Birth Stories
“For my part, I was ecstatic. It seemed that everything that could have gone wrong did, and yet I still managed to stay calm and have a natural birth”
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Liz's story
After a week of false alarms, I was well and truly ready for Martha’s birth when it finally started in earnest. The first surge came at about ten am and by eleven they were coming every five minutes so I called the midwife to let her know. She came out to assess me at about midday and my surges suddenly eased off – typical. I was two centimetres dilated at that time and the midwife left saying she’d see me some time that evening.
However, about half an hour after she left I had an intense surge and with that, everything kicked off in earnest.
I hadn’t really bothered with the affirmations on the CD through the pregnancy but suddenly decided I absolutely had to listen to them now. So I spent the next half hour or so walking up and down and listening to the affirmations, breathing deeply through the surges.
I began to think all was not quite right when I had a particularly intense surge and had a strange numb, tingling sensation down my arms and into my fingers. With the next surge, the waters broke and I could see straight away that there was a lot of meconium. Having been dead against continuous monitoring after my previous experience of it, I now wanted to know more than anything that the baby was ok. We had planned a home birth but Bob called the triage midwife to say we were coming into hospital. About five minutes later, the homebirth midwife reappeared and called an ambulance.
I had been transferred by ambulance in my previous labour, only to find I had gone from 8cm dilated to 5cm dilated by the time I got to hospital. So this time I knew that I absolutely had to stay calm. I asked for some gas and air (which wasn’t working properly!) and focused on relaxing the cervix, using the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 deepening technique to calm myself. At the same time, almost on another level, I was desperately worried about the safety of my baby and wondered if I should just ask for a caesarean to get her out safely. I had a bit of a cry then and I really think it helped me to release the tension.
When we arrived at the hospital at about half past two, I was still thinking on one level that I would end up with another caesarean. However, I refused to have an IV “just in case” and continued to breathe deeply and concentrate on opening the cervix. I soon began to get the urge to bear down with every other contraction. I had the urge to push very early in the previous labour so I had no idea this time that I was so close to the birth. Instead I was fighting a losing battle trying desperately not to push when the midwife came back into the room and examined me to find I was fully dilated.
She was a fantastic midwife and was encouraging me to breathe down through the surges until Martha’s heart rate dropped quite dramatically. At that point she said she was really sorry but I was going to have to push to get her out quickly. I really didn’t want to, as pushing too early under the midwives’ direction was what caused the problem last time. So I continued to breathe down until the midwife told me that I needed to get rid of the gas & air and push or the doctors would be in to lift her. Harsh, but it did the trick! A resuscitaire arrived in the room and the paediatrician was called in case Martha needed help at birth, and the registrar in charge of me went off to get the ventouse. So I remember being surprised when the consultants came into the birth room on their rounds and one of them commented on how calm it was!
Thankfully my midwife persuaded the doctor that they could get Martha out with an episiotomy rather than the ventouse, and before long she was telling me to reach down and feel Martha’s head. That was all the encouragement I needed and after a couple more surges Martha was out.
Martha was breathing at birth so there was no need for the paediatrician, which was lucky as it had all happened so quickly he still hadn’t arrived! The midwives couldn’t believe how quickly the whole thing had happened – I had about two hours of active labour and only about five hours over all.
For my part, I was ecstatic. It seemed that everything that could have gone wrong did and yet I still managed to stay calm and have a natural birth.
Liz, Bob, Bobby and Martha Kneale - Derby, Derbyshire
