Birth story - Berna and baby Bastian

VERY POSITIVE experience, even though it took a day or two for me to process everything.

*Trigger warning* - Complications, Bub’s heart rate not recovering enough after contractions. Head at awkward position during pregnancy, some cranial swelling at birth. Born during Covid pandemic.

No excuses about this being long, the long ones were my favourites leading up to the birth!

Pregnancy

We decided we were ready to start our family in June 2020, even though we were mid pandemic...I always thought I’d have major issues falling pregnant because of Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and being on an oral contraceptive for about 2 decades 🙈 but because I prepared my body with a very thorough detox and only making use of the FAM method (Fertility awareness method) for contraception I fell pregnant pretty much on the first try and we picked it up immediately 🤣 it was a huge shock for us!

The pregnancy itself was uneventful, I had all the annoying symptoms, but nothing serious happened throughout. I wasn’t diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, but had to take some meds throughout the entire pregnancy to keep the nausea at bay. I also had some bum troubles, the kind that must not be named...nothing to do with constipation, my fibre intake is just fine 🤣 but the pressure and hormones means it suddenly escalated and got bad enough for me to be booked off work for a few days. Tip number 1: if you’ve ever had that before getting pregnant do everything humanly possible to keep it from reappearing...you’ll see why later.

Giving birth naturally always seemed like a kind of right of passage to me, something I wanted to achieve somehow...I do yoga and some meditation, so Hypno-birthing sounded like something worth investigating. I came across the Positive Birth Company somewhere and happened to subscribe. I was still on the fence about spending the money, but the Black Friday special came along and with Covid complicating all human interaction I jumped at the opportunity to get it at half price.

I’m one of those annoyingly over achieving planning people, which means I did everything I could to prepare for this birth. I tend to blame myself when things go wrong. So my mindset going in was this: All the preparing may or may not help, but it certainly can’t hurt & if the poo hits the fan I’ll know it wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do. I tried to bounce and stretch on my exercise ball once a day from very early on. I do open water swimming, so I kept hitting the pool about 3 times a week until 38 weeks, when Covid regulations allowed.

I have a bit of a raised BMI even though I’m quite fit and wanted to try to not gain excessive weight, something I thought was likely to happen. Funny enough gaining weight turned out to be a bit problematic for me. I think I gained at most 5kg and didn’t look obviously pregnant until about 8 months along, a pleasant surprise in the long run... I tried to do at least a bit of yoga on the days I wasn’t swimming. Incorporating some spinning babies exercises to make sure bub landed in the optimum position for birth. I was terrified of him being back to back because I had an anterior placenta.

Later on I started doing the peri massage reluctantly once in a while, but forced myself to do it more regularly in the last few weeks. I drank the raspberry leaf tea, started eating more dates and pineapple toward the end and even made careful use of the evening primrose oil capsules at the end of the third trimester. Right from the start I was convinced that this baby was going to come a bit early, I guess it’s a bit like me being convinced he was a boy right from the beginning…some things you just know I guess.

From around 32 weeks I started to get really uncomfortable, sometimes only for a little while each day and later more and more continuously. My main aim was just to make it to 37 weeks so I would be allowed to birth at the maternity clinic in Johannesburg, we only have the one, most people just give birth at hospitals in South Africa. Going the alternative route means you see a clinic midwife regularly throughout your pregnancy and then a mandatory visit to one of their Gynaes at 28 and 36 weeks. Because of Covid hubby could make it to some scans and appointments but not others. Luckily he was allowed to come with to the 36 week appointment, the Gynae scanned me, bub was in correct position and had already dropped into my pelvis quite a bit. I was signed off to give birth with the midwifes so there was much rejoicing!

