Birth story - Emily and baby Isla

*Trigger warning* - reduced fetal heart rate, contractions, cholestasis, episiotomy, wrapped in cord, meconium.

Background

I wasn’t sure I would end up sharing my birth story, as on paper it might not seem that positive, or as though hypnobirthing actually came into play. I know, however, that when I was approaching my due date I was desperate to read stories from people who’d had similar experiences to me of induction for medical reasons, so thought it would be worth sharing mine

Pregnancy

We found out I was pregnant at the end of November, and it was a bit of a surprise! Although planned, it happened much quicker than expected, so we felt incredibly lucky (we only got married in September thanks to four postponements due to covid).

At about 6 weeks, I experienced pain in the lower left side of my stomach. I was referred for an early scan to rule out an ectopic pregnancy. Thankfully all was fine, the cause of the pain being attributed to my womb being tilted the wrong way and needing to gradually turn over the coming weeks. It was amazing to see her tiny, but strong, heartbeat so early on!

We told our families we were expecting on Christmas Eve, which was so special - and also essential, as at this point I was running back and forth to the bathroom with terrible nausea more times than I can remember - this lasted until about week 17.

Around week 9 I experienced bleeding. It was old blood, but still very scary to see! I was referred to a consultant (where I remained for the rest of my pregnancy.

The bleeding was put down to me having a hormonal blister at the entrance to my uterus ( I can’t remember the technical name!) and continued for about 9 or 10 weeks.

From around week 19 I felt pretty good - aside from catching covid in week 23 and an overnight hospital stay in week 35 because I overdid it swimming - I tried to remain active as much as possible during my pregnancy, and kept running (plodding) until week 36.

It was during this “honeymoon” phase that I discovered hypnobirthing. I’m a natural worrier, so I thought this would be a positive way of shifting my mindset. My husband bought me the PBC digital pack and I loved working through the videos and incorporating the positive affirmations and breathing techniques to my day. I had always been scared of giving birth, but the course empowered me and at times I actually felt a bit excited. I have always said I would do whatever was needed to ensure the safe arrival of our baby, and I would remain open minded in terms of pain relief. The course didn’t change this for me, but really educated me in the science of birth and how much control I have over my experience. I was also excited to pack all my favourite snacks for labour and my husband set to work on making a birthing playlist!

Week 32 is where things shifted again for me. I mentioned in passing at the end of a routine midwife appointment that I had some itching on my bump and a little oh my hands and feet. The midwife sent me to the hospital for bloods to rule out cholestasis. The results came back normal, but I was advised the test would need to be repeated in 2 weeks time, as with cholestasis, the itching occurs before the bloods alter.

In week 34, my blood results showed my bile acid levels had increased and had just tipped me over the threshold to be diagnosed with cholestasis. From this point, I had weekly blood tests and monitoring of the baby, and was prescribed urso. Despite this, my bile acid levels continued to increase each week. The highest they reached was 38, which is considered moderate and could have been much higher, but exceeds the maximum normal range of 15.

At 36+5 I had a growth scan as my consultant wanted to ensure baby wasn’t too small, she was measuring just below the 50th centile. This was when the consultant confirmed what we had been suspecting; that I would need to be induced because of the cholestasis. We had been prepared for it, but had expected it to be at week 39, however the consultant recommended I be induced at week 37.

Although an induction was not something I had wanted as I had only ever heard negative things from friends and online, using our BRAIN, my husband and I agreed this was safest for our baby, so an induction was booked for 4 days time, when I was 37+2. I wasn’t due to finish work for another 10 days, but they were amazing and let me finish that day.

Induction, labour and birth

On the day of my booked induction, I phoned the hospital as instructed to confirm my appointment, however was informed that there wasn’t space on labour ward, so my induction would need to be rebooked for 2 days time. Needless to say we were really disappointed as we had psyched ourselves up for that being the day, but it couldn’t be helped. The hospital offered for me to come in for monitoring that day for peace of mind, which I accepted. When I was there, I was asked to come back for more monitoring in the morning, and was added to a “reserve list” in case a space came up for induction.

