Caroline had a good-sized, persistent Occiput Posterior baby, a midwife who was not just unsupportive but an active nuisance, she was 3 weeks and 1 day postdates, but she still managed to give birth the way she wanted - at home, in water. Her baby didn't turn in labour, so she was born face-up... quite an achievement!
My fourth baby, Mia, was delivered at home at 43 weeks + 1 day, in a birth pool, with no complications. However, I have some mixed emotions about the experience.
It was the support I found with a homebirth group online that galvanised my resolve to push for a homebirth despite huge pressure to go into hospital for induction. God Bless the Internet!! The last weeks of my pregnancy were absolute hell on earth because I lived in terror of facing a repeat of the horrible hospital induction I had endured with my third child.
All the health professionals were waving shrouds over me, but I knew from what I had read that the risks for me were not as great as they foretold, especially as all evidence in my family pointed towards long gestations as totally normal for us. Of my own four children, 3 were born post-42 weeks. I was beginning to crack towards the end, as was my husband, so the castor oil was the last chance to have Mia at home. It worked!! Hurrah. But I was also physically ready to have my baby by that point, being 2-3cms dilated. I simply hadn't been ripe a week earlier.
I went into what they call prelabour at about 7.30pm Tuesday evening. I was getting regular, but not painful, contractions and knew something was happening, but that it wasn't happening fast. I put on the TENS machine and Phil began to fill the pool. The midwife came round and assessed me at about 9pm and after a while told me to rest, so I watched Richard Burton in the Cassandra Crossing (rather morbid choice of film but all that was on - we only have 4 channels) and dozed on the sofa.
At about quarter to 2 an enormous contraction got me up. After that they came much faster and harder so Phil rang the midwife to come back. She didn't arrive till 10 to 3, by which time I was going to get in the pool whether she was there or not. It really hurt! I was growling and howling as quietly as possible (mother-in-law and three kids asleep upstairs), leaning over my birth ball (a large 65cm diameter exercise ball which allows you to rock) and yelling at Phil to rub my back. Mia had been posterior for the entire pregnancy; I wanted to turn her as 'Back' labour is regarded as more painful.
I tried very very hard to turn her for weeks but she simply would not shift. I wish I had known that it was possible to give birth naturally to a posterior baby, because it became a source of distress that I couldn't move her, and contributed to my overall stress.
"Posterior" - occiput posterior, which means the baby's back is next to the mother's back, and the baby is facing out towards its mother's tummy. See "Get your baby lined up" for more information.
My midwife was not quite how I would have liked. She seemed quite flustered and pedantic about all the checks. I thought we had agreed on no unnecessary internal examinations, but despite my obviously long, drawn-out and regular contractions, which should have told anyone I was motoring, she insisted.
Anyhow, eventually I jumped in the water. It was amazing. It was warm and welcoming and so supportive. The pain stopped for a few moments and the nausea went away. The pain soon returned, but somehow it was more manageable. I started by squatting upright, but again my midwife interfered saying I should lean forward over the edge. I'm sure I would have done this myself soon enough and I resented not being allowed to find my own way.
The pain was getting more intense and I shouted for gas and air (entonox) which didn't seem to want to help me much. Later I found out it hadn't been turned on enough.
With each contraction I could feel the labour progressing. I could feel Mia moving down into my pelvis and whilst not quite ready to push, I knew I soon would be. Then the midwife wanted to hear the baby's heart. I had to stand up out of the water. She couldn't hear the baby at all. She kept looking. I wasn't worried at first but as she searched and searched with no joy I began to wonder if the baby had died after all. I had to get right out of the water and lie on the ground. A second midwife had arrived by this point. She seemed a lot calmer.
It took midwife 1 ages to eventually find a heartbeat but it was very slow - 80bpm. I thought I was going to deliver Mia on the floor and was desperate to get back in the water. It must be how a dying fish feels after it has been landed. She decided to phone an ambulance. As she did so the second midwife listened to Mia's heart and it came back up to a more normal speed of 120. She tried to reassure midwife 1 but the ambulance was called regardless.