At this stage I was really uncomfortable especially with PGP, squeezed bladder, period pain, back pain and Braxton-Hicks contractions once in a while. Also the bum troubles were back in earnest even though I was using prescription gel to keep it to a minimum. But we were excited that labour was imminent and everything would be over soon! In hindsight I think prodromal labour probably started up around this point. Fast forward to the 38 week appointment with our midwife. All the aches were less, but breathing was harder again. I was completely fed up and exhausted and ready for this baby to come out immediately, having had more and more practice contractions that didn’t amount to anything. I went there planning to ask for a stretch and sweep to hopefully get things started. However, much to our surprise bub had decided to pop out of my pelvis and right back up again. Our midwife didn’t bother with a VE as she could see he wasn’t coming any time soon and I was in tears. At this point I felt like I must just be acting dramatic as my body clearly wasn’t ready, see, me blaming myself for something silly again. This is the only time I had a big wobble with regards to checkups. I then got my homeopathic kit from my midwife, it included some calming granules and other potions, some of which she gave me on the spot to try and calm me down. She changed all the instructions and gave me the go ahead to take everything to the max to help this baby get a move on. At this point naturally the prodromal labour all but disappeared for a day or two. 🤦🏻‍♀️

We had to get tested for Covid at 38 weeks and isolate until the birth. So the Iast week I spent working from home. Hubby and I really wanted him to come on the weekend for practical reasons as well as physically being fed-up. Friday was my last day at work and I didn’t want to waste any of my unpaid maternity leave not working and just waiting for bub. It was also a long weekend. So that was the final bit of stress I had to counteract. On Friday some contractions slowly started to come back and all the aches and pains had returned. Hubby and I were trying absolutely every trick to get labour going and the oxytocin flowing. Pineapple, curry, dates, all the homeopathic stuff, including raspberry leaf extract on top of the tea I had been drinking. We watched a nice movie and went to bed as usual.

Saturday 20 March, Oxytocin day, dearest hubby decided it was GAME ON oxytocin and spent the whole day treating me like a queen. In the afternoon I forced myself to get up and we took the dogs for a walk at the park and bought ice cream from the stand there. I started losing a tiny bit of my mucus plug. We watched a Michael McIntyre show and laughed a ton. All in all a lovely stress free day. We went to bed as normal but I was feeling very sore and uncomfortable, so had 2 paracetamol before bed.

23:00: Chased hubby to spare bedroom after he complained about my snoring.

00:00 Midnight: Water broke in bed. Lost a bit more of the mucus plug. Send midwife a message but she’s obviously asleep. Start timing contractions. Hubby got up to go to the bathroom and found me up so I happily told him we were having our baby. Thinking it would be hours I sent him back to bed to get some rest.

01:00: Freya app said I was in established labour. This time I phoned the midwife and told her, she didn’t trust the app, so asked me to time them manually, I was supposed to do this for 40min, but luckily after 20min she asked for an update and couldn’t believe that I was having 5 in 10min already. This was around 2am, she immediately told me to get going to the maternity clinic but said that if I was less than 4cm dilated we would be sent home, it’s usually a 30min drive so I was hoping for the best, I woke hubby, we frantically loaded the last things into the car and sorted out the pets. By then contractions had ramped up quite a bit, but I still made him unpack the dishwasher so the dirty things could be put away before we left as his aunt would be coming over to feed the animals while we were away....priorities right 🤣

As we got to the car I realised hubby thought I would be sitting next to him, so he had packed some stuff on the backseat next to the car seat. I quickly told him that wouldn’t be happening so he had to reshuffle everything. We drove there with me on my knees clinging to the back rest. I tried my best to do the up breathing during the drive listening with my headphones. I immediately had to put it on 3 and 6 seconds and even then I struggled to make it through as contractions were full on by this stage. Luckily the drive was only 15 min as it was in the middle of the night.

03:15: arrived at maternity clinic, he dropped me in front of the entrance, luckily they were expecting me and I got taken to a room immediately in pjs with no mask in sight, from here the details get a bit fuzzy for me.

In my original version I lost control of my breathing completely at this point and never managed to get it under control. I was screaming like mad and in agony and thought I was in the red zone all the way through to the end, but after talking it through with hubby it turns out this is how it actually went…

When we got to the room they immediately made me lie on my back and did a VE, I’d never been so happy to hear the words 8cm in my life. They were trying to monitor baby’s heartbeat, but because the contractions were so intense and I was completely in the red they kept having to start again and I kept asking to be on my hands and knees instead. By the third time Hubby stepped up and insisted that they let me turn over. As the babies heart rate wasn’t recovering enough after contractions I was no longer allowed in the birthing pool, there went my peaceful water birth...in hindsight it went so fast I doubt they would have managed to fill it in time anyway.

