"Labour"

We had seen my obstetrician the day before our due date and had a stretch and sweep; we were also notified that we had been booked for an induction 6 days after our due date. I’d been having Braxton Hicks contractions since about week 28, and in those last few days of pregnancy I was getting between 4 and 10 BH contractions per hour – not regular or painful though! On our guess date, my husband decided to take the day off because I was going a little stir crazy after two weeks of maternity leave with no baby! We spent a lovely day together, while I swung between feelings of eagerness about the impending arrival and frustration that she hadn’t come yet.

We decided to go for a walk to get out of the house; about ten minutes into the walk, just past a toilet block, I felt something and said to my husband, “we need to turn around because either my waters have broken, I’m bleeding or I’ve wet myself!” We turned around and I waddled to the toilet to check, finding that my waters had in fact broken. Feeling super excited, my husband went to get the car and came back to collect me, and I called the maternity ward at Albany Health Campus. They advised that if the waters were clear, I could head home and come in the next day, but if there was any colour to them, I should pop in to check. There was a light colour, so we decided to head to the hospital, assuming we would be told all was well and we could go home for the night and wait for contractions to kick off. We hadn’t packed the hospital bag or baby book in the car though – we were just going for a walk after all!

Once we got to the hospital, I was hooked up to have the fetal heart rate and my contractions monitored with the idea that if everything looked fine, I’d go home after 20 or so minutes. The midwife then asked to see my pad to check the colour of the waters. She said straight away that there was meconium staining, so I wouldn’t be leaving the hospital without a babe! My husband went home to get the hospital bag and baby book, plus have a shower and eat some dinner as we knew we were in for a long night. We were told contractions hadn’t started, but they might come naturally; if they didn’t, I would be induced by syntocinon drip. My husband and I headed to the delivery suite to relax and see what happened – I was officially hooked up for the continuous monitoring for the rest of the labour!

Later, my OB visited to get me sorted with a cannula for the drip, and we decided that I was open to morphine so she got everything sorted for that. Around 2 hours later, the midwife arrived and began the syntocinon drip as I wasn’t having any contractions yet. Her name was Serena and she was wonderful. I spent the night on all fours leaning over a fitball with my husband applying pressure to my lower back when a contraction hit, until about midnight when I opted to start with gas and air. I had a vaginal examination around 3 hours later and I was 4cm dilated. An hour after, I had the morphine shot and managed to nap around my contractions for a couple hours (my husband got a good amount of shut-eye in!). I had another examination which showed that I was 6cm dilated and fully effaced, but baby had flipped into a posterior position. I also had a new midwife – Emily – who had delivered our Positive Birth program. I had discussed the possibility of an epidural with Emily and my husband, but we agreed that as I was managing the pain with the gas and air, then I would hold off on having the epidural while I could. Emily suggested I do some standing and leaning forward to try to get baby to flip back to the anterior position, and by midday when I was fully dilated, we had managed to flip her!

From around midday I pushed, following my instincts, which was amazing. My OB had arrived and I spent the next hour and a half pushing, with most of my time being spent kneeling on the bed and leaning over the top. I couldn’t get her all the way out in the position I was on, so I was told that after a few more tries it would be time for an episiotomy because baby was starting to show signs of distress. I tried one push lying on my side, and then one push on my back. With every push, I was cheered on by my team of three (OB, midwife and husband) and I felt so supported! After a push on my back that didn’t result in a baby, my OB confirmed that she could do the episiotomy and I was given a local anaesthetic. It all happened then: first the episiotomy and then baby came straight out!

She was put on my chest immediately, however it became apparent (to the professionals) that she needed a bit of help getting some fluids out so they placed her in the Resuscitaire and suctioned out about 100mls of fluid while the placenta was delivered and I received stitches. She came back to my chest after the OB was happy and we got her latched on to breastfeed.

The expectations I had of our birth (from methods of pain relief to what would happen post-birth) didn’t align with what actually happened, but the main affirmation I used from the hypnobirthing program was “I am calmly prepared to meet whatever turn my birthing takes”. I feel that we were able to be so calm and adaptable because we felt so confident and supported by our birth team.