My Birth Story

Antenatally, I had a standard, pretty non-eventful pregnancy. We conceived naturally and my first trimester was ok. I was fatigued some days and had mild nausea but experienced no food aversions or vomiting. At 13 weeks, I completed the K10 assessment with my midwife to monitor for any mood disturbances. I remember scoring ‘perfect’ and thinking, wow, I am feeling mentally well and strong, this is great! Jed and I did very extensive genetic testing, and we had nothing to be concerned about with our results as I was a carrier for nothing tested. I was also diagnosed with a two vessel umbilical cord, this caused unnecessary stress and changed nothing for me and my baby’s development in the womb.

Second trimester was a breeze, I carried well and even went to Bali on a Baby Moon with my best friend who was also pregnant with twins. I experienced some back pain towards the end of the second trimester but other than that, I remember telling people, “I actually love being pregnant”.

Third trimester rolled around, and my mindset began to change for the worse. The looming birth gave me a lot of anxiety as I had never been in pain before. I remember the midwife telling me “The pain has a purpose, and it is not like stubbing your toe pain, it is different”. I remember thinking, oh ok, maybe it isn’t that bad.

I felt I had my best foot forward for a great birth, as a low-risk pregnancy, I was part of the Midwifery Group Practice (MGP) and even hired one of my closest friends to be my doula to support me through the birth so I could live out my dream of an unmedicated water birth. To combat my deep-rooted anxiety, I began to excessively research how to have the best birth. I became a little obsessed and it was all I thought about. I completed my spinning babies exercises every night to get the baby into the perfect position. I spent hours online reading articles, completing hypnobirthing and mindfulness and learning how to “breathe through contractions” and was sold the golden ticket on the best and only way we should be birthing. Anything medicated and the “cascade of interventions” should be avoided at all costs! When my mum would tell me, “Trust me, just get the epidural” I would become very defensive telling her a million and one facts why epidurals weren’t good and that a natural non-medicated birth was the way to go. I wanted to believe so bad that if I planned everything to the T and had the perfect A team going into the birth, that nothing bad would happen to me and my baby and I would have the birth of my dreams. Unfortunately, this toxic positivity and rigid thinking led me to be very traumatised with the birthing experience that I had. I started experiencing panic attacks in the later part of the third trimester but supressed and ignored this and didn’t seek psychological support. I didn’t want to accept that I was utterly petrified of birth, why should I be when I was lucky enough to have such a brilliant team with me. I was lying to myself.

I lost my mucus plug slowly from Friday to Sunday a few days before my due date. I called my assigned midwife who had been with me my whole pregnancy journey on the Sunday to tell her, and it was then she told me she was going to be on leave on my due date and likely not be present for my birth. My heart sunk; my dream team had lost a member…. Of course, at around 11pm on the Sunday night, I started feeling contractions, they were mild to moderate at around 1 minute long and were between 4-7 minutes apart with no real rhythm.  The contractions were bad enough that I needed to breathe through them and couldn’t sleep that night. My lovely first bender! The next morning as the sun rose the contractions lessened and were far and few in between. I called my doula who reported this was normal for contractions to dissipate when the sun rises in early labour. She encouraged me to go about my day and it was likely that the contractions would return tonight, and I would be on! Ready to meet my baby in no time. So, I did, with mild contractions every so often, Jed and I went and did a grocery shop and got a pink slip for the car as rego was about to run out the next day. I curb walked up and down Brookvale, hoping to get baby low and engaged ready to rumble tonight! I was scared and excited but also exhausted from not sleeping the night before. That night, Jed and I cheersed to our last night together as two and I went to bed at 8.30pm to catch up on some sleep. My body and my baby had other plans…. At 9pm I was jolted awake by a strong contraction that felt quite intense. I breathed through it then got out of bed to grab my tens machine. The contractions were strong and slowly became closer and closer together. I timed my contractions from 9pm-1am before I rang my doula at 1am stating “I think it’s time!” My contractions are consistently 4 minutes apart. My doula came over close to 2am and supported me through contractions until the sunrise. Again, after not a wink of sleep, my contractions started to taper off with the rising of the sun. I called my mum at 7am and became extremely emotional, “Mum it happened again, the contractions have tapered off again, I am so effing tired”. “Darling”, she said, “You have to go to the hospital now and get checked, you can’t go on like this”. Hearing my mums voice made me whimper like a little girl, I knew she was right…

