My Birth Story - Eliza!

I had a traumatic birth.

There, I said it.

Everything that my business stands for, and everything that I set out to achieve against…and it happened to me.

Buckle in, because this is a long one

It took me a really long time to admit to myself that my birth was traumatic, BECAUSE of what I do. I really tried to find a way to process it as something that was positive in its own way, and I tried to skirt around the details.

But the details matter, so here we go…

For context, my labour with Jacob was an induction of labour (for gestational diabetes), a labour that felt like trying to get blood out of stone because it just would not progress. This consequently resulted in a C-Section when the monitoring started to show changes that I wasn’t happy to go any further with. However, I always felt as though my experience was positive because I felt in control at all times, I called all the shots, and I felt as though every decision was justified in my eyes (not just in the eyes of the medical professionals)

I knew from the moment Jacob was born that I would have another baby, and I knew that I would be going in with the intention of having a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean)

So, in May 2022 I discovered I was pregnant with Eliza. VBAC was still my intention. In fact, I was set on a HBAC (home birth after caesarean). My midwife, who was also one of my colleagues, was fully supportive and encouraging. I spoke with consultants during my pregnancy, they were not dismissive but not quite as encouraging of my plan for HBAC.

I decided around 35 weeks that actually I would prefer to give birth on the midwife led unit - it had transpired that I was very precious about my brand spanking new furniture and flooring, that I could already feel myself feeling stressed during labour (which I felt may inhibit my body’s natural hormone production). I also had a brief blip between 32-36 weeks where Eliza was breech, but she returned to a head down position by 36 weeks by herself.

All was well, apart from the significant discomfort and exhaustion I was feeling whilst heavily pregnant and solo parenting my toddler with my husband out of the country. He came home around 36 weeks and I was finally able to breathe and slow down, rest and honour my body and baby more.

40 weeks came and went - that was cool, despite the discomfort, I knew my baby would come when she was ready.

At 40+4, I had some tightenings in the evening, over the course of a few hours. They were irregular, and were comfortable but noticeable. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up the next morning and had no more. But I did have a small amount of mucus plug come away that morning.

That evening I had the same thing happen, and the next morning I woke up and had some more mucus plug come away. I knew that this was latent phase of labour. I felt so happy and excited that my baby was on her way. This was 40+6 and I had a midwife appointment this day. All was appearing well with me and baby, and I was offered a stretch and sweep. I had ummed and ahhed over whether or not to try a sweep in the lead up to this appointment, and I decided to have one, mainly out of curiosity to see if my cervix was making changes. Low and behold my cervix was found to be fully effaced (completely thin), 1cm dilated (open), and mid-position (starting to tilt forwards). I felt really positive that my body was responding to my early stages of labour.

The evening came, and the tightenings returned, this time slightly more intense. But in typical fashion they stopped after a few hours, I went to sleep, and in the morning I had the most humungous amount of mucus plug come away - it was literally massive!!

That evening, you guessed it, tightenings returned for a few hours and then I slept. Next morning, LOADS more show (honestly, could there possibly be any more?!)

My body then gave me a little rest for a couple of days, which I was grateful for in hindsight, but at the time I felt a little bit frustrated wondering why things weren’t progressing anymore. But now I realise it was just the calm before the storm…

41+3, I woke up at 4am to a tightening that felt different. I had to focus on my breathing and ride it out. A few minutes later, another one. I had about 5 or 6 of these before I decided to get out of bed because we are a co-sleeping family and my breathing was making Jacob stir. I went downstairs and put on one of my birth playlists. I tried to use my birthing ball but this wasn’t particularly comfortable so instead I was stood leaning on my sideboard. Each time I had a contraction I was instinctively squatting and rotating my hips, and in order to keep my body tension free I had to vocalise on my out breath. Around 5:30am I heard “mummy” from upstairs, so I immediately went and picked up Jacob who was stood at the top of the stairs. I went in to our bedroom and woke James up. I had a few contractions stood holding Jacob and leaning against my door frame. I told James to get up and call his mum to come and pick Jacob and our doggo up, because it was happening. Contractions were now coming thick and fast and were intensifying. I hopped in the shower, which felt glorious, and got dressed. Whilst James had a quick shower I was knelt and leaning over our bed, with my kind and loving little boy rubbing my back.

We went downstairs, James did some quick breakfast for Jacob and I was in the kitchen riding through my labour. I got James to put my TENS machine on. I could feel intensifying pain in my lower back with each contraction. I knew that my baby was back to back.

