Hmm where to start….I would often walk around patting the bottom of my belly, thinking I was tapping my baby’s bottom, soothing him/her….only to realise that I was most likely tapping its head! lol what kind of mother would I turn out to be??? If only I realised that intuitively I had been right….
I recall going to bed early with a feeling that I was going to need my rest. I wondered if my baby was on it’s way, however with three weeks to go and you know first babies are usually late, that seemed an unlikely possibility.
Around 11.30pm I woke up to my waters breaking, calling out for my partner, he rang the hospital as I casually took a shower, who told us to head on in. Arriving at the hospital I was unusually calm, most likely because NOTHING else was happening. No contractions, nothing.
It seemed like it could be a long night, so my partner went home and I tried to sleep…tried being the operative work, I was too excited to sleep or adrenalin had kicked in…either way sleep eluded me just as this child seemed to be.
Being at Mona Vale Hospital, Sydney we were near the beach so when my partner arrived back we went for a walk endeavouring to bring on labour…yet still nothing. So at 11am we had reached the given deadline and I was given no other choice than to be induced.
Not long after the process of birthing started to kick in and my contractions started. Apparently it is more intense when you are induced, yet being my first baby I had nothing else to compare it to. Plus I had decided not to attend the birth classes, the last thing I wanted to be was scared out of my wits and I had told myself that if my mother could do it three times I could at least give birth once! Yet too I was blessed to have a close friend who was a midwife who had nicely prepared me for what would be.
Everything seemed to be progressing well, at one point I remember the midwife telling me that she had called the doctor and we were waiting for him. Never had it occurred to me that something was “wrong”, maybe it was the gas or maybe being in the midst of the process or perhaps being oblivious however it would become clear as to why the midwife has seemed so stressed.
Being in the public system, I had no choice of which doctor would attend to me. However I had put it out to the universe that if I needed one, to please give me the best, and they did. The doctor arrived and told me that my baby was in the breech position (whose laughing now about patting the kids bum/head). Not once had it been picked up during my pre-natal check ups, she was only tiny maybe that was why.
He also told me that I needed to have a caesarean. I had been joking in the years prior to my pregnancy that if I ever fell pregnant that was the way I would go, however it was my closest, and mind you childless, friend who explained that our bodies prepare for birth and if I could it would be better to give birth that way.
It was her words, or perhaps combined with the gas, that gave me the courage to ask the doctor if I could please try to birth naturally. As my baby’s heart beat was strong and I was calm, he agreed on the proviso that if something started to change for the worse we would be going to surgery straight away. I agreed.
So we continued and he was amazing. He was calming and gave me the confidence that I could birth naturally in the breech position. When it came time to push out the little bottom came, I was asked if I wanted to touch the baby which isn’t me….however it occurred that I could find out the sex. It was a girl…
That had been the easier part of the process, as was birthing the rest of my beautiful little package. When it came to the placenta, I was scared…when a child is born breech their bottom is smaller than their head, so it is twice the “stinging’ sensation.
I am still so thankful for having a patient and calm doctor who was an amazing support, for he saved me not once but twice from surgery. He would tell me afterwards that because I couldn’t “birth” the placenta they were about to send me.
He would also say that I was a textbook case as to why they should allow more women to birth children who are in the breech position naturally. I am not sure, however what I am sure about what I feel very blessed to have a doctor who listened to me and minimised his interference in the process before it was really needed.
Lisa xx
