Social support during labour, birth and the early postnatal period

I had this idea that I wanted to have a natural birth and I'd read quite a lot about all of that stuff. I wanted to have support there other than my partner. But I didn't want my mum because mum is very into a medicalised idea of healthcare and she really worships doctors. I thought she might get worried and not necessarily provide the right kind of support.

So I'd asked my best friend and my other friend; the three of us went to school together. My other friend's a doctor and she's been seeing babies being born and I just had this feeling that my partner - I wanted him to be there if he was happy to be there. But I didn't expect he would be able to be very useful or helpful to me because he's never been in this situation before. At least as a female I thought, there's a bit more of that ability to relate.

Some of the time [my husband] was sleeping [laughs]. My mum and him actually took turns to stay with me so my mum did her shift while he slept and then she woke him up. I think she was there for maybe a couple of hours and then she'd go and wake him and then he'd stay with me. And he was really good, he was really calm. Except for when I was having the epidural because he was actually holding my shoulder - like trying to hold my shoulders forward and he was just losing it. He was just going, "Ooh I think I'm going to - I think I'm going to punch this anaesthetist". [laughs] But yeah, he was really calm. He wasn't like freaking out. He was you know - he was just there supporting. Yeah so it was good.

Anyway, look my labour slowed right down and they said "Well, you can't stay here unless you let us break your waters". And we'd already had like a lot of discussion prior to going to hospital about what we would, you know, how I wanted things to be, which was to birth naturally and that I wouldn't use pain medication unless it was absolutely necessary because something was going wrong and that I wouldn't just by default accept interventions unless it was absolutely necessary. So I thought, 'No thanks, I won't have your water broken strategy I'll just go'. But we actually just booked into a motel down the road and birthed, so - oh not birthed - I laboured in this motel room for the whole day - I think it was hot day, it was in mid-December - and a friend of ours came and sort of helped for a while. You know, we've got friends who are into sort of alternative ways of helping a woman birth, so - I mean one - both of those friends actually had birthed at least one of their children at home.

They've got a lot of sort of healing modalities. And so my friend assisted and another friend I spoke to on the phone and because I'd been in labour, I think I was on my third day by then, I was getting really exhausted, and starting to sort of lose - you know get a little bit despairing I guess that I was going to be able to do this myself without intervention. And then the friend who wasn't actually physically present but I spoke to on the phone - there was something she said that made me just burst into tears and all this, all this emotion and all this stress sort of came out.

And then [clicks fingers] the labour just kicked right back in again and a few hours later my waters broke and so we rushed off back down to the hosp - well, waddled back down to the hospital and got into the waiting area and you know, within 10 minutes the nurse is ringing upstairs saying, "Is the bed ready yet??" Because I was having like one minute apart contractions and I think she was scared I was going to have the baby in the waiting area [laughs].

And before she went in I'm like, "If you've made your mind up on no drugs tell me now because I won't let you have them". She goes, "Oh, I've made my mind up". I'm like, "No you haven't, you don't know how painful it's going to be so don't make your mind up until you're in there". Like, you hear everything about these drugs but if you don't have them drugs, be willing to go through all the pain, all the hours and ...

During when she was in hospital I was helping her and all that but then it come to a point where they tell you to rub their back - their lower back you know, and that, she just snapped at me, she's like, "Don't touch me, I don't need it", this, that, everything. So I sat down and like there was nothing I could do, like I was holding her hand next to the bed and pretty much just that and I ended up not having sleep for about 72 to 80 hours. Lucky her brother-in-law was bringing me in Red Bulls every day [laughs], and I've had about 40 Red Bulls and it's weird that you just get this burst of energy and like you can just stay up for that long.

The birth itself was interesting. I wasn't involved in the birth. I fell asleep. It turns out we had the due dates wrong and she knew she was going into labour and we expected it was going to be a long labour, so I actually fell asleep. And she birthed at home, and did it on her own. The next door neighbour who was also our doula - we had a birth helper with us. She actually caught the baby, and it was only after he had been born that I was woken up. But they couldn't, they literally couldn't wake me up, and it was all very quick, it was a two and a half hour process. So that made me feel odd, because I wasn't involved in the birth process. I was very hands-on in the previous one, caught the baby - both natural births, and I had a very big emotional release birthing the first one and I didn't get that with the second. So that made me feel pretty rubbish.

