Birth story - Kirsty and baby girl

*Trigger warning* - Blood loss & Transfusion, hypothyroidism, ECV, C Section

I dreamed of another unmedicated water birth in a local birthing centre just like I had in February 2020 with our first baby.

I had a straightforward pregnancy, just with a few more blood tests due to my hypothyroidism. It actually took us 13 months to conceive this time as I had undiagnosed hypothyroidism, which once diagnosed and my medication was at the right levels we conceived the next month 🥳

16th December 2022, 37+3 - Went for a growth scan due to measuring small. The first thing the lady said was "So your baby is currently breech, we'll talk about what that means at the end". The tears immediately started to sting my eyes, I knew what this meant and my dreams were crumbling. We were given 3 options - 1. Vaginal breech birth with 50% change of emergency C Section. 2. Elective C Section. 3. ECV to see if we can turn baby. Obviously, baby may still turn herself too. We had to make a decision and opted to try the ECV.

18th December - 37+5 - ECV. We spent hours waiting for our ECV as baby girls' heart rate was all over the place. Eventually, it was time. The obstetrician said I could ask her to stop at any point. She would try to turn baby for no more than 15 minutes. She would try twice to turn baby forwards then if still nothing she would do once backwards. The ECV was extremely painful for me, but I was determined to try for the full 15 minutes so I used my up breathing and squeezed the midwife and my husband's hands 😅 The ECV failed.

We used our BRAIN and then booked our elective C Section for 30th December, with the decision that if baby had turned by then I'd continue for natural labour and vaginal delivery.

30th December - We checked in at 7:30am, one of 4 elective C Sections that day. By 9:30am we were told we were 3rd on the list ☹️ we watched Netflix and tried to relax as much as possible. At 1pm the head midwife told us they were short staffed on the night shift, and we had to go home and come back in the morning, this upset me a lot.

31st December 2022 - We checked in at 7:45am and were the first to arrive. There was only 2 elective C Sections that day so I was confident this was it! At 9:20am the midwife came back and said "you're up, let's go!" I walked into the operating room with my husband and immediately burst into tears. I was nervous and sad that I still hadn't come to terms with the fact that this is how I was going to give birth!

I sat on the table and everyone was lovely, they put a cannula in and then the anesthetist did the spinal block - I didn't really feel this and thought it was absolutely fine. There were 12 people in the room and at this point they all introduced themselves with their name and their role in my procedure. They laid me down, inserted the catheter, and then once the spinal block had reached high enough they began. The anesthetist asked if I consented to cell salvage in the event of needing blood and I said yes, not thinking I'd need it. We put our playlist on which I created and wanted something really fun to sing along to, we had Bon Jovi, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys and even Elton John!

10:00am the first cut was made and at 10:03am baby girl was born. It was incredible! The anesthetist checked how I was feeling constantly and administered what was needed. My husband was over with baby and midwife and at this point I said I felt really faint and very sick. After some meds I perked up again. After a long time to close me up again and a lot of weird and kind of uncomfortable tugging, pushing and pulling I was transferred to another bed.

I was then told I'd lost 1.8litres of blood (explains nearly throwing up and passing out!!) I needed a blood transfusion but due to the volume required they didn't get anough from my cell salvage so had to call for some from the hospital bank.

I was taken into recovery with baby and husband and had another cannula put in the other hand for the transfusion. The midwife helped baby latch and we had our first feed ❤️ The radio was on and the song was Sweet child of mine 😍

We were kept on the high dependency unit for hours, had a Five Guys delivered for dinner and got transferred to the ward at 11:30pm and put in a bay next to the window. We settled in and my husband stayed to see the new year in with us before going home. At midnight we watched fireworks from the window which just felt really magical!

I stayed for 2 nights so I could get extra breastfeeding support and pain relief.

I am still accepting my fate and my dream which didn't come true, but I can honestly say the elective C Section was incredible. It was calm, and we all had fun and sang together and not like I expected at all. I would absolutely have an elective C Section again, it was so incredible and positive ❤️❤️