Our DS2's birth story

I wrote this entire post at the time. It took me a long time to get over this experience and I'm pretty sure I had post traumatic stress :sad: I still believe completely in natural childbirth and I had a drug free labour and birth with DS3 - but in hospital and not at home.

N was born on 22nd June at home and weighed 8lb 3oz.

On Thursday I had DH stay home from work as I'd had strong period type pains all night which didn't stop in the morning and seemed to be coming every 10 minutes or so. We went for a long walk and I felt very positive until everything tailed off mid-morning. I had a midwife appointment in the afternoon and she immediately spotted baby had turned back to back which I was very annoyed about - he'd been in the perfect position until that point and I'd had a long and painful labour with DS1 who was also in a back to back position. My midwife has since suggested that maybe the shape of my pelvis favours that position once the head engages as my first only turned during labour too. I came home from my appointment to look up exercises on the internet which might help baby to turn and proceeded to watch telly in the chest to knees position then I crawled around and did some pelvic rocks - after a couple of pelvic rocks I felt a pop and my waters gushed everywhere! For a while after I had some contractions but they tailed off. The midwife came out to check on me and all was ok so we all went to bed for some rest.

My contractions started pretty much as soon as I went to bed (I set up some pillows so I could sleep on my tummy and try and turn him!) and I think it must have been about 1am or 2am when I had DH bring everything downstairs and start filling up the pool. I wasn't coping particularly well with the contractions so I asked DH to call the midwife and she arrived an hour or so later. I started using gas and air which was a relief and when she examined me I was 3-4cm dilated (quite disappointed with that!) but I decided to get in the pool anyway. Thankfully things didn't tail off so I stayed in the pool with my gas and air and concentrated hard on relaxing and thinking positive thoughts during my contractions.

At some point everybody started to annoy me - I didn't like any of my music, DH was falling asleep which made me want to hit him, the midwives were talking to each other which really irritated me, I knew this was a good sign though! After a while I started to involuntarily push with some contractions and I heard the midwife saying that there were external signs of being fully dilated so I was very pleased and confident the baby would arrive soon. After a while nothing had happened so they had me get out of the pool to be examined and discovered the baby was still back to back (though I didn't really have a 'back' labour), he was also high up and there was a lip of cervix in the way.

I couldn't be bothered to get back in the pool and stayed on my back for a while before, thankfully, the midwife suggested I move position. I stood up for the longest time with my arms around DH's neck - I must have been pushing that way for an hour or so without much happening. The midwife was holding the lip of cervix out of the way whilst I pushed and I'm afraid it was all rather messy from a poo point of view much to DH's disgust!! By this point I was stark naked and had sweat dripping from me, I found it such hard work and pulled most of the muscles in my body! Finally DH asked if I could kneel down instead and that was a huge relief. After 1.5 hours of pushing N was finally born.

His head was very mis-shaped as he'd had to turn round the right way in the birth canal and his cord was round his neck but only very loosely so we don't think that was a problem. He wasn't breathing when he was born but I wasn't overly concerned as I know that often they need some help, but despite the oxygen mask, some suction of his mouth and nose and lots of stimulation it was 5 minutes before he gasped for air and 15 minutes before he made regular respiritory effort. An ambulance was called and the placenta was quickly delivered and we shoved some towels between my legs and put my dressing gown on so I could go with him. Thankfully the second midwife was the head midwife who I'd spoken to alot during my pregnancy and she was absolutely fantastic, although I learnt afterwards that both midwives had been quite upset by the experience as there'd been no indication during labour that anything was wrong.

In the ambulance N was breathing by himself but was still very grunty and when we arrived at the hospital they checked his blood gases and discovered everything had got a bit messed up - his blood was too acidic and his blood sugar was too low, so he was moved to SCBU.

He spent 3 days in SCBU, initially in an incubator then when his drip came down and they took him off the machines which were monitoring him he moved into a cot and I moved into the family room so I could care for him. They didn't discover any specific reason for what had happened, just said he couldn't cope with moving from inside to outside. Thankfully he took to the breast the first time I offered it on day 2.

I felt very isolated in the hospital - the maternity unit kept forgetting to make my meals, I was told I had to bring in my own pain killers etc. and on day 3 we had to take N for a head ultrasound and the lovely consultant told me 'this is why we have babies in hospital'. Along with the day 3 baby blues I was a bit of a state.

N is now doing brilliantly, he's already 9lb 7oz at just under 2 weeks and is pretty much an angel which is a blessing because my oldest is taking some time to adjust to the new arrival. I myself find it hard to think about pregnancy, birth, hypnobirthing, home-birth - all the things I'd read about and felt empowered by during my pregnancy. I think I'm somehow mourning the experience I had planned. Initially DH said no more children as he couldn't take that again but I think we're agreed that we may have more children but that we wouldn't have another at home. Although the outcome was good, we'd just be so worried and scared that the same thing could happen again and that we wouldn't be so lucky or have such an experienced and competent midwife with us.

Kelly x

Thank you for sharing, Mama:) :HH:
I'm glad that your little one was fine after his rough start in life. Happy to hear that your next birth was smooth :)
xo

I'm so glad that everything turned out ok! Am also so sorry for the trauma you have gone through and how dare they make those comments to you!!!! xxxx

Glad your little man was ok!! Wow what a scary experience! I am sure this labor and delivery will go great! Sending good vibes to you...