My Birth Story - Jacob!

My baby boy is TWO!!!

In celebration of his birthday, I wanted to share my birth story here for you all. I just want to start by saying that although this story may not sound it, I still consider my birth to be an extremely positive experience. I felt in control at all times, and made decisions based on my own clinical judgement. There were a few wobbles at times which I will explain, so get comfy as it's a long one! I always used to say that my job did not put me off having babies, but rather made me more excited. However when I fell pregnant, I found myself growing increasingly anxious about all of the things I did not want to happen. One of these things specifically was induction, especially as a first time mum.

My pregnancy was going smoothly - the nausea passed, I developed pelvic girdle pain but it was manageable. Then at 28 weeks I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I was gutted to have my pregnancy become more complicated, but I was determined to work hard to keep it diet controlled. My body, however, had other ideas. I couldn't control my sugars, so I ended up medicated. I knew I was facing an induction being encouraged.

Everything looked fine with baby on my scans, he was measuring along the 50th centile, and my sugars were much better controlled on the medication, but they still could have been better. I had the discussions with different consultants but ultimately decided I would accept induction, but no earlier than 39 weeks. The consultant agreed I could have sweeps attempted from 38 weeks aswell if I wanted them. From about 35 weeks I started having the occasional period of regular tightenings, and I started losing some of my mucous plug. I thought all of this must be positive.

I decided to accept a sweep attempt at my midwife appointment at 38+3, however it was found that my cervix was still closed so a sweep was not possible. I booked in to have another try at 38+6, but when I arrived at that appointment and discussed with the midwife that I'd had no further tightenings or show, or any other signs, I decided against having another attempt as it was unlikely that there would be any change, and they are not particularly comfortable.

At 39 weeks I called the hospital to get a time to go in for induction to start and they asked me to come in about 9am, so we made our way in. My husband couldn't come in with me due to COVID-19 - this didn't worry me. I was feeling loads less anxious by this point, I'd been coaching myself to take it one step at a time, and as labour ward is a completely familiar environment to me I felt very comfortable and safe there. I was shown to a room (due to COVID I got my own room). It was a big and spacious room with its own bathroom. I spent some time settling in, I put out my laptop, my drinks and snacks, set up my tea lights around the room and sprayed my lavender room spray.

I had a pessary inserted at 10.35 on the Tuesday morning - my cervix was still closed and posterior. Tightenings started almost immediately, but I felt them mostly as back ache. I spent the day bouncing on my ball, watching Netflix, having baths etc. I managed to get a bit of sleep after taking some paracetamol for the back ache. On the Wednesday morning, 24hrs later, I was re-examined and it was found that there had been no change to my cervix, so I was given a prostin gel. My tightenings continued, but still were all in my back. Again I spent time on my ball, watching Netflix, having a bath etc. At 17:30 on the Wednesday, I was re-examined again. There was still no change to my cervix, and I had another prostin gel given. I felt a little disheartened at this point that there had been no changes whatsoever, and the examinations really were becoming quite uncomfortable. I was starting to think about what to do if my cervix wasn't open enough to break my waters after this gel, because I didn't think I could keep having these examinations, and I knew the plan would be to rest me and then try a second round of induction, starting again with the 24hr pessary. I decided to remain positive for the next 6hrs until the next examination and then see what happened. I continued on the ball, and also tried other upright positions. The back ache had become stronger, so I put my TENS machine on which helped a little, and played some relaxing music. We'd established that my baby was in a back to back position so I was trying my best to get him to rotate by staying in upright positions. At midnight on the Wednesday I was examined again and told once again that there was no change to my cervix, and they were unable to break my waters to continue with the process. The midwife advised me to get some rest and see how I felt in the morning in terms of what decision to make. I felt really disheartened, and also in a massive conundrum - I didn't feel I could keep having these examinations which were so so uncomfortable, even with gas & air! But I also wanted to give it my absolute best shot. I called my mum at 2am to have a little cry. She reassured me that whatever decision I made would be the best decision (gotta love mum pep talks ) I managed some sleep on and off. I woke at about 7am and lay there for a while thinking about what next step to take, and at 8am I called the midwife in to say I didn't want anymore examinations. She was amazing and respectful of my decision. The doctor then came in a little while later and managed to encourage me to allow her to examine me just to see if there had been any changes...I was 2cm (finally!) So she broke my waters. It was all systems go from there. My husband came in, I had some time to see if contractions picked up on their own - I had a bath, spent some time on my birthing ball, ate some of my snacks and kept hydrated and mobile. My contractions didn't change at all, so I accepted the hormone drip as the next step in the induction process. I was started on the monitor to keep a close eye on baby and we put Netflix on for some calming background noise and a distraction. I started with my breathing techniques on the first contraction that I felt I needed to concentrate with, and managed using my breathing techniques for about 3/4hours, but the thing about the hormone drip is that it always leaves a low level of the hormone in your body, and contractions all of a sudden start coming thick and fast. When this happened, my breathing wasn't enough and I knew I still had a long way to go, so I opted to have an epidural at this point and also started using some gas & air (which I found to be magical stuff) The epidural wasn’t completely effective and I still found I needed to use gas & air - which was ok, I found it loads more manageable and could continue with my breathing, and remain in a relaxed state. At 16:30 I was routinely examined (I was happy for routine examinations during labour) and was found to still be 2cm. But at 18:30 the doctor came to re-examine me and said I was 4cm, which was much better news. We continued until 22:30 and had another routine examination - I was made 5cm!

By this time, baby's pattern on the CTG had changed (raised heart rate) - not anything dangerous yet, but definitely something we wanted to try to rectify, so I was given some more IV fluids and things to try to bring it down and the doctor was going to re-examine me in an hour if things hadn't changed. So at 23:30 baby's heart rate had come down slightly but was still sitting on the high end of the normal range, I'd done an entire bag of the hormone drip over 12.5hrs, and I was shattered. The doctor examined me and made me 4cm. She was happy for me to carry on and see how things went over the next couple of hours whilst keeping a close eye on baby, but the midwife in me still wasn't completely happy with baby's trace and knew that there were other risks associated with continuing on a high level of the hormone drip as I had been, including baby becoming less and less happy. So I decided to opt for a C-Section at this point, to bring my baby to the world safely whilst he was still relatively happy.

At 00:26 on 01/05/2020 my gorgeous baby boy arrived Jacob Marcus Burke

We had difficulties getting him to latch on to start with, but had good blood sugar readings from my harvested colostrum, and after overcoming the initial difficulties we exclusively breastfed and are still breastfeeding over 2 years later. I am extremely proud of this! I still consider my birth experience to be a positive one - I made the right decisions for me and my baby at the time, and I had a fantastic team around me (who aren't the team I work with) who