I found the pool being a safe haven, which is why being hauled out of it for foetal heart monitoring was so horrid. Of course they could not find Mia's heart rate easily because of her position.
I got back into the water to wait for the ambulance, silently cursing the pointlessness of going to hospital when the baby was coming. It seemed like moments later my midwife wanted me back out of the water to check the heart rate. I could feel the contractions changing to more pushy feelings. The baby was going to come. I could hear it in my screams which were long and low like a cow mooing. Phil argued with my midwife saying that if there was nothing they could do why move me again? After all, the ambulance was on its way. Meanwhile midwife 2 was by my side and I looked at her and she affirmed what I was thinking, that Mia would be with us before there would be a chance to move me to an ambulance. She seemed to be on my side, listening to me and my non-verbal communication, while midwife 1 was more worried about measurable data, the collection of which was simply going to interfere with my labour.
I was so convinced that midwife 1 was going to interfere with every step that when Mia crowned I screamed at the midwife to leave me alone and apparently she was nowhere near me! After her head was out, everyone helped me to sit back on my haunches. Looking down into the water I saw Mia's face was looking up at me. She had never turned and was being born posterior. I gently guided the rest of her out and up onto my shoulder where I was thrilled to feel her wriggle with life. Before I got a chance to feed her, however, she was whisked away, her cord cut and their data taken. I didn't feed her for nearly an hour after she was born.
I was in shock and was hustled out of the pool. I had wanted a natural 3rd stage, but was told my labour had been too fast. This was crap. It had been 2 3/4 hours, but I was in no state to discuss it at this point. I was just happy Mia was out and safe at long last. I was dazed. I couldn't move. So I got my shot and the placenta arrived shortly afterwards. I am convinced the midwife never intended me to have a natural 3rd stage, even though it was the one and only thing I had written on the birth plan page.
Despite being over three weeks late Mia had no meconium in her water at all. She was very dry and her skin flaked off like a lizard so there is no doubt she was inside for a long time. However, who ever heard of a baby dying of dry skin? She is happy and alert. She weighed 8lb 2oz.
I was glad my mother-in-law was there to watch the kids and to hold Mia shortly after the birth. She did not interfere at all and as the midwives retired to fill in their notes for ages I was glad she was there to give me a bit of loving care.
Well, there you have it. It wasn't all scented candles and atmospheric music but I did have my baby in my own space, despite, rather than because of, my midwife. It really hurts to have a baby and you are not in any condition to talk, let alone argue, so it is vital to have someone with you who can be your advocate, as I did in Phil.
Since the delivery I have recovered fast and am now pretty much back to normal. I did birth Mia myself and am so very pleased I did not go to hospital against my express wishes. A posterior induced labour could have gone very badly if I had been confined to a hospital bed.
If people ask me what my midwife was like I say it depends on what you want. If you like being reassured by the constant monitoring of your pregnancy then fine, but if you want someone who will support your belief that childbirth is a natural state of womanhood which can be trusted to result in the safe delivery of a baby then look somewhere else. I never really got on with my midwife from the booking-in appointment when she 'forced' me to be weighed against my express wishes. I should have switched midwives right then.
There is so much more I could say, but I think that I have pretty much covered it. I am glad I shall never have to endure those last weeks of pregnancy again. I can truly say they were absolutely awful because the health professionals' approach was that I was waiting for my baby to die, not for her to decide to be born. They were not interested in my personal case history as it pertained to gestation length. If I did get pregnant again, or if my daughter got pregnant, I would add an extra week to the last menstrual period date in order to give the baby enough time to be born without the unbearable pressure on the mother. I think I was suffering from prenatal depression in the end. I felt like I couldn't drink enough to replace the water lost in tears.
I am conscious that the midwives called the ambulance in order to resus the baby if needed, so perhaps I was being a little unfair. The ambulance did arrive, but they stayed outside until called. I never saw them at all. Also the midwives no longer regarded my labour as normal, being so very far 'overdue' therefore felt they would have been incompetent to simply sit back and watch as the might have done had I been born within normal parameters.
I hope the story helps others.
Best regards
Caroline C
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