Labour and birth experiences

So from the time that I went into hospital, from the time that I had my son was 26 hours. That's not including my labour before I got into the hospital. So I kind of had a rough birth. I tried naturally, and I just couldn't. He wouldn't pass my pubic bone, so for a baby they have to like groove into place. And then they tried an episiotomy which is a cut from your vagina to your bum. Then they tried a suction cap, which is a vacuum kind of thing, to try and get him out. And that didn't work, and then they tried forceps, and that didn't work.

And then I started haemorrhaging really bad and they said, I remember, code blue, "We have to rush her to theatre". I remember 'cause they were running me on the trolley, and the lady that was in the front on the right fell over and they just kept on going. And I'm like, 'Oh my gosh', and they were pushing me through the actual hospital, because there's no back ways. And, I could just see people like staring at me, and by then I'm like, "Get this baby out of me!"

And I was so scared and I was so dehydrated. And I didn't understand 'cause while I was trying to give birth, I was allowed to have as much fluid as I wanted, and then when I was in the elevator, they're like, "No you can't". I'm like, "I'm so thirsty!", like I felt like I was going to die. I know that's a bit exaggerated but that's exactly how I felt. And they're like, "No you can't'". They made me drink this yucky stuff.

And then they ended up having to give me an emergency Caesar but - because I had two pethidines and the epidural, they gave me more medication because it was wearing off, and I was asleep but still kind of conscious, if that makes sense? And I woke up to his crying.

I had him in my room the first night. I was in my own room 'cause I had a Caesar. And the next morning, 'cause I couldn't move, I was trying to - I was too sick. Right after surgery I had to go into recovery for a bit. And then the next morning they came and got him, because he had a haematoma, which is blood under the scalp, from the suction cap. So he was then in ICU and ... as I started getting better, they used to push me down in the wheelchair to go see him.

The baby was 13 days overdue and I remember feeling really disappointed that I had gone - you think the baby might be a few days' overdue but you're still going to be able to have this great birth that you had in your mind. But anyway, I ended up getting it induced and I felt before the induction I felt really like a bit of a failure that my body hadn't done it. But at the same time my sister-in-law rang me - my sister-in-law who'd had these two perfect births and who was pregnant as well and due, you know, around the same time as me with her third. So, you know, was probably going to have another perfect birth, rang me and she said "Don't worry. No matter what happens tomorrow, at the end of the day you will have this beautiful baby in your arms". And even though she had the perfect birth, her saying that made me feel a whole lot better about the birth. It was pretty yucky. Like, just ended up having the Syntocinon and injection and stuff so I just felt out of control during the whole birth.

And the other thing is I had to be induced as well because the baby just wasn't ready to come [laughs] - to come out when the date came so I was very anxious. So I waited 12 days just waited patient - not patiently. I was really anxious. Each time I felt a little tingle [laughs] I expected the labour to start but it never did and when I was told that I had to be induced it was really scary for me because I've heard people say that it's not fun [laughs]. So I wasn't looking forward to that.

My first labour was 12 - 24 hours but I think it wasn't as bad as the five hour induced one. The pain was just unbelievable - excruciating [laughs]. It was painful. That's how I felt. I can't describe it. It was terrible [laughs].

In the lead up to the actual induction that's when I experienced - I was so emotional, I just - just waiting, just waiting - like when the due date arrived I didn't expect the baby to come on that expected date. I allowed - as they say, a couple of days - four days. With our first one it was four days after the expected date so I expected something like that and then we got to the twelfth day. So all that time I was waiting and waiting and [laughs] - that was the hardest time for me because I was so anxious and so I would go to the hospital, they would do checks - "Oh everything's fine but nothing's happening so he's not ready yet. You can go back home".

I would go back home and then I would wait again so that anxiety killed me. It was [laughs] - it was hard and then on the morning when I actually went into the hospital to be induced it was - I remember - sometimes I look at the photos that [laughs] - when I was there sitting and waiting for the doctor who was going to do that - I looked, I was very, very anxious. I just wanted it to happen. I wanted the baby to come but I wasn't looking forward to the process. It was hard [laughs] and then when they'd done they put the - whatever medication, whatever they did - when the contractions started yeah it was like - mmm, indescribable [laughs] ...

