Chay and Roberts birth story
This is a story of being prepared for whatever path your birth journey takes. She used the knowledge of her human birth rights to advocate for herself and while it wasn’t the path this mama would’ve liked, she was prepared for the journey she went on.
He was born on the 22/11 at 7pm, 4.046 kilos (8.8 pounds).
I had planned a home birth, however after some unexpected changes with my home birthing midwife I began to feel a little unsettled. At 41+2 I was getting increasingly stressed. Each day felt like a a week. I know it’s generally safe to go up to 42 weeks however as a first time mum struggling to understand the difference between my intuition and my fear and the pressure of being responsible for the life of another human being I ended up heading into the maternity ward at the hospital to have him monitored a few times. 3 times in one week for my anxious concerns and I lost my home birthing rights. They called an induction for the following morning due to him not reaching the criteria for a few things. My amniotic fluid was a little low, showing reduced variability on the CTG scan and he wasn’t showing lung movements in the ultrasound. So they asked me to come back and stay the night to be monitored and have the induction the following morning.
I went home gathered my things and tried to pull myself together enough to have a calm positive birthing experience regardless of the changes. I went back in later that afternoon and they put a catheter around my cervix to soften it overnight and I had my waters broken around 830-9am the following morning. They wanted to give me pitocin the synthetic oxytocin hormone to bring in the labour quicker but I wanted my body to go into labour as naturally as it could so we agreed to wait an hour. Thankfully my contractions started and grew in pain and length. At 11 am I was 3cm dilated! I was really enjoying the gradual build up. We had music playing and fairy lights hanging around the room and a big long string of bunting with positive affirmations I brought from home that we made at my blessing way, with all the beautiful women in my life. Me and my partner really enjoyed this time. We danced, and made jokes as I calmly breathed through each contraction surprised at how I could control the pain with my focused breath. Everything seemed to be going so well. By 3pm a different doctor came in and told me very abruptly that they were concerned that baby was stressed because he was showing reduced variability and wanted to do a stress test which required an internal examination. However when they went to check I was still only 3cm and they need 5cm to be able to do what they needed. They suggested the hormone again and to check progress at 5pm I decided to wait two more hours without it, by that time I was aware caesarean was on the cards if I didn’t show progress soon so I lost a lot of focus on the labour, and became quite emotional at the thought of submitting to a caesarean when I wanted to badly to have a natural birth. I started to process having an operation which was one of my biggest fears. It got to 5pm and I was still only 3cm. So we decided to go ahead with a cesarean.
I laboured for around 9 hours. Although I never made it to active labour (4cm) my contractions continued to increase in length and pain right up until the needle went into my spine. I was shaking with fear. But everyone in theatre reassured me. I felt more relaxed once most of my body was numb. (Something I also hated the idea of, I wanted to feel the pain of my baby coming earthside, the way nature intended, it was like a right of passage for me). By this time. Laying on the operating table, I realised I had been so preoccupied with the labour and then the operation that I hadn’t even thought about meeting my baby.. I finally started getting excited that I would hear his first cry soon and be cuddling him in my arms. Turns out he was posterior and a very big boy. As soon as he was placed on my chest nothing else in the whole world mattered. They stitched me up and sent me back upstairs to the ward to rest and snuggle. I still struggle with feeling like I submitted when I could have delivered him naturally if I had of felt strong enough not to listen to the doctors and trusted that my baby would be safe. But I was just so afraid of losing him that I did what I was told would get him into my arms safely. It’s a strange feeling having your baby cut out of you. I feel like I missed a step.
Although my birth story didn’t go to plan, I overcame one of my biggest fears and am so blessed with a healthy beautiful baby boy. I would chose his life over anything else over and over again.
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