"I trusted my body to do what it needed to do"
Hi everyone!
Ready to share my birth story now after 4 weeks of recovering.
So I had my last hospital appt at 39 weeks. Due to a low Papp-A result I wasn’t allowed to go past 40 weeks so if labour didn’t occur spontaneously I’d have to get induced. I asked for an internal exam at this appt just to check my cervix to see if I had dilated at all because I was feeling really nervous about having to possibly be induced. They examined me internally and I was dilated 2cm and my cervix was very ripe and soft apparently! I went home happy knowing that labour would hopefully be starting soon!
At 39.2 I was at home and my membranes released before any surges started. About an hour after my membranes released, the surges started. I called the hospital to let them know that my membranes had released prior to labour starting and had to go in to be monitored due to the risk of infection. After being monitored for 2 hours I was able to go home and continue labour at home!
I laboured at home for 14 hours. I read a book, listened to my hypnobirthing tracks and had a nice hot shower to help the surges. I sat on the yoga ball for ages and my partner massaged me for a long while before the surges got too intense and we decided to head into hospital.
We arrived to the birthing suite and my surges were 2 mins apart and lasting about a minute so we thought things were progressing nicely. The midwives asked if they could monitor the baby with the bands around my tummy (can’t remember what they’re called!) and I agreed and settled in to the birthing suite. We dimmed the lights, set up some oils in a diffuser and put on the surge of the sea. My partner had given the midwives my birthing preferences and all was well.
After about 2 hours I started to develop a fever and was experiencing intense vomiting (worse than the vomiting i had the whole pregnancy! 😂) and an IV was inserted to pump nausea meds in to me. Despite this, the vomiting continued and I started to drift in and out of consciousness. My whole body also started to seize and continued to do so for another 2 or so hours. I was asked if I would agree to an internal exam as they were starting to get worried. I had developed an infection due to my membranes releasing prior to labour starting. I agreed and I had only dilated to 4cm. After this, I was told that bubs heart rate had been close to 200bpm this whole time and mine was also extremely high as well as everything else I was going through. They said that if I had have been further dilated that they could have let me continue naturally but that it is highly recommended that i go for an emergency c section because of the risk to baby and myself if we continued naturally. After speaking to my partner we agreed to an emergency c section and I was wheeled off for surgery.
Finally, little Aurora was born! Even though my birth didn’t go to plan I am still so thankful for hypnobirthing as it really got me through labour and has also helped me to not be traumatised from my birth. I trusted my body to do what it needed to do and ended up needing intervention to get bubs here safe and get me through it. Hoping for a VBAC next pregnancy!
Andrea
