A wobbly road to motherhood: The birth

I feel extremely grateful to have had a positive experience, despite not everything going exactly to plan…but I think I was also just SO SO happy to not be pregnant anymore!

As I have shared, my pregnancy was complex and I was unwell for much of it. I think my capacity to cope with a large number of symptoms meant that I actually slipped into early labour without realising which sounds ridiculous but was true. I also realise that some of my symptoms were a sign that my body was struggling even more with pregnancy than ‘normal’ (if there is such a thing as normal).

On the Friday before Digby was born, I started to get what I thought were bad period pains. I had seen other people mention these and say they came and went for weeks before giving birth, so I just thought, ugh, something else to cope with. They were pretty intense. We did a birth course on the Saturday (got that in just in time!) and I was very uncomfortable throughout. All the labour tools we practiced felt great which now I am like ahh that's because I was already in labour! However, I just thought my body had just ramped up for my last month of pregnancy, like it was ready for this big finale of symptoms!

On Monday morning at 3am, I woke up with even stronger period pains. And then I felt myself leaking. Immediately thought it was my supra pubic catheter, but the valve was closed. Then I thought a miracle had happened and I had been gifted the ability to pee via my urethra again! Sadly not, as when I went to have a look in the bathroom, I realised it was probably my waters breaking. They were a dark brown, which meant there was meconium (baby had pooped). Naturally, I called my mum (who is in the UK) to tell her and asked if she thought I should wake my husband. She said, yes, I think you’re in labour. Despite the evidence, I disagreed, but I did wake up my husband. He then said I needed to call the hospital. I thought this was excessive and probably another false alarm, but I did — and of course, they said, come in straight away. Weirdly, given we still thought we had a month to go, I had spent the night before manically packing the babies bag so thankfully I had some things together, but we still weren't organised and forgot so many things.

I was assessed on the unit pretty quickly and the midwife told me that I was contracting every 2–3 minutes and that we’d probably have a baby by that afternoon. We both thought this was unlikely and I still was thinking this was all a false alarm. Still, I quickly texted Caitlin to cancel clients I had booked for that day and D jumped on a work meeting to say he was starting his paternity leave! It all felt very surreal.

Even though I was naturally contracting regularly and they were getting more painful, they wanted to help speed things along due to the meconium in my waters. I was given the synthetic oxytocin drip, which really ramped up the pain. I used all the tools from my pain toolbox and found counting breaths, my electric heat pad, and my husband rubbing my back all helped. I wanted to use a TENs machine in early labour but I got the email saying the one I rented had arrived in the post that morning, so it wasn't that helpful. I sat on the ball a lot but had to either stand or be on all fours during contractions, as the pressure was becoming unbearable. I fully went into a trance and could only shake or nod my head. I wanted all music off and stayed like this for hours. At my first exam, I was told I was 1cm dilated which felt like I had a long way to go!

Four hours later, at my next exam, I was 1.5cm. This felt very disappointing given how much pain I was in. The midwives reassured me about the progress I had made — the baby had dropped lower and was in the right position — but I got in my head, thinking I could be there for another 24 hours. They were struggling with IV access so they had to get the anaesthetist to put a new line in. When he came, I asked for an epidural. Despite my birth wishes being not to have one, I was really fatigued and thought I’d have much longer to go. I am so grateful I did have one in the end as on reflection this is what allowed my body to relax enough to actually give birth.

The epidural was the hardest part for me, and the anaesthetist almost didn’t give me one because my pain was so intense I couldn’t stay still. I just remember sitting in that awkward rounded posture slump on the bed with my husband holding me tightly so I wouldn’t move. The midwife held the gas and air in my mouth, and had another hand on the monitors that were on baby as his heart rate was dancing around and they couldn’t keep a stable trace. They tried to time putting in the needle around my contractions, but they were so close together, and when one came on, staying still was so hard. It felt like my body was trying to rip itself open and all I wanted to do was move away from it. I just kept repeating to myself, this will pass, just get through the next breath. It felt like the ultimate practice of my pain management work.

Once the epidural kicked in (wow, that really is magic, and I’m so grateful it worked well on me), they did another exam. I was so ready to be told I was 2cm. Instead, she got my husband to look — and he could see the head! I had gone from 1.5 to 10cm in minutes and was ready to start pushing.