At this stage apparently I had calmed down quite a bit and seemed focused and kept telling him that I was ok. Even though I was shaking like crazy, hormones I think? Suddenly it was time to push, I couldn’t believe it. I don’t recall the transition between the up stage and down stage. But my husband says he clearly saw it happening as he knew what to look out for. After a while on hands and knees my midwife suggested I try squatting instead so got down next to the bed but quickly went from squatting to leaning over the bed. There are pics of me leaning on the midwifes back for support while she was on her hands and knees on the floor, I have no recollection of this.

Around then we got told that the baby’s head was quite swollen and to not be alarmed when he came out. Apparently I was struggling with the pushing, I do remember that the down contractions were way milder and definitely more spaced out. This is the only time I felt a bit bullied as suddenly, and what felt like out of the blue, I was threatened with them phoning the Gynae in to do an assisted delivery if I didn’t get baby out in the next few minutes. Hubby and I both got a hell of a fright at this and when told to push hard that is exactly what I did. I knew at that point that I was going to tear but was worried for baby’s safety so did as asked. In hindsight I wish we had stopped here and asked them if this was now an emergency, because I suspect that it wasn’t quite that bad and I could’ve at least tried to do it slower as I really wanted to avoid getting stitches.

He came shooting out like a cannonball in one go. That was the biggest feeling of relief! Time of birth 04:32, we did delayed cord clamping and randomly sang Happy Birthday to him, and dad cut the cord. This is now my favourite video clip of all time 😍 He then did skin to skin while we were waiting for the placenta to be delivered.

Interestingly enough my contractions completely stopped when baby popped out and never came back. Waiting for the placenta took a while, I started worrying about surgical removal, but I was given the injection and finally the placenta came loose and plopped out. We were given a tour of the placenta and I then had to confirm that we didn’t want to take it home and do weird things with it, I even had to sign a form to confirm they should dispose of it. 😂

When checked over I had one small first degree tear that didn’t require stitches, but in the end it wouldn’t stop bleeding so they closed it up anyway. The other tear was probably second degree, but also only required 3 stitches. This was by far the worst bit of the whole labour process. For some strange reason they don’t use local anaesthetic, only a numbing spray, this obviously runs off if there’s other liquids like blood, so I didn’t find it especially effective. I was swearing like a sailor trying to get through that but somehow I made it.

After this my midwife helped me to have a shower and I got back into the bed for the first feed. Hubby and I were both in a bit of a shock because of how fast this baby came. We didn’t even have time to unpack anything let alone set up the room but we were happy that it was over and everyone was doing fine. I only realised afterwards that it didn’t even cross my mind to ask for pain relief, I was just focused on getting the baby out and knowing that things were going really fast so it would be over soon.

The private rooms at the clinic each have their own little garden and by the afternoon I was feeling well enough to go outside with bub and get a bit of fresh air.

Top Tips

Do not let bum troubles escalate, ever. If they are there, be sure it will be three times worse after labour. Luckily I preempted this and made sure to keep everything as loose as possible. Getting through the first few days after would’ve been an absolute nightmare if one happened to be blocked up on top of everything else.

This one I’ve read on this group a few times and then I still ignored it initially. Do yourself a favour and get a pack of incontinence pants, they are soooo much more comfy than the stupid mesh panties and you can still put pads in there to make them last longer.

Make sure to take your partner through the birthing bag so he can know where to find things and also be aware of what you packed. Even better would be to have a smaller bag of the main essentials so he can just throw everything out and grab as needed if you have a very fast labour. I took so much care to pack but didn’t bother to give him a tour 🤦🏻‍♀️

High energy snacks, energade, as well as the handheld fan and room spray would’ve made a huge difference as well as Freya counting on a speaker. But as I was barely able to speak I only managed to whisper and ask for some energade close to the the end. All the snacks and things did come in handy after the birth though. All thanks to the @positivebirthingcompany, this course is life changing in many ways!