Birth Story
Belinda (first birth - 36 years)
When I first got pregnant I didn't know much about birth other than that it was supposed to be unbearably painful and therefore I was planning on having an epidural 2 weeks before the due date! The thought of labour and birth terrified me.
However, my husband David and I visited the Heath Birth Centre at the Royal Free Hospital in London where natural and often water births are facilitated and where epidurals aren't even on offer. I was very impressed and started to rethink the birth I wanted. I started to watch every programme on birth I could and to read lots of books and the more I read and saw the more adamant I was that I wanted a natural birth with as little intervention or non-natural pain relief as possible.
At 40 weeks I was more than ready so when my baby still hadn't made an appearance a week later I was starting to get impatient. So were the doctors and midwives and I was encouraged to book into the hospital to be induced. I definitely did not want to be induced and was adamant that I wanted to wait - that my baby would come when she was good and ready. Another week went by and she still was showing no signs of making an appearance and the hospital were getting more and more twitchy. I finally had to give in when at 15 days over the due date her head still wasn't engaged and labour was showing no real signs of coming. I very reluctantly went into hospital on the night of the 19th January to be induced. I knew that I would not be able to have the birth I had wanted as the Heath Birth Centre will not take mothers who are more than 2 weeks over their due date, however I was still hopeful that I would go into labour and would be able to deliver in a similar way on the labour ward which was also very well equipped for mothers wishing to give birth without intervention or non-natural pain relief.
David was not allowed to stay with me on the ante-natal ward over night and the contractions started while I was on my own. It was very painful but it was also manageable and I was really excited. Finally my baby was going to make an appearance. However, after several hours of contractions, labour stopped and in the morning, when David came back to the hospital, I was induced again.
This time labour started properly and after a few hours I decided to have some gas and air. I don't think I would have needed it had I been allowed into the labour ward, but I was being kept in the ante-natal ward with 3 other women and was unable to move about or use other means to control the pain. I found the gas and air absolutely fantastic and I can highly recommend it to anyone. However, after a few hours with the gas and air I was starting to feel sick so I stopped and probably an hour or two later (it's hard to keep track of time when you're in labour) I was finally allowed onto the labour ward.
The room was fantastic with loads of room and lots of things to aid labour and I quickly found that using the large bean bag to flop onto forwards was a great help between contractions. In fact by this time I was so tired that I was having a contraction (sitting on the toilet was the most comfortable position for me) and then flopping onto the bean bag and falling asleep for about a minute until the next contraction.
By this time it was the early hours of the morning of 21st January although the time had flown by. The doctors were concerned that I was still only 5cm dilated and that there appeared to be some signs of foetal distress and wanted to perform a caesarean. I was adamant that I wanted to carry on but I decided to have an epidural at this stage as I was beginning to be afraid and I knew that a caesarean was a real possibility. I really think I could have managed without the epidural had the birth been going normally but given the speed with which things happened shortly afterwards I'm glad I decided to have one at that time. I then got really excited as within about half an hour I got to 10cm and it was time to push. I no longer had any pain but to be honest at this stage I really could have done without the epidural as I couldn't feel when to push or even whether I was pushing in the right direction. I seemed to be pushing up into my face rather than down. I have since been told that the reason I couldn't feel to push was because my baby's head still wasn't engaged so there was no pressure.
After probably no more than 45 minutes of pushing the doctors were starting to panic. My baby had passed meconium and the heart rate reading was ambiguous. They were pressurising me to have a caesarean but I wanted to try for a few more minutes. The midwife was fantastic and really encouraging but nothing was happening. Her head wasn't down far enough into the birth canal.
I finally agreed that if they couldn't get her out with the ventouse suction I would have a caesarean. I was crying at this stage as it was so far from the birth I had wanted and imagined. I was wheeled into the operating theatre where the doctor tried with the ventouse to no avail and eventually Isobel was born by caesarean at 7.31am.
Because she had passed meconium she wasn't breathing and David and I had a few minutes of panic while they cleared her tubes and tried to get her to breathe. She was then taken away (David went with her) and I was left on the operating table on my own to be sewn up. I finally got to hold my baby about 30 minutes later but the minute I held her nothing else mattered. I no longer cared that I'd had a caesarean, I was just so unbelievably happy that Isobel was finally here and that she was healthy.
I hope that next time I manage to deliver naturally but if I don't it won't be the end of the world. In the end, birth is an amazing thing however you do it and the end result is worth everything.