I couldn’t believe it, nor could my husband, who was rather shell-shocked having been forced to look down there (and still is). My next fear was my suprapubic catheter coming out, so whilst waiting for various teams to assemble, we did some practice pushes to see how much it moved — and it was staying put, which was amazing. My next fear after my spc coming out was whether I’d be able to push the baby out, given nothing down there really works properly for me. I really, really did not want a c-section (as they would have had to move my catheter site), so I knew I would do whatever was needed to avoid that and get my baby out safely.

The room filled with a lot of people, as I was high risk — the obstetricians were coming in and out, as well as other midwives and the paediatric team came due to him arriving early and the meconium. With the next wave, as I could still feel the contractions, I started to push.

Initially not much happened despite my best efforts. All I kept thinking was, I don’t want a c-section, and really stepped up my pushing, giving it everything I could. I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere and that the midwives and doctors were lying to me when they said he was moving. My husband had to reassure me that I was doing something and that the head was starting to show! However, he was stuck, and they asked for my consent to do an episiotomy (a small diagonal cut) as I had started to look like I would tear. I didn’t want this, but compared to a c-section or a uncontrolled tear, it was a much better option, so I said yes. On the next contraction, she cut, and with that, his head was born! He had had his arm up like Superman, which had made it extra difficult.

His body then came quickly and before I knew it, my husband was being told to grab our baby. D hadn’t planned on this but was suddenly forced to, and was in such shock he lifted our baby so high I had to remind him the baby was still attached to me — I thought he was going to pull my whole placenta out!

D placed our baby on my chest and I just knew that it was Digby. I was crying and I remember looking at my husband, who was crying too, and it was just the most intense, magical, surreal moment. I had done it. My body, which has struggled and let me down constantly over the last 20 years, had done it. It had made and birthed this beautiful, perfect baby boy.

This beautiful, perfect baby boy immediately peed all over me, which felt like a fitting start to his life after already pooping in me. He was then taken to the cot next to me to be checked over by the paediatricians whilst they gave me the injection to remove the placenta. The placenta part was easy for me; I barely noticed it. They then got the obstetrician to sew me up, as they were worried about EDS and healing and wanted someone really experienced. I was worried I would feel this as so often local anaesthetics don’t work on me, but the epidural was still having some effect which helped me not feel a thing.

Digby was given the all-clear and was put on my chest and the midwife helped me for his first feed. He latched and started drinking straight away, which was surreal. After the feed, she wasn’t sure about his colouring and breathing, so the doctors came back. While they were with Digs, the midwives told me to have a shower as I was covered in blood, meconium and Digbys wee! The feeling in my legs was fully back but I felt very faint, so I had to be wheeled in. I sat there washing all this blood off me in disbelief that I’d just had a baby.

The doctors gave Digby the all-clear and said he just needed lots of skin-to-skin. So I kept him on me, all wrapped up. We were kept in the delivery room until about 3am. I hadn’t realised it, but they were concerned about me. We were moved to the ward in the end as they needed the room, but I still had doctors from intensive care coming in to see me throughout the night. They were doing hourly obs. I didn’t feel great, but I also didn’t feel the worst I’d ever felt, so I was confused why they were so worried.

Turns out my liver and kidneys were struggling, my blood pressure was high, and my inflammatory markers were raised — which could have been a sign of some very serious conditions. My body had obviously had enough, and Digby decided, I’m outta here, just in the nick of time! The treatment for the conditions they suspected was simply to have the baby, so they just wanted to keep me in for a while to monitor me. As Digs was early too, he needed extra monitoring, but he did amazingly given he was early.

After two nights in hospital, and me begging to go home as always, we were sent home with our baby. I felt such a huge relief from the whole thing. Pregnancy and birth had felt like such a big unknown with all my conditions. There was so much uncertainty around it and we had planned for various emergencies, but no one really knew how it would all go.

I’m so thankful to the whole team for keeping me safe during pregnancy and for the safe and calm delivery of Digby. I felt heard and supported throughout. Although I had to have a couple of interventions I didn’t want, I knew they were for the safety of me and the baby — so it wasn’t a traumatic experience.

At times I never thought trying for a baby would ever be possible, and there were times when we were trying that I didn’t think we’d get there. During pregnancy it felt never-ending, and I feel in awe of my body that we did it. Now to see how it went trying to look after a newborn along with recovering from birth and pregnancy… (stay tuned for the fourth trimester blog).