s more, I had now developed a fever that wasn’t going away, and had started throwing up again. That coupled with my high blood pressure were signs that my body was basically starting to shut down. Coupled with this were the issues with my cervix: due to the pressure of pushing onto my cervix, bub’s head had also started swelling. Thankfully she was not in distress, but she was on her way to be.

That’s when the midwives told me that I should go in for an emergency caesarean. I say “should” because they still provided me with the option to wait. At the end of the day it was my choice to have the caesar, but the odds were stacked against me. The midwives explained all of the above issues with me, but then added a final complication- bubs was now stuck because she had moved around so much. They basically said that while she is not in distress now, if I were to wait for my contractions to even out, I would be waiting for so long, that she would very much become distressed. Not to mention that my body was wearing out due to the fever and high blood pressure and the fact that she would not be able to move into the right position.

That’s when I began crying. At this point I had been labouring for about 18 hours since my waters broke, all for it to end up building towards a ceasar. A ceasar was the last thing that I wanted as I was so scared of the surgery and the recovery time. But what choice did I have? I had to look after my baby and myself. The midwives were amazing. They talked me through the whole procedure, and were very comforting of my fear and crying. They began prepping me for surgery and explained to me that in two hours time, I would be meeting my little girl (even though it was classified as an “emergency” C-section, because baby was not in distress, there was time to get everything prepared). They checked my dilation one more time: 6cm.

I spent the two hours before surgery asking questions and trying to wrap my head around what was about to happen. The most frustrating thing of all is that when I did all of my birthing classes, they didn’t really explain much about C-sections; the focus was all on having a vaginal birth. I think that this is really unfair, as you don’t know what is going to happen and you need to be prepared for any worst case scenarios. Basically everything that I had “learnt” in the online birthing classes was completely useless to me in the time of labour. The only reason I knew what happened in a C-section was because I had seen a YouTube video months back where they discussed a C-section on a medical cadaver (it was a really interesting video!) I was terrified, but just had to keep reminding myself that I was about to meet my baby girl.

The prep for the ceasar was strange. I had never had surgery before. They lifted me off my bed and onto a special one for the operating theatre. I was rolled down the hallways (I had flashes of medical TV shows like E.R and Scrubs, and how they wheel the patient thought the maze of halls in the hospital). It was kind of like a bizarre and clinical fairground ride. They pushed me into a small vestibule before the operating theatre. This was where the anaesthetists began prepping me. Once again, they were so nice, and knew that I was scared. We talked about my work, and what it was like to teach drama kids. James was next to me the whole time, donning scrubs and a hairnet. They boosted my epidural to the max, and began giving me the anaesthetic. The strange thing about the epidural is that when it is in you in small doses it just numbs everything from the waist down. But when it was boosted I could not stop shaking. Apparently it is a side effect of the epidural; you have constant and uncontrollable shaking. The anaesthetists assured me that this was all normal. They did the ice pack check on me to see if I was numb enough and I was. I was so scared of being numb and then all of a sudden feel the scalpel cut through me.

About to go into surgery.

Once I was ready and nice and numb they wheeled me in. James had to still wait in the little room. They put a COVID mask on me and but this stage I was well and truly out of it. I was so sleepy, so numb and my brain was all foggy. There were a lot of people in the room, about 12. They all gathered around my bed and lifted me onto the operating table by the blankets underneath me. They asked me to keep my arms outstretched and I remember murmuring to them all “I feel like Jesus” to which they all laughed. I remember cracking some more jokes, but I don’t remember what they were now. They lifted the sheet above my chest screening off everything from view. They checked my dilation one last time and I was still only 6cm dilated- I had not dilated at all in 2 hours, and it was after hearing that that I knew I had made the right choice. After a few minutes, they let James in and he sat next to me the whole time. It was the strangest sensation: I could feel a lot of pressure, a lot of rough tugging, but no pain at all (thank god). The rummaging around my uterus didn’t last long, and before I knew it, they were telling James to get his phone ready to take some photos.

At 7:29pm on Monday 24thAugust, my little baby Zoe was born. “She’s here!” The doctor operating on me called out and lifted my little baby girl above the sheet so we could see her. I started crying again. I couldn’t believe that she was here and that she was all mine! James was crying too, and I just kept saying to him, “That’s our baby! That’s our little baby girl!” James went over to cut the umbilical cord and they wrapped Zoe up in blankets and brought her over to me. They placed her on my collar bone as that was the only place to put her (the sheet was still up). Because she was so high up, and my COVID mask was coving half my face, I couldn’t really see her, so after a little while I passed her onto James so he could hold her properly. I watched him cuddle and coo to her- I watched him fall instantly in love.

They then sent James to the recovery room to wait for me. They stitched me all back up, and then wheeled me to the recovery room too. My memories of the recovery room are really hazy, but judging by photos, Zoe was then placed on my chest for some skin to skin. I remember the midwives doing something to my stomach but I don’t know what. I was still shaking uncontrollably, so much so that my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. I think I only spent about 20 minutes in the recovery room, but I have no Idea. The drugs in my system were completely hazing me out.

They took me out of the recovery room and to a new hospital room, where I then stayed for 2 days. My stay at the hospital was really good. We went thought the public system and I still managed to get my own room. Not to mention every staff member at the hospital was absolutely fantastic. The only issue was that it took a long time for someone to come to your room if you rang the bell, however this was due to the fact that they were on a skeleton crew due to COVID, which is completely understandable.

3 hours into labour VS the day after she was born.

At the end of the day, even though a C-section was not the way I wanted my birth to go, I think it was the best option for me. Yes the recovery time is hard. I cannot drive for 6 weeks, lift any thing heavier than Zoe, or do the vacuuming (oh no, how will I manage??) but I am 3 week post partum and physically I feel fine. There has been some soreness and tenderness which is to be expected. And that first walk from the bed to the toilet is the longest walk I have ever done in my entire life. But at the end of the day, its worked out well. I was so scared of tearing and the pain of having to go to the toilet after giving birth vaginally, and now I don’t have to worry about that at all. Also, because of COVID, I can’t really leave the couch anyway, so I am spending a lot of time recuperating (well, as much as I can with a 3 week old). As I look down at my little baby girl currently sleeping on my chest, I think its important to let all the first time mummas out there know that its okay if things don’t go the way you plan them to go. At the end of the day, so long as bubba in your arms, it does not matter how they got here.

Zoe, light of my life.

Love, The Feminist Mum.