"Birth"

Our day began somewhat normal at home, I was one day over my due date. I had some odd little pains during the early hours and at about 7am I had something a bit more and said to my husband that I think I’ve just had a surge. From there I had another one about half hour later so popped myself on the fit ball which had been set up in our lounge. We tried to set up my TENS machine but I hadn’t really practiced using it so quickly took it off out of frustration. After my next surge I decided I wanted to set up in the bedroom where it was darker I breathed through one surge in there bent over the ball then decided I couldn’t get comfortable so laid on the bed and by this point my surges were only 10mins apart. One surge on the bed and I quickly got up and as I got up my waters broke. Thankfully the bathroom was only a couple steps from the bed and my undies had caught most of it so didn’t get it on the carpet haha. From there I hopped in the shower and by this point the surges had become only 3-5 mins apart and it was only about 10am. 

We decided we best make the trip to Busselton, the longest drive of my life. From here I lost track of the timings. I started out in the shower while they filled the bath. I was soon told that unfortunately there were no midwives on that did water births so would only be able to labour in the bath and not birth. We were also given a student midwife who was with us the whole time.

I had left my birth preferences in a bag in the car so things weren’t clearly laid out for the team so my husband did a lot of communicating for me. I found the bath so much more relaxing as the sound of the shower was starting to annoy me, the bath felt calmer with a darkened room and our hypno birthing music playing.

While in the bath I was offered gas and took it as the surges were very intense. At one point they asked if they could check how dilated I was. My preference going in was to not have this done but in that moment I needed something to tell me if we were getting closer, so I got up on the bed and was told I was 8cm. Back to the bath I went a few more surges came and went and eventually I started getting the urge to push.

After a while the midwife suggested to try sit on the toilet for a different position and to also get me off the gas as I recall they felt my pushes weren’t being effective enough, I didn’t mind as my legs had started to get sore from kneeling in the bath.

From here it becomes a bit of a blur as I think I was becoming so exhausted from it all. I remember being on the bed and the doctor coming in to do an ultrasound on bub to see what was happening. I was soon told that we would need intervention as bub seemed stuck, Dr Ray talked me through that he would try the vacuum and if failed then the forceps and the very last resort would be caesarean but we would need to go down to surgery to do so.

My biggest fear of birth was coming true that I would have to have an episiotomy so I asked if we could just skip that and go straight to the caesarean, the dr felt that the baby was low enough to come vaginally. After 2 failed vacuums bub was born via forceps and had come out with eyes up.

Upon reflection of our birth I feel that the hypno birthing allowed me to be emotionally ok with the intervention and my birth journey. One of my affirmations were “I am prepared to meet whatever turn my birthing takes” and that’s what I did. I can also identify that rather then practising the things I had learnt and practised in the lead up, I went into a state of flight or fight where I feel I was shutting down the rational side of my brain.

Thank you so much for providing this course it was great to gain so much knowledge about my rights and the journey of birth. And I feel we are so lucky as rural families to receive this course free of charge I have been recommending it to all my expecting friends.