It was the heatwave of 2020 lockdown and, quite frankly, I was desperate to get this baby out, but of course my due date went by without a single symptom of going into labour. I was drinking gallons of raspberry leaf tea, bouncing on my ball, going for walks, acupuncture and reflexology, but nothing was happening so I accepted that he was clearly quite comfy in there so I’d need to wait.
At 40+6 I noticed that I wasn’t feeling much movement in the morning, which was usually his time for somersaults in my tummy, so I called the birth centre and they told me to come in. Luckily, he was moving and his heart rate seemed fine when they monitored it, but the movement wasn’t like it usually was so they discussed it and said, if it was OK with me, they’d like to get things going with an induction, and I was more than happy with that. My hospital used the balloon method for induction and they explained that the balloon would put pressure on my cervix and, in 12 hours, they would hopefully be able to break my waters to get things going. I was 1cm dilated when they put the balloon in at 6.30pm and at 7.30pm my waters broke on their own and I started getting contractions, and they very quickly became three minutes apart. This just so happened to be at the time of day when night staff changeover, so the next midwife to come in to see me was a new one and she had been told that an hour ago I was 1cm and not in labour, so she must have thought I had a very low pain threshold and she offered me paracetamol, which I took.
By 8pm I was in a world of pain and really feeling the urge to push, but they assured me that I couldn’t possibly be in the pushing stage having only been 1cm less than two hours ago, and they didn’t want to check as it was too soon so I asked if I could have an epidural so I could get some rest. Luckily, the ward was pretty quiet so I didn’t have to wait too long for the epidural to be administered, and once I had had some time to catch my breath and relax a little, the midwife wanted to check where I was at and then let me sleep, but the next thing I heard was ‘Oh my god, you’re actually fully dilated – no wonder you felt the urge to push!’
So now I was totally numb but being propped up ready to push this baby out. It was the strangest sensation trying to push without being able to feel a thing, but the midwives were brilliant at guiding me and they said he was coming down nicely. I was exhausted, and had to dig deep to find the energy to push so was very grateful to have been exercising throughout my pregnancy so knew I had it in me. All of a sudden, a few other people were coming in and out of the room, and I was aware that things might not be going quite as smoothly as they were letting on. A lovely doctor came in and I asked him what was going on and he said that he was watching the baby’s heart rate and it didn’t seem to be recovering so they were just monitoring it. He had a look during my next push and said he thought that he might have turned into a tricky position so off he went to get a portable ultrasound machine and he then could confirm that his shoulder was in the way, so he attempted to turn him during my next few pushes which was unsuccessful. There was chat about taking me to theatre for a C-section and, to be honest, by this stage I was so exhausted that I actually quite liked the sound of it all, so agreed and suddenly there was a lot of movement in the room.
My husband George got all dressed up in his scrubs and hat and I was wheeled along the corridor to a theatre. It felt quite overwhelming going from a dimly lit room with calm music to a brightly lit theatre with what felt like 50 people, but everyone was so nice and they allowed us to plug our own music into the sound system so I relaxed into it quickly. The main doctor said to me that he thought I could have a few goes at pushing with forceps just to see if that would work before going for the C-section, to which I agreed, but they made sure I had my spinal just in case C-section was the answer. That was the bit that took ages, but soon enough I was pushing again and they said his head was right there and I had to take their word for it. I was given an episiotomy to help create a little more space and that was something I had been very afraid of throughout pregnancy but in the moment I just wanted my baby out safely so it didn’t feel scary at all.
I could see the size of the forceps which was quite intimidating, but they were reassuring me that all they were doing was turning him with each push and with five big pushes, all of a sudden, my little baby was brought up and over my legs and placed on my chest! I was in disbelief and just kept staring at him. He was so tiny but had the biggest open eyes and he just stared back at me. I was so focused on him that I hardly noticed being stitched up and things; I was in my own little world. He had little marks on his face, but they actually mostly disappeared that day, and fully by the next day.
Once on the postnatal ward, and the spinal had worn off, I was told I could stand up and that was a strange experience – my legs felt like jelly and I was bleeding a fair bit so I didn’t walk too much, but it was nice that I could move a little more as I’d been in that bed for a long time at this point. As my feeling started coming back, I felt the dull ache of where the episiotomy had been stitched up, but as long as I kept on top of the painkillers, it was completely fine and actually a few days later I braved a little look with a mirror in the bathroom and, to my surprise, I couldn’t even find a scar, it was such a tiny cut.
Over the next few days I found it really helpful to sit on a donut cushion to take the pressure off the episiotomy, but it healed up really fast. I was pleasantly surprised. I am so glad that I was able to give birth with forceps, not least of all because it showed me that it wasn’t something to be feared. My recovery was great and there were absolutely no complications so a very positive birth all round, but what I did learn is that I dilate extremely quickly and this was confirmed in my second birth – no time to hang around!!
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