When we arrived at the hospital at around 8am, my doula advocated for me to have the room with the big bath so I could labour and potentially birth my baby in there. We were given the best room and a familiar midwife in the MGP who suggested to check my dilation. I was 3cm.. I was gutted and let down by my body, how could this be? The midwives gave me morphine and told me to “catch up on some sleep”. Yeh well how can someone sleep having regular contractions with a bit of morphine. So again, three hours and not a wink of sleep. After the three hours passed the midwife gave me two options, Go home, I laughed and said “ah yep, option 2 please”. Option 2 was induction to help with the dilation. I opted for this without hesitation, there was no way I was risking going home and not getting any sleep. So, the midwife broke my waters and straight away there was a brown sticky substance that I observed run down my leg… I had researched this and yep, it was meconium in the waters. My dream of a water birth was over. My poor baby was stressed, and this made me stressed. I thought about this for a millisecond before I was struck with the most intense contraction yet. It was on, still at 3cm dilated, we decided not to go on the oxytocin drip as these contractions were so intense, I had to be meeting my baby soon! I laboured for 4 hours using everything in my toolkit, I was in the shower, I was on the birth ball, I was on the mat, it was the most insane intense pain I had every felt, but I was in the zone. At the four-hour mark, my body and mind were so exhausted after two nights of no sleep, I went against everything I had planned and asked for the epidural. I felt so disappointed in myself and begged as if the answer would be no. The midwife checked my dilation, again and I had only opened 1 more cm.. I was 4 f%cking centremeters dilated. What the actual f#$%!!! The midwife immediately agreed and got the anaesthetist in.

A lanky, blonde man with funny glasses walked in and introduced himself. My doula telling him how much of a “warrior” I had been in this long labour. His response shocked us all, he said “I don’t know if she is a warrior”. I was in too much pain to respond, I leant over the pillow and didn’t move like he asked, having contractions every minute, wincing and trying not to move. After what felt like a lifetime, he asked me to lie down to do the ice test, asking if I could feel the ice down my body. My response shocked him, “yes I can feel everything”. Almost annoyed at me, he responded, “are you sure?” to which I very firmly replied “yes, I can feel everything including the contraction I am having right now”. As if I had bruised his ego, he asked me to get back into my seated position over pillow as he poked and prodded my back again. It was only later that the student midwife told me she had sit down during this time as he was “butchering” my back and it was “hard to watch”.

Once the epidural finally set in, I could relax. After 48 hours of pain, I welcomed a break from the pain. I rested and closed my eyes for a second before the midwife woke me up suddenly and said “the baby’s heart rate isn’t great and you’re now 10 cm dilated, it’s time to push!”. Even though I was mentally, physically and psychologically exhausted, I knew this was my last effort I need to put in until I could meet my beautiful baby. I pushed for about 20 minutes before the OB’s mentioned assisted delivery. After two failed vacuum attempts, forceps, severe tearing and an episiotomy my baby girl came out with a temperature. The female OB said she had entered the world with her hand next to her head and was the reason for my difficult, long and painful labour. She was in a terrible position, despite my militant engagement in my spinning baby’s exercises.

Lova spent a short while on my chest before they took her away for testing and told me she had a temperature likely from the long and arduous labour and was going to be taken to the NICU. In the same breath the doctor also told me my baby had hip dysplasia and would need to be in a harness for at least 12 weeks. I was shocked and so anxious that it was 10pm, I couldn’t walk, and I knew Jed would need to leave soon as he wasn’t able to stay the night.

I want to preface that without the amazing support of my doula and partner, Jed, I wouldn’t have survived the 50 hours of labour. My doula kept me centred, calm and sane through the extreme back labour I was experiencing. Looking back there was nothing outrageous that happened to me in a medical sense, thousands of women probably had a similar birth story to me and didn’t bat an eye lid, but what let me down was my rigid mindset. I was unfortunately my worst enemy in this psychological battle. I was sucked into the toxic positivity of being able to breathe through contractions and that if I used my cognitive reasoning that I could avoid the cascade of interventions. I quickly learned that birth is out of our control and no amount of education could have prepared me for it.

My hospital stay was also not a positive experience for me. I stayed 2 nights on the ward without Jed and then 2 nights in the NICU where Jed was able to stay. Due to my extreme tearing and episiotomy I struggled to sit or stand with my baby but was rarely offered help. I didn’t know to stay on top of my medications, be consistent with the ice packs and therefore the pain down there was extreme. After three nights of no sleep during my labour, I hardly caught up on the ward and was delirious.

I wish that I had sought helped earlier for my antenatal anxiety and tokophobia (fear of birth) as following the birth of Lova, I spiralled into a dark place filled with extreme hypervigilance, rage and insomnia. Lova was also an extremely unsettled and hungry baby and when she was awake, she was crying or cluster feeding. I was later diagnosed with PTSD from the birth and postnatal anxiety and was put on a low dose antidepressant. A year later after engagement in therapy, I have been able to come off my medication. I feel like myself again. I am stronger than ever.

I was glad that when I did seek help that I was treated quickly and responded well to medication and therapy. But I wonder whether understanding the existential crisis that pregnancy and birth could precipitate might have helped me avoid some of the shame and self-loathing.