It was quick and so - and the five hours was just like five years to me. It probably was maybe worse than I expected. I don't know why. Maybe the - yeah, that's how I felt, that it was [laughs].

As soon as [laughs] the baby was born, I was relieved and so I was just looking at the baby and I was happy [laughs] - and things were okay. Yeah, I was okay.

So I went into labour and ended up having an emergency Caesar with our first child and I found that quite traumatic, and it certainly wasn't something I'd ever considered that I'd have to have a Caesar. And it was the middle of the night and it was all very rush, rush, rush and - so my first couple of days in hospital were quite difficult. I couldn't stop thinking about the Caesar and how that had all happened and I couldn't get out of bed because I still had the wound and so I found that really difficult. So I went into labour quite late at night. My waters broke and no contractions to start with but then the contractions started coming really thick and fast, about three minutes apart.

And we went to the hospital and we were only in the hospital for a short while and they'd attached monitors to my belly, and they had difficulty getting the baby's heartbeat which is why the decision was made to have the Caesar.

And at the time I remember just being so relieved that they were going to do something to make it stop. I didn't care what they were going to do, I didn't care they were going to cut me open, I was just in so much pain I just wanted it to stop. So I was at the time quite pleased that the decision was made to have the Caesar.

So the Caesar was performed and ... when he came out he was all very healthy and that was fine. It didn't go according to the plan, and I had never considered that it might go that way.

Then I was taken to recovery for quite a long time so separated from the baby - I think I was almost in a state of shock, just it had been such a whirlwind of going to the hospital and then being prepped for surgery, and I'd never had surgery in my life at that point, so just the whole notion of going into an operating theatre and they have to put the spinal tap in your back and they're saying, "Don't move, you have to stay perfectly still", and I'm having a contraction and I'm thinking, 'I can't stay perfectly still'.

So it was just quite stressful, quite a whirlwind. They ask you to sign a consent form, you know, waiving all your rights and I can barely hold a pen [laughs]. So it was quite scary, I guess, the whole environment was scary and as doctors and surgeons they do what they need to do to get the baby out and they make it a good outcome for everyone, but you're just caught up in it all and it was quite scary.

So you're dragging around these feet and - so I just got heavier and heavier and slower and slower. And the obstetrician - because they were IVF, and because of my age, the internet tells me that immediately makes me high risk and then when I read one day that, with multiples you can spit one out vaginally and then have complications. The uterus might decide that it's done and it doesn't want to keep working and you can have an emergency caesarean for the second one and when I read that I got up and walked away from the computer. I just thought, 'Oh my God'.

So at that point I thought well, logically, sensibly we are going to have a caesarean because it's safer for them. It's quicker. It's easier and then we don't have this problem of having an emergency caesarean. It can be of our choosing and they're both out as safely as possible and that's the whole purpose of it is to have two healthy, safely delivered children. Now, 20 years ago I could not imagine having a caesarean under any circumstances. I would have fought that, I think. Because I'd had a surgery when I was 15 and I knew what is like being cut open and I just never wanted to have to go through a surgery again and then to find that I'm all these years later very determinedly choosing that, you know. You do what you need to do. I never thought I'd be choosing a caesarean, but I still feel comfortable that that was the right thing to do.

So many people seem to have hang-ups about caesareans too and I knew somebody years ago who fought it for her first two births and had to have emergency and then by the third one she opted to just have the caesarean and, you know, I don't think people should really be hung up on vaginal births verses caesareans and, and saying a natural birth verses what, an unnatural birth. I mean we still love to quote Shakespeare and say that the girls were untimely ripped. It's just one of those things. It was the safest, most practical thing and there are obstetricians that will do vaginal births. But I wanted them safely out.

I guess for me, I think maybe one thing that started the whole - just the birth experience going a little bit pear-shaped or not what I had hoped for was that the labour is a surprise. I mean, you've read about it, you've prepared for it as much as you can, but you never really can, so I guess I was shocked by how painful it actually was.

I was shocked by perhaps what I perceived as my lack of capacity to deal with that pain, whereas I thought it was going to be awesome, you know, and I was actually quite nauseous, like I vomited a few times and hang on a second, I actually hadn't read that in the book, that you'd vomit at this stage. Like, I read that you know, when you're transitioning between stage one and stage two of labour you can get a bit - so but hang on a second, it's happening.

