Birth story - Claire and baby Toby

Following on from the positive section post from last night. I finally feel ready to do a short post on my birth experience. Up until now I felt I couldn’t post my experience on here as it wasn’t exactly the positive and natural birth that everyone wants to hear about.

However I have now realised that it was positive! I came out of it alive with a beautiful healthy baby. All the factors which lead up to by baby’s birth where there for a reason maybe by coincidence or I believe fate.
This was my 4th baby but 1st hypnobirthing experience. My first was a unplanned section and my 2nd and 3rd were vbacs. My 3rd was actually a fantastic birth I just wish I was more in control mentally hence why I originally looked into hypnobirthing.

My 4th pregnancy was uneventful overall, just tiring down to having 3 other children at home and being a night shift worker. Baby decided to turn Breech at 30 weeks, I tried every method to turn him but nothing worked. I declined the ecv after using my BRAIN as for us as a family the risks outweighed the positives. My consultant was very supportive and okayed for a vaginal breech delivery. The only downside to this was that the rule is ‘hands off the breech’ so induction is not allowed. The theory is if baby’s don’t turn and remain breech then this is for a reason. This made me slightly nervous for my much wanted ‘natural’ birth as he was looking at being over 4kg at 40 weeks and I knew they wouldn’t let me go much over and then a section would be scheduled.

I started loosing my mucus plug at 39 weeks and at 5.15am at 39+2 my waters went at home. Now I usually progress pretty quickly once my waters go. Both my 2nd and 3rd labours started this way and my 3rd was born exactly 2hrs 20min after I woke up and my waters went with her.

We headed to the hospital where the consultant confirmed he was still breech. At this point my contractions stopped and I was only 1cm. I got transferred to delivery anyway as it was my 4th baby and I progress quickly. Plus I think everyone was slightly on edge with him being breech. I tried everything to get the contractions going again. The consultant that was on, on the day seemed quite twitchy allowing a vaginal breech birth especially with a previous section scar. We used my BRAIN again and reached a happy medium. If contractions had not started again 12 hours post water breaking then section it was. This made sense for a number of reasons. Especially as due to infection they will only let you go 24hrs after waters breaking anyway plus any type of induction was off the cards due to him being breech. My instincts were also telling me he is breech for a reason and I’m not progressing for a reason - little did I know at that point my instincts were right.

After no progression at 6pm we headed down to theatre for our unplanned section. I asked for delayed cord clamping and immediate skin to skin. At 6.47pm on the 11/6/18 I gave birth to a healthy 8lb 1oz boy!
This is were things started to not go to plan and I now feel that my baby saved my life by being breech and my labour not progressing.

We couldn’t do delayed cord clamping or immediate skin to skin as I began bleeding quite heavily. It turns out I had placenta accreta - where the placenta had embedded itself deeply into my uterus wall. It is extremely rare. After multiple injections. A code red alert, 6 surgeons scrubbed in, and about 30 other people trying to stabilise me and a 2.5 litre blood loss, my placenta was out. I thankfully remained conscious throughout and i believe my up breathing help with that. My husband was sent out the room with baby - he was quite traumatised by it all. The only thing I could focus on was staying awake and my up breathing. We had to stay in high dependency overnight and then on a ward for a further 4 days before they were happy to send me home.

But thanks to by baby’s stubbornness and the section which my instincts told me to have, I’ve come through it fairly unscathed. If I had gone against advice and my instincts, yes I may have got my vaginal delivery but I would have still bled out and I would have lost a lot more blood and would have been a lot worse off as I wouldn’t have been already in theatre.

Some people may not see this as a positive experience and I don’t wish to scare anyone one but it was my experience and up until now I have felt failed by my body and sad that my last baby’s birth ended the way it did. However I feel that it highlights how important it is that we trust OUR instincts, OUR body’s and most importantly we trust OUR baby’s. Everything happens for a reason and my baby saved my life essentially. My body didn’t fail me, it created life which in turn saved mine. Picture below about a minute after he was born and about 30 seconds before the drama all kicked off.

Stay positive - your body’s are amazing! It doesn’t matter what type of birth you end up having️.