Birth story - Charlotte and baby Poppy

During my pregnancy I read at least one of these birth stories every single day from about 20 weeks when I purchased the Positive Birth Company course. I was absolutely petrified at the idea of giving birth, especially because I’m the softest person ever when it comes to pain! Everyone always tells you it’s the worst pain in the world, and I was dreading it! However, after completing the course and reading all these lovely stories of water births, home births and just amazing experiences of people bringing their baby into the world I actually became exited to give birth (never thought I’d say that)! So much so, that I feel a kind of sadness that I didn’t end up experiencing natural labour as I had a planned c section.

My pregnancy was very straight forward, I had no sickness or tiredness.. the worst was the hip pain in the final weeks!! Oh and the ridiculously swollen feet.

I was lucky enough to have a healthy baby, but she was in the breech position from the very beginning. The midwifes told me not to worry as they can turn right up to the end and I tried all the spinning babies exercises and bouncing on the exercise ball but she was stubborn! At 37 weeks, a scan confirmed she was still breech, and I was offered a ECV to try to turn her which I turned down due to the pain and the likelihood of it not working!

At first I was offered a vaginal breech birth, but I wasn’t keen on the idea and in the end she became footling breech so this wasn’t an option anymore! She really didn’t want to budge. A C-section became our only option, and as much as I wanted the calming water birth I’d envisioned, I knew birth was unpredictable and the only thing that mattered was my baby arriving healthy and safe.

We planned the C-section for Monday 7th June. My boyfriend and I arrived at the hospital at 7am, and it honestly felt like Christmas morning x10000! We were going to meet our little girl in a few hours, and it was the best feeling ever! That was the best thing about having a section for me, knowing when and how our baby was coming into the world! I didn’t sleep much that night I was used to being poked by needles during pregnancy, but I was still nervous before each injection. So when the nurse came in to do the cannula for surgery I was terrified, I’d never had a cannula and it was very painful! But looking back, it was probably the most painful thing of the experience.

We were told we would be informed what time and order we would be going down to theatre, as there are 3 people a day scheduled so we would be first, second or third. When the nurse finally came back, she said “grab your stuff you’re going down to theatre now.” In the theatre I had to sit on the bed bent over so the anesthesiologist could inject the spinal block into my back. This is the point I panicked in front of the nurses and surgeons and they allowed my partner to come into the theatre to hold my hand and he reminded me of the up breathing I had practiced over the months and I calmed myself down enough for them to numb me. I was anticipating it to hurt a lot more than it actually did, and looking back it really wasn’t that bad!

During the surgery I had moments where I used the up breathing when I felt myself getting anxious. I wasn’t in any pain, it was just a very strange sensation. At 9.57am, I saw my boyfriend start crying and I turned to see our baby daughter being carried across the room. We played our own music, and Poppy was born to Coldplay- The scientist. I did request delayed cord clamping in my birth plan and I was upset they didn’t do this. They cut the cord and my boyfriend cut it shorter, which isn’t what I wanted but he was still happy with the experience. They handed her to me straight away, and she stayed with me until we left the theatre and I was wheeled to our own room for monitoring.

The whole surgery lasted 45mins- 1hour. I tried breastfeeding as soon as we were back to the room (still bf at 5months for anyone worried about breastfeeding after a C-section) and I got my tea and toast

The whole experience of the c section was lovely, even though I had wanted a natural birth. It was very chilled, the staff were lovely and friendly and they really helped me feeling calm and relaxed as I got very worked up when I went into the operating room. I am hoping to have a VBAC for my next birth, as I would like to experience a natural birth, and also there are more risks with multiple C-sections, and I plan on having more children.

Recovery was hard during the first 4 weeks, as I was in a lot of pain and it was a struggle to get out of bed and walk about. However, my partner took 4 weeks off work and helped with everything around the house so I could focus on healing and feeding my baby keeping on top of the pain relief made it bearable, and after 4 weeks I felt back to normal and was going on daily walks with my little princess and my dog.

I just want to thank the Positive Birth Company for helping me to stop fearing childbirth and I hope I can use more of the techniques in my next pregnancy! But to those having a C-section, it is still useful and your birth experience can still be beautiful.

Thanks for reading!