The following day I returned to the hospital for baby’s monitoring, and the doctor advised that a space was available and it was mine if I wanted it, so I accepted. At this point I felt extreme panic that I would soon have to give birth, and excitement that we would be meeting our baby - although I was warned the induction process could take several days.

The pessary was inserted at 15:00 and my husband and I passed the time by going for walks, watching Netflix and playing FRIENDS trivial pursuit until he had to leave.

Timings were a bit of a blur from this point onwards, but I was experiencing the worst heartburn I had ever had, so requested some gaviscon. I was also starting to experience a lot of cramping and couldn’t get comfortable at all. At 2am the midwife ran me a bath and I remember saying to her “if it hurts this much now, how will I cope when I’m in labour?” Well, it turns out I was, but I wasn’t experiencing the pattern of surges I had learnt about. The bath did very little to ease the pain, so I got out pretty quickly and requested some paracetamol. This helped enough for me to drift into a light sleep.

At about 05:30 I woke up due to what felt like a balloon popping inside me (strangest feeling ever!) and knew my waters had broken. Straight away I had a desperate need to go for a poo, so shuffled to the bathroom across the corridor. When I was on the toilet I felt the most intense cramping I’ve ever felt and was really hot and shivery. Eventually I felt able to stand up, but only got as far as the sink before the cramping was back. This pattern continued as I made my way back to my bed, not being able to walk more than 5 steps before doubling over. When I eventually made it back to my bed, I pressed the buzzer to call the midwife. She helped me fit my TENS machine (it was too late for this to have any impact!) and said baby would need to be monitored and I would need to be examined. I don’t remember much of this part, except that I screamed incredibly loudly when she examined me, resulting in being offered gas and air, which I accepted.

The midwife advised that she could not feel my cervix, so it was either fully dilated, or not dilated at all. As you can guess, it was the former.

Things got scary though when it came to monitoring the baby, as her heart rate was dropping considerably at the tail end of each surge. I’m aware that there were a few people coming in and out of my cubicle, including the consultant who booked my induction. One of them told me that it was time to have my baby and it needed to happen fast due to her heart not liking the contractions. I babbled something about my husband going to work and they asked for my phone so they could call him - apparently they told him to get to the hospital as quickly as possible, but to drive carefully!

At this point I was begging for an epidural but was told it was too late and there wasn’t time, so I birthed my baby using only breathing and gas and air! I never set out to do this, as I think pain relief is there for a reason, however I am incredibly proud of myself that I was able to do this.

Once on labour ward I had the urge to push immediately, but my surges were back to back, leaving no time to rest and recover in between, which added further strain to baby’s heart. The doctor asked if they could give me an injection to slow the contractions, which I agreed to.

Soon after (I think?!) my husband arrived, and I noticed there were about 12 people in the room, which I realised meant things were potentially quite serious. Although I was pushing as hard as I could (using down breathing) baby wasn’t coming quickly enough, so I had to have an episiotomy and agreed to the use of a ventouse suction cap. Once this was in place I asked if baby would be out on the next push and they said one of the next few, but I found an extra strength from somewhere and was able to push her out on my next surge.

My husband was the one to tell me we had a baby girl. They had to take her for some checks due to her size, decreased heart rate (likely caused by her being tangled in her cord) and for meconium being passed during labour. Thankfully all was okay, apart from some low glucose levels, and I was able to feed her and have a lot of skin to skin as I was stitched up. I had the injection to birth the placenta.

On reflection

Although this was far from a birth I had in mind (not that I had a clear picture, beyond having a healthy baby - so in this sense, everything went completely to plan ) I feel that hypnobirthing empowered me to make the decisions that were right for our baby, using our BRAIN. The breathing was also invaluable (although with rolling surges it was a bit hard to keep on top of the up breathing count!) but most of all, it helped reduce my fear of birth and shifted my mindset to be positive, even excited about the prospect of birthing my baby - and that is something I never thought I would say! My biggest disappointment was the fact that I didn’t get to eat any of my labour snacks that I had taken so much care to choose and we didn’t listen to a single song on our playlist - it’s okay, we have been playing it to Isla since she’s been home!