So I think I was - I felt a bit thrown by things.

I asked for an epidural straightaway and, it was probably about half an hour later, and it didn't work, and it kept dropping off of one side of my body, so they'd roll me over, put me on the other side. And then, eventually, I had to have another epidural and that didn't work either, I could still feel it. But it had taken, the first time they did the epidural it took eight goes to get the needle in my back, and they couldn't find the spot. And then the second time they actually got the head of anaesthesiology, from downstairs, and he managed to find it, but it still took three goes to get the epidural in my back. So it was a bit distressing from the start, I'd been sitting through all these contractions when they're trying to do it, and all the time saying to my husband, "One, this is the only child we're ever having," [laughs]. And I was throwing up through it as well.

So when it came to the actual birthing part I, which was - so I'd been induced at six o'clock in the morning they started it, this was now seven pm, or actually it got to, at three o'clock they said, "You'll have the baby". So I was pushing and pushing, nothing's coming, he was getting stuck. At five o'clock they're like, "Oh what are we going to do?" In the end he was so stuck - and I kept passing out during birth because of the gas and stuff. And my husband goes to the midwife, "What's happened to her, what's wrong?" And I remember coming to and she goes, "Oh, she's sleeping", and I just went, "No, I passed out, I completely passed out". My son sort of came out a little bit and got stuck so they had to push him back in and turn his head. And then I had the episiotomy and then eventually he came out. So it was a very, very [laughs] stressful birth for the first birth. He was too big to come out, 3.67 kilos, which was a bit too big for me. He'd been stuck, and he just came out and he screamed for the first hour and a half of his life [laughs] with a big hematoma on his head. He was extremely distressed, and I was distressed.

And so my contractions became further and further apart and I was really kind of like, 'Oh well, I'm here now. This is, you know, fine; whatever happens'. But then the staff were kind of like, 'You know, you need to walk around; you need to do all this stuff to try to restart the labour'. And I was doing all of that but not really, you know? I was just enjoying the novelty of it all 'cause it wasn't clearly that uncomfortable at that point.

Anyway, nothing was happening and then suddenly things got serious and then they broke my waters for me. And they gave me one more hour and it still hadn't picked up enough. And then I got transferred out of the birthing centre. You know, nice light and everything, and then you're in this horrible place - and I was vomiting heaps. And apparently at that point I said [laughs] to my friend, "Don't ever get pregnant. Just adopt".

It just went on for hours and hours and hours. And basically, then pretty early on I was like, "I want an epidural," kind of thing [laughs]. Like, "Forget all of my anti-drug agenda," and unfortunately it was really busy and the anaesthetist had two other caesareans or something, apparently, I found out afterwards. So nobody came. We kept asking and no-one came and I was just stuck in this horrible thing and you don't know when it's going to end and it's just hideous. And I had no pain relief, nothing except for the gas or whatever. Just sort of just was ineffective and just made me feel semi-nauseous. So I didn't want to use that.

And then finally an anaesthetist came and I had an epidural. And then I went to sleep for two hours [laughs]; it was just unbelievable. By then I think the baby was starting to fatigue and also the problem was apparently that she was on the wrong angle or something. So she just couldn't get out, basically, so in the end her heart rate started to drop. And then they said, "We need to have an emergency caesarean". And everyone always says that but it is quite amazing how just suddenly it's all systems go and before you even know it, you're in theatre kind of thing. Then the baby was starting to fatigue and also the problem was apparently that she was on a - the wrong angle or something.

But looking back on the two different experiences that I had was that also when we were to give birth, we were induced, and being a first-time mum, I was just like, 'Yeah, I just want to meet my baby. I don't care how, like - just, yep, get them out here'. And once I started actually the induction, I was, 'This was the worst thing ever. Why'd we do this?' [laughs]

I think we went in there on the Wednesday night and she was born on the Friday morning. So we were in hospital for a long time. My birth plan basically went out the window because I had to be strapped to monitors and things like that.

So I had the birth plan of being upright or - like on all fours and leaning on the bed and all this sort of thing. And, had made sound - like music playlists and this - I made like a - stress balls, and aromatherapy packs and everything. My partner didn't bring them.