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 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. And I was like, "Oh can I see him, can I see him?" And for some reason they wouldn't show me him. I don't know why. I don't really want to think about why. And then - yeah but it was kind of hard 'cause I couldn't hold him. I felt like I was going to vomit so I couldn't move my head 'cause I was like paralysed. And then they put him on my chest and he started crying, and I had a massive headache, and I remember the hardest thing - I remember saying is, "Can you get him off me?" And I just can't believe I said that, but I was in that much pain, and I was - had a massive headache and I just felt like I was going to vomit. And I was so scared. And my partner didn't come in because he was scared, so he got his sister to. Which kind of annoyed me because I would have wanted my sister there but - it felt like - in moments like that, you don't really think.

So eventually I had my daughter and her father was here for the birth.

So I found that really challenging, so it was quite different from my way of wanting to have my daughter with the support of midwives and less intervention-type approach. But I mean, I can really see that that was particularly heightened in the context of a relationship breakdown as well. I mean, not only did I feel like I didn't have the sort of support of the systems that I wanted, I also didn't have the support of my partner at the time, you know?

So, I mean, although he was physically present he sort of wasn't emotionally present at all and yeah, I guess it really started to play out what different pages we were on, and that was pretty distressing. I can see now that the relationship was probably quite abusive, like emotionally abusive.

And I remember just being - I was in this bed - I think actually the baby, my daughter, was asleep in my arms, and I was in the bed and like I was - the sheets were still like completely covered in blood at this time, like I lost quite a lot of blood so there's blood everywhere and stuff, and I'm just in this room by myself and I just really wanted like a cup of tea, like - and I couldn't reach any buzzers or anything, like the hospital bed was just kind of in the middle of the room and there was no one around - I just remember this clear sense of, 'Now what? Like now what the fuck do I do?'

Like, child, sleeping man, where's - I just remember this - I just wanted a cup of tea. Anyway, eventually I got my cup of tea. Maybe that was like the first sort of experience of isolation, like, 'Fuck, I'm really on this - on my own, like shit'.

The main difference I found in Australia is that, in India, men don't have much role during the pregnancy or especially with the delivery. They won't allow husbands or partners to stay in the labour room so - normally it's just a woman's business and a man just - I know that many of my friends - they just go for the work [laughs], even though the wife is at the labour room, they say the wife is at the labour room and I will get a phone call when the baby deliver, then I'll go [laughs]. But some people might just stay at hospital, but they can't get into the labour room, but here I was part of every step.

So, the labour room experience - it's a terrible experience actually, because when our - my mum always used to say that, "Oh look", whenever I become naughty she used to say, "Oh, you don't know the value of your mum and you don't know how much pain I had when I birth," and I said, "Oh, Mum, are you joking?" and I never [laughs] - but when I - being in the labour room I found that the value of womanhood - oh, it's a wonderful experience. Even though it was really hard for me to - I think I had more pain watch - she had the pain physically and I had pain mentally and oh, it's terrible. I just think that, 'Oh, if I had a pain I can manage it, but I can't see the pain of my partner', because she is the - I'm loving her more than anything in this world, so I can't - having witness of that pain, it's really hard.

So yeah, but after seeing all this birth, my respect and my love has gone up because I found there how much she suffered for our family, which means me and wife and my kid is a family, but she suffered a lot to have the baby and that was a terrible experience. And so ... after seeing all those things, normally I don't - even after that, any trouble comes in our family or anything, I just say, "You don't worry, I'll manage it," because she suffered a lot [laughs].

I suppose at the time I didn't realise that it was such a big deal to have your partner there. He was great though, he took over, you know, he came in at every possible moment that he could. And he brought up a big massive wad of brie cheese, 'cause I hadn't been able to eat soft cheese throughout the pregnancy, he'd got it from [market name]. And it was nice to have him there when he was there and he felt it was hard for him to leave me at night because I cried a couple of times whenever he left 'cause it was a full night and I wasn't getting any sleep.

My mum, my husband came in the next day and sat there preparing for a job interview [laughs]. But he did help, he sat there and he cuddled and he let me have a bit of a sleep. And then family came on the Tuesday evening, and they all saw him. And then the Wednesday we went home. So family did come in and have a look. But my mum got really sick just afterwards, she had a cold, so she sort of had to then limit how much she could come and visit me, 'cause you're only in hospital a day and a half really. So she limited what, 'cause she didn't want to get the baby sick 'cause she was really badly [unclear]. And dad was working at that time and it was a bit hard. My husband did take time off but he was going through job interviews to try and get a better position within the company.

I just thought, 'I don't know what I've done [laughs]. I've had a baby, maybe this was like a really bad mistake. I shouldn't have, you know, have done this or ...'. All those things were going through my mind. 'Do I need help? How am I going to cope when I get home? Is the baby just going to sleep'?