My Birth Experience was Traumatic

Being 41 weeks pregnant in the summer is rough. You're already a week past your due date, and the hot weather doesn't do anything for your already swollen ankles and back pain.

Since I was in excruciating pain during the weeks following up to my due date, my midwife was going to talk to me about a possible induction if I was still pregnant at 41 weeks. I didn’t really want to be medically induced, so I was constantly using “natural” ways to induce, like walking, raspberry leaf tea, and spicy food.

I was getting very impatient about meeting our new addition to the family after making myself think that since I've already had a baby, it’s not likely I’ll be over due with this one. At least that's what I was constantly told. I was definitely wrong when I reached 40 weeks and still having no sign of going into labour. I learned the hard way that you should never compare two pregnancies. Even though my labour was not as intense as the first time, the delivery was much worse and not at all what I had planned.

I chose to have a midwife this time around because I knew they would be the ones to deliver my baby, rather than having a random doctor who I just met. I was told that there would only be the midwife and one other nurse in the room. I was excited to have a much more simple birthing experience than the last time I gave birth where I had to have an episiotomy, and my son being assisted by a vacuum, then rushed into the NICU because they thought he might have caught an infection. I really didn’t want anything like that to happen this time, and I didn’t think it would since I was always told that your second birth is often easier than your first. Again, I was wrong...

On August 14th at 8am, I began getting minor, irregular contractions that were lasting 30-60 seconds long every 5-10 minutes. I waited to see if these were false at first, as that's pretty normal to happen at the end of pregnancy. However, when they lasted more than a couple of hours, I knew this was early labour I was experiencing.

I called my midwife in the evening to let her know I was in labour, but it wasn't until about 11pm that night I finally went to the hospital to see how far dilated I was. She checked my cervix and said I was about 3-4 cm dilated, but I should probably go home to rest and wait for these contractions to increase in length. I received some morphine which allowed me to go into a heavy, deep sleep between each contraction (for 5 minute intervals, but I guess that’s better than nothing!)

At around 3am is when my contractions were becoming excruciatingly painful to the point where I was in tears. I called my midwife back and she said she’d meet me at the hospital. Once I got to the hospital, I was quickly moved to my room where I would spend the next several hours trying to push out a baby.

I made it very clear I wanted an epidural as a part of my birth plan, so my midwife made sure I received this as soon as we arrived at the hospital. Once the medication set in, I couldn’t feel my contractions anymore so I could rest for a bit before becoming fully dilated. My midwife broke my water to help speed up the dilation process which helped a lot. Everything so far was going pretty smoothly and I felt confident I was going to have an easy delivery until it came time to push.

Once I was 10cm dilated I began pushing during every contraction, but for some reason I couldn’t push hard enough (I thought it was because of the epidural at the time). After failing to push baby out for quite some time, my midwife and nurse decided to feel the baby’s position to indicate if that might be the cause of why I was having such a difficult time. Turns out he was in a pretty awkward position, but I still tried as hard as I could to push. No matter how hard I tried however, he wouldn’t go past my pelvis. Exhaustion was beginning to take over at this point, and after my temperature was taken, I also had a slight fever. My partner began putting cold wet towels on my forehead to cool me down.

The nurses suggested other positions I could try to push baby out too, like attaching a bar on the bed and pulling the upper half of my body up during every contraction as I pushed. But still, nothing seemed to work.

A doctor ended up having to be called in (which I was told would only happen if there were any complications). My midwife explained how I might need assistance to help get the baby out, and the longer we wait, and since my water had been broken hours earlier, my baby was now more prone to getting an infection. This is exactly what had happened at my previous birth, so stress began to set in, while still being exhausted, I broke down into tears. I was really hoping that wouldn't happen again, and so tried pushing some more before the doctor got there.

Once the doctor arrived, he told me that my pushing wasn't working at all. After trying so hard to push for hours, and then being told it wasn't working wasn't the news I wanted to hear. It was decided that I'll either have to have an assistance birth (forceps), or if that doesn't work, an emergency c-section. Before I knew it there were over 10 people in the delivery room who were all going to assist with the birth. An anesthesiologist added more medicine to my epidural to make sure I was very comfortable and couldn't feel anything before they used the forceps to change baby's position and then help pull him out as I pushed.

The numbness kicked in quickly, and before I knew it, the doctor had my baby between the forceps and pushed him back into my uterus to turn him around. My partner said he could actually see him turning inside of me. Even though I was very numb at this point, it was still a very uncomfortable feeling. When he was in a good position, the doctor said we would have this baby out in two contractions. Relieved this was almost over, we waited until a contraction began, and I had to push while the doctor assisted with the forceps. After the first contraction, his head was out, and I remember screaming in pain because of the pressure. Finally, another contraction came, I pushed and was given an episiotomy, then baby was out! He was born at 2:37pm on August 15th weighing 10lb 2oz! Then it came clear that might have been another reason it was so difficult to push baby past my pelvis.

This has taught me a lot about why you shouldn't just assume that because you have had a baby before, that the next delivery is going to go a lot smoother. I didn't think my second birth was going to be anything like this, but now I know not to compare as each pregnancy, labour, and delivery are so different.

Shortly after Rowan's birth, I realized my dad, who drove 1.5 hours to meet his new grandson was waiting outside the hospital. Unfortunately we had to wait 2 hours for my numbness to go away before I could get out of bed to have a shower. Once I was able to walk, I decided to have a quick shower before my dad came up to visit, who was still waiting in the parking lot excited to come up whenever I was ready. My midwife walked with me to the shower where I was excited to finally get all cleaned up.

After 5 minutes, however, the room began to spin, and I had to hold tightly on to the bars in the shower so I wouldn't fall to the ground. Luckily my midwife was coming to check on me, and saw how pale my skin was, as she assisted me out of the shower and pulled the emergency line. Within seconds there were 5 other nurses who came running in to help bring me back to my bed.

I decided that I should probably stay in bed for a little while longer, as my dad came up to visit our newest addition to the family. ♥︎

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Thank you so much for reading my birth story. Even though it was pretty traumatic for me, this little man was worth it.