Birth story - Tara and baby Poppy

So this is my 2nd positive birth story on here, with my first being for my son 3 years ago, and now our daughter Poppy. I hope it helps provide some reassurance for those facing an elective section.

Pregnancy

As my 2nd pregnancy and with a 3 year old running around at home, this pregnancy was certainly tougher! Morning sickness was worse and lasted longer, I experienced pelvic pain in the 2nd trimester and just generally felt exhausted and ‘heavy’. That said, it was a low risk and uncomplicated pregnancy. Baby was measuring on the 90th centile and from 30 weeks nobody really knew what position she was in. It changed at each appointment: head down, transverse, breech, oblique - we had it all!!

Finally at 38 weeks we had a scan which confirmed that, like my first child, she was also breech!! They asked if I wanted to try to turn her but using my BRAIN I said no as it didn’t work last time as there was clearly a reason I’d ended up with 2 breech babies!

A vaginal delivery was not discussed but I had already done my own research and decided a repeat c-section was the right decision for me and my baby

I was booked in for 39 + 5 weeks

The night before, I suddenly felt really overwhelmed and anxious - how was life going to be with this new addition to our little family and what would the recovery be like 2nd time round??? This is where my up breathing came in!! Although I got zero sleep that night, I used my breathing to keep myself calm.

Interestingly I also started to get surges that evening, although they stayed irregular until the operation. I think either way, that was going to be the day she was coming!

On the day of her birth, we arrived at 7am and met the team looking after us (surgeon, anaesthetist, midwife and maternity support worker) and walked down to the theatre at 11.50

Although I felt anxious, as soon as the spinal went in I felt all tension melt away and immediately became excited, happy and very chatty!! We discussed this during the surgery as I asked if the spinal has a sedative effect but they said no, it’s probably acts like a muscle relaxant and helps your brain to relax as you can no longer feel that tension. Thought that was really interesting!!

The anethetist kept talking us through everything and our baby girl was in our arms within 5-10 minutes.

From that moment I completely forgot I was in theatre and the team all backed away, leaving us to enjoy the moment. It almost felt like there was nobody else in the room. I suddenly realised music was playing and the team kept noise to a minimum so we could just enjoy our baby. I even suggested they should do more surgery’s like this where they just hand people a baby or puppy to cuddle to distract them

We went back to recovery where Poppy had her first feed, and then back to the ward.

I was discharged within 24 hours with diclofenac and paracetamol. The first 24 hours after that were a bit tough and painful but by the next day I was sat downstairs in an armchair, pretty comfortably.

Baby Poppy has fed like a dream and at her day 10 weigh had exceeded her birth weight by 4oz. I’m up and about without any medication, although taking it easy so no heavy lifting and plenty of rest!

As I said at the start, although after 2 births I haven’t experienced established labour, I have 2 very positive experiences of my babies being safely delivered in to this world, at the hands of expert teams, with a positive recovery journey too. I hope this helps anyone facing an elective section which was as far away from their birth plan as possible.