He went to sleep a lot of it. So the midwife was actually a lot more attentive than he was. And she kept saying, 'Oh no, don't wake him. I'll just sit here with you'. But the midwives - like I had different midwife every couple of hours. And some of them were horrible, some of them were love - the one actually that delivered my baby was lovely. She was the one that was very attentive. So I pushed for six hours, I think, with her.

Because I was on the bed and then as soon as I said, "I can't do this anymore, I need to get up and I want to squat and I want to put my hands on the bed and everything". So, I got on the floor. My partner held my hands across the bed and she was born like 15 minutes later. So, I don't know - I must have just known I needed to be up that way. But, yeah that was quite traumatic. I remember thinking, 'Come on head, just come out, come out'. And then when she got stuck there I said, 'Okay, go back in, go back in. That's enough, okay,' - burning ring of fire, indeed. But,so her birth was not everything that I had hoped for. It was actually quite the opposite.

My son was my healing birth because I stayed at home and I laboured, I didn't have to be induced, obviously. So I stayed at home and laboured, went to the hospital - probably a bit too late because I felt like pushing when we drove there. I hopped in the bath while they were getting the water pool, ready, thingy - and gave birth to him in the bath. He just came out.

I think there was like one and a half pushes or something and he was out. He wanted to be out. So, he was quite the healing birth. So everything that I had thought of - except for the bath, didn't make it into the pool, the bath's a bit smaller. But it was amazing. So I think that's also led to me feeling empowered, which was quite helpful.

By then, I was quite far along, and in retrospect, I should have just stayed home. But I didn't, because I was focused on the water birth. And I really wanted to get to the birth centre that was 35 kilometres away. So we get into the car. And he has to do a U-turn to get out of our street. And I just screamed, "Stop, stop", because he was in the middle of the U turn and I had a contraction. And then I was like, "Okay, now you can go". And I'm like holding like this, I'm on the front seat grabbing the headrest of the seat and he's driving. I just couldn't believe how long it took.

There had been a big storm the night before, there was trees all over the road. And we got pulled over by the police, and we thought it because he was driving too fast, but they were going, "Oh, there's a big tree down, you have to go around that way". And I was just like, I had obviously went into transition by that point. And my partner just thought possibly I was dead, because I was just like silent, kind of contorted in the front seat. And he's like, "Do you want me to pull over, do you want me to pull over?" And I was going "No". And that was all I would say. "No". "Do you want me to go to that other hospital"? "No". And I was screaming.

And then I was really quiet, really quiet. Finally I just thought, 'Oh, yep, that'd be the head'. And so I just thought, 'I won't say anything because I don't want him to freak out'. So I just sort of, I was really actually very conscious this time. I knew how I wanted it to go. So I remember my breathing. And he was driving, he was driving, and then I just thought, 'Yeah'. I said, "Pull over the car". And he kept driving, because he just thought, 'Oh, she's just saying it'. And I just went, "Pull over the fucking car!" And he pulls over the car really, really quick. And I went, "Jump out and get around here and pull down my pants!". And he raced around and he pulls down my daks, and he somehow calls 000 on his phone but dropped the phone. And so there on the ground, listening to this whole thing, we're on the side of the road, and there's a paddock. And yeah, he's like, "Oh my God!". And he's like, "I can see her eyes, I can see her eyes!", and her little head was out, and there was one more contraction and he caught her. And he was a bit flummoxed. So I'm like, "No you've got the cord twisted around my leg, put it around the other way".

So he gave her to me, and I squished her under my, I didn't know it was a her, squished her under my dressing gown, and he ran back around. And I said, "Put the heater on", and he put the heater on. And I put her on the boob. I was so confident she was fine. I just knew she was just so fine. And we were really excited. And we had a big pash in the car, and then we were like, "Oh. Oh," and the emergency services were still on the phone on the floor. And so my partner's like, "Oh no, it's all fine". They're like, "No, no, stay where you are, we'll send an ambulance". He's like, "No, we're like five minutes from the birth centre. Don't worry, it's not a drama. Baby's, it's all cool". And they were like, "Oh, okay".

So we drove to the birth centre. And that was nice, because we pulled up outside emergency, and he got to go inside and say, "There's a baby in the car, it's just been born". And everyone was like, "Ohh!", the doctor came out, all these nurses came out, and they were all really happy. And yeah, and I was thrilled.