My Birth Story
As it’s ceasarean section awareness month, I thought I’d talk about my birth story…
It was a Friday evening and I was about a week past my due date, impatiently waiting for the arrival of my little man. I went to bed at about 8pm as I always did as was so exhausted in the last few weeks of pregnancy. At about 10pm I was woken up by a really intense back pain which lasted for about 30 seconds. I thought maybe this could be it but I still didn’t really know when labour was starting as I had been waiting for so long… Then about 15 minutes later, the pain came back and I thought I’d wait and see before I alerted my husband Rich. Another 15 minutes passed, the pain returned and then it was pretty obvious what was going on! It was a really long night as I tried to sleep in between contractions, which in hindsight was IMPOSSIBLE… I just lay in bed and my doggie stayed with me all night and I squeezed him every time I had a contraction. I started timing my contractions at about midnight which is so lovely to look back on.
My waters started to break about 10am the next day when I was on the loo and it was green in colour so we called the midwives and were told to come straight in as it was an indication that I had meconium in my waters (baby poop). I was told that to keep my baby safe from infection, he had to come out within 24 hours one way or another. We got into an uber, my waters were still breaking in the uber (apologies to the uber driver who was a father himself and was very supportive..!). After a few hours in a triage bed my contractions were coming in thick and fast, super painful at this point and every 2 minutes. I thought this would be a quick labour but I was only dilated 3 cm. It got to a point where the gas and air wasn’t enough so I had an epidural in my spine. It was soon after that my labour massively slowed, contractions slowed down and I felt like I had failed… What I didn’t realise what that the anaesthetist had accidentally put my epidural on a constant background infusion so essentially I was getting the maximum amount of pain relief possible and I couldn’t feel a thing. My husband actually noticed this as he works in anaesthetics at the very hospital I was giving birth. This was a big factor in my labour slowing down as my body had basically checked out. It was Saturday night by this point and we were edging closer to the 24 hour mark… I was then put on an induction drip to speed up the labour and help me dilate. By the early hours of the morning I was fully dilated and it was time to push. I was pushing for about 2 hours but Finn just wasn’t coming down. I had a bedside scan and he’d flipped over which is not the safest way for a baby to be born so we made a decision to get him out with forceps. I was taken up to the operating theatre where there were about 12 people in the room and I felt frightened, although having Rich there and his knowledge of what was going on I felt safe.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the forceps around Finn’s head safely so they had to abandon that and in the end said I needed a ceasarian section to get him out quickly. They had to push him back up the birth canal with the forceps so they could perform the c section (I was anaesthetised from the waist down at this point!). I haemorrhaged and lost a lot of blood. I was also completely exhausted and looking back it feels so surreal. When Finn came out he wasn’t breathing so they took him away immediately and I panicked and started throwing up… this was probably also due to the blood loss and sheer exhaustion! Finn was fine a few minutes later and was cleaned up and finally passed to me where he just lay on my chest, I was being sewn up and couldn’t sit up but it was so wonderful knowing he was safe and healthy.
Mine and Rich’s parents came to visit a few hours after his birth… my dad said I looked green… thanks! You try birthing a baby with no sleep!
I stayed in hospital for a few days after and couldn’t stand up or sit up without help for a while. I had a catheter and was given pain relief but I was unbelievably sore when it wore off.. When we were allowed home I needed help to sit up for about a week and could barely walk without pain. Laughing in particular was excruciating! I was also insanely constipated which is very common post birth whichever way baby is born, so I was in pain all over, exhausted from the whole ordeal and then had a newborn to keep alive..
A c-section is MAJOR abdominal surgery and is definitely not the easy way out!
I’m going to be doing a few posts on nutritional tips on my instagram to help you heal post caesarian. Hope you find them useful!