My mother-in-law arrived and took Jacob and Bear home with her (so grateful to my organised self for having bags packed for both of them already), and we got straight in the car and headed to the hospital. I really wanted some gas and air by now.

I won’t sugar coat things, the car ride was horrible! Mainly with all the intense feelings in my back, I just wanted off my bum asap! I really struggled to relax in the car, and resented my choice to not have a home birth the whole way there.

We arrived at the midwife led unit around 8:30am. I accepted a vaginal examination because I wanted to know how much my labour had so far progressed my cervix. I was 6cm dilated, fully effaced, and my cervix was anterior. Amazing news! I was so happy with this. And this combined with gas and air was just a completely euphoric feeling. I was doing this! My baby was nearly here!!

Unfortunately, the birth pool was already in use. I felt momentarily upset but quickly altered my mindset to acceptance that I would be having a land birth. I moved over to the bean bag and mat in the corner of the room, and we turned the lights off and made the space cosy. I was kneeling and leaning on the bean bag, using gas & air to ride out each contraction. This part of labour I really really enjoyed. I was in the zone, I was comfortable. I’m just sad that this part was cut so short.

Around 9:30am my waters broke, and this is what started the entire fiasco. There was significant meconium present in the fluid, which means my baby had done a poo in utero. This is one of those scenarios where I would accept/want continuous monitoring, but I did ask for another examination first because the findings would help my decision making at this moment. I was now 8cm - amazing! But I still felt it could be a while so I opted for continuous monitoring to keep an eye on baby’s wellbeing.

This is where I had a wobble - I wanted to be monitored, but my baby was back to back and I didn’t feel I could be monitored effectively without stronger pain relief. I asked for an epidural, but then I got panicked in case the epidural wouldn’t provide any relief at this stage and started questioning whether to just have a c-section. It was at this stage I realised how damn hard it is to make decisions during labour (Yes, I forgot to take my birth plan)

I realise in hindsight this was likely a part of being in transition aswell, but trying to make decisions and moving positions a lot really interrupted my flow and everything felt so much more painful. Eventually, one of my colleagues came in and instilled an instant calm to the situation. She gave me the reasurance I needed to take back control of my breathing, and to have an epidural to provide some relief to my lower back so that I could actually think straight. My contractions were so close together that I also consented to an injection to slow them down a little bit.

James was like a deer caught in headlights, he was a great support to me, but he was a bit taken aback by the transition stage and didn’t really know what to say or do to help me through it in that moment. He was just focused on providing as much counter pressure as possible to my lower back.

The anaesthetist was my knight in shining armour - his epidural was spot on! It’s like he instructed it to target my lower back but that’s it. I could still feel everything else. That together with the injection slowing my contractions down a little gave my body some time to recover. I had a snack, something to drink and just breathed and relaxed again.

I was on the bed now, but on my side with a peanut ball between my knees because the pressure was increasing in my bum. I’d had another examination and I was 9cm. This was around 12:30pm. Things were progressing and I felt so much better.

By 1:30pm I was starting to involuntarily push and it felt good to be actively working with my body. This feeling intensified and I kept going with my natural urges. At around 3:30pm I was still pushing, but Eliza had not really moved through the birth canal much. I was exhausted. I had not envisioned labouring for almost 12 hours with no sign of baby making an imminent appearance. I consented to a vaginal examination to find that Eliza had got her head wedged in a transverse position and she was not moving down the birth canal during my contractions. I had been changing positions but this had obviously made no difference to her positioning and she was not budging!

The registrar suggested we go to theatre for a “trial of forceps” (this means that there is potential for a c-section if they are unable to rotate baby and use forceps). I accepted this because I was so ready to meet her by this point, and I felt I had exhausted all options to get her into a better position myself. I had a quick discussion with the anaesthetist, and mutually we agreed to remove my epidural and he would give me a spinal anaesthesia instead (similar to an epidural but it is a one off injection and gives a much denser block), because when I had my c-section with Jacob my epidural strangely started to wear off before the end of the procedure.

So off we went to theatre, I was actually mostly terrified I would struggle to sit for my spinal at this point because of how low baby was, but Mr knight in shining armour performed again and gave me the spinal in record time. I was completely comfortable in a matter of minutes, and laying down ready to finally meet my little girl.

The registrar set about trying to rotate her head into a position that she could use forceps in, but she just returned straight back to the transverse position which meant that the plan for forceps had to be abandoned. To be honest, I was slightly relieved at this because I wasn’t really even sure if I’d prefer forceps or a caesarean birth. But in the end, Eliza set the plan for me and we were converted to a caesarean. I was devastated in a big way because I’d channelled all of my energy into my intention for a VBAC, not to mention I had just experienced labour for the last 12 hours. But this was where we were now and again I very quickly altered my mindset and accepted that I would be having my second caesarean.

However, I was NOT prepared for what would happen next…

A little while into the procedure, I realised things were taking a while and so I asked if everything was ok. The doctor replied saying “There’s just lots of scar tissue”. I didn’t think much of it because I just assumed she meant where I’d had my previous caesarean. But time ticked on and then I heard somebody on the phone saying “we can’t get past the bowel”. Fear set in and I had my midwife come over to explain what was going on. It turned out that the healing from my previous caesarean had left me with lots of adhesions of my scar to my surrounding organs, including my bladder and my bowel. I also realised they had been trying to get to my uterus for around an hour by now, so of course this was an entire hour of NO monitoring of my baby who was wedged in the birth canal. I became terrified.

The general surgeon was called in to assist to separate the adhesions, and eventually at 17:36pm (1hr 30mins since starting the procedure), Eliza was born. She didn’t cry, she didn’t respond to stimulation. She was whipped over to the resuscitaire and was given some initial resus, which thank heavens was enough, and she announced her presence loud and clear. I was in complete panic mode by now, but hearing her scream I just sobbed with relief. She came over to me and we had a little cuddle.

But right before she was born, my spinal anaesthesia had started to wear off because things had taken so long. Unfortunately a spinal cannot be topped up, so it left me with no option but to have a general aneasthetic. I have a deep rooted fear of being put under general anaesthetic because it eliminates my control over being able to wake up again (this is extremely rare, but is still a fear of mine). When my epidural wore off during my first caesarean, I had a top up, and then gas & air to see me through until the top up took effect. It was only 10-15 minutes until the end of the procedure so I pulled up my extremely big girl pants and soldiered on. This time, we had no idea how long it would be until the end of the procedure. Eliza had only just been born, so they still had to do all of the suturing (stitches) and we weren’t sure if this would take longer given how difficult it was to get to my uterus in the first place. So I cried, kissed my husband and my newborn baby girl and prayed hard!

The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing the anaesthetist, I turned my head and James was sat on a chair holding Eliza. I was in recovery. I croaked a “is everything ok?” and thankfully for the most part it was. It was gone 7pm so I’d been in theatre for over 3 hours in total and had lost almost 2 litres of blood, so it was thought that I would be anaemic and may require a blood transfusion. I halted the conversation and said we would watch and wait. I’d been through enough and needed to recover at least a little first, and have some bonding time with my baby.

I had her put straight on my chest for skin to skin and started helping her latch to the breast for her first feed. I’d been prepared antenatally and had harvested some colostrum at home, but that was another thing we’d forgotten to bring with us. We spent the entire rest of that night in skin to skin and going on and off the breast. I was very groggy but surprisingly alert (if you can be both at the same time).

In the days that followed (I was kept in hospital for 3 days for antibiotics and to monitor my iron and infection levels), my throat was so sore from the intubation tube, and I did become significantly anaemic. I declined a blood transfusion because apart from a slightly raised heart rate I was not symptomatic of anaemia. Instead, I opted for an iron transfusion which was given in two doses one week apart. I was discharged home on strict bed rest and to not be left alone in case my anaemia took a downward turn. But apart from feeling like I was on a rocking boat for a couple of weeks, I felt okay. I took it very slowly and stayed on the sofa or in bed pretty much for an entire week, and didn’t go out for any walks or anything else until Eliza was two weeks old.

She’s now 4 months old and we are doing well. Breastfeeding is going great - we had a much better start in our journey than I did with Jacob, and we are all adjusting to life as a family of four.

In light of the events that occurred during my labour & birth, I decided to train and become a 123 Rewind Practitioner. It really opened my eyes to the fact that birth trauma doesn’t always look like the coercion or obstetric assault that birth workers talk about the most. Sometimes it is purely circumstances beyond anyone’s control, but nonetheless I want to be able to help anyone who has suffered a traumatic experience, or any experience that has left a lasting emotional impact.

So that’s it…that’s my story! Praising anybody who has made it all the way through!!

I’m happy to answer any questions on this, so feel free to reach out if you have any :)