E’s Positive Birth Story: Hypnobirthing with a Ventouse & Episiotomy
E’s Positive Birth Story: Hypnobirthing with a Ventouse & Episiotomy
It’s been a whirlwind of a fortnight since she arrived. Everyone says that you can’t imagine what life is like with a newborn, and while that’s definitely true. So 2 weeks on and I’m finally finding the time to sit down and start writing my birth story….
I knew that not everything would go to ‘plan’ – and, of course it didn’t! But that’s not to say it wasn’t positive. In fact, I’d still call my birth a positive one even though it was missing a lot of the elements I’d envisioned and hoped for and even though there were interventions at the last stage. Because as we were taught, hypnobirthing can be compatible with all forms of birth - and it really was.
At 5.30am on my due date my waters broke, I was fast asleep in bed. I’d had an inkling this might happen, and I was terrified of ruining our mattress. So as soon as I felt that rush of water, I leapt out of bed and ran to the bathroom, or at least as fast as my pregnant body would carry me! I imagine it was a fairly spectacular water breaking moment, but it was too dark to see. I shouted through to my partner “My waters have broken!” and he called back: “Wow, well done!” I climbed back into bed with a large maternity pad in place and instructed him to try to get another few hours sleep, and I would too – we knew it would be a long day ahead.
I didn’t go back to sleep, laying there waiting for contractions to start. By 7.30am I was starting to feel occasional, very mild cramping sensations in my lower stomach. They felt very similar to mild IBS cramps which I get. We started timing the surges throughout the morning and found they were pretty irregular at 5 to 10 minutes apart and less than a minute long - but definitely happening.
I wanted to labour at home as long as possible and had the rule of three mins apart, one min long in my head before I wanted to head to hospital. But because of my waters releasing already, we thought it best to ring the labour ward at the Hospital mid morning to see what they thought. Labour ward asked us to come in to check it really was my waters that had gone, so we headed in.
We got to the hospital but apparently went to the wrong door (even though we went to the one the video on the hospital website directed us to!) then got sat in the corridor outside triage for a good half an hour – I was pleased I wasn’t further along! We were finally invited into a curtained off section of the labour triage where they took away some of my soaked maternity pads to check and a urine sample – sure enough, it was my waters.
Once confirmed we were then offered to go home to let labour continue (which we wanted to do). And advised that they wanted us to come back for an induction the next morning if I hadn’t gone any further due to SROM – spontaneous rupture of membranes – essentially waters breaking before contractions start. We said we’d consider this, at the time and if necessary. I knew from Susan’s course that different hospitals have different time scales on SROM and induction, ranging from 24 to 72 hours - quite a difference! So I wasn’t feeling too worried by the time frame thankfully because I knew this. I also knew there were other options, and that induction is a choice that I could say yes or no to - which felt very empowering. Because I really was not keen on being induced, especially as now the surges had started.
Back at home we watched some funny television to get the oxytocin flowing, sat on the birth ball for a bit to get my pelvis moving, gacve my other half a hair cut (yes, while in labour! He was terrified, I was proud – I didn’t want him to meet our new arrival with scruffy hair!), had a bath where I listened to Susans Yoga Nidra for Pregnancy track to keep me calm and relaxed and read some of a book. My other half also fed me ham, egg and chips as I laid in the bath – we knew we needed some tea but I didn’t want to get out for it!
As it approached 7pm my surges were getting closer together and more intense, so we decided to phone the hospital. They said to stay at home a bit longer if I could manage to, and to call back and let them know as soon as we were ready to come in. I bounced some more on the birth ball while continuing with surges until around 9pm when I told my other half that I thought it was time to go in to the hospital.
This time the car journey to the hospital this time was significantly less comfortable than the earlier one. But we played tracks from my “Birth Upbeat” playlist and sung along to them where we could. I had a playlist of hypnobirthing tracks and visualisations ready too, but I decided fun music was in order for the car.
When we arrived at hospital, we were shown into a delivery room where a midwife watched me through a few contractions to gauge how far along she thought I was. She then explained that she didn’t think I was far enough along but she could do a cervical check if I wanted. I’d planned on minimal monitoring through labour, but I was interested to get a gauge on what stage I was at here, so I agreed to the check. At this point, I was happily breathing through contractions that still felt like cramps but with some tightenings.
And here is my proudest moment: the midwife did the vaginal examination check (which was not at all bad! I’ve heard they can be very uncomfortable, but for me, it was fine) and looked at me strangely. She asked: “Do you have a high pain threshold?” My response was a smug: “Well, I like to think so” (while my partner laughed in the corner). She then explained that I was 3cm along, nearing 4cm, and she was very very surprised based on how well I was reacting to the surges. She also explained that she thought I was about to go very quickly.
Based on where we live – about half an hour from the hospital, she said she was reluctant to send us back home, but normally I believe they admit people to the labour ward at 4 to 5cm, when you’re in ‘established labour’. Luckily they had a room we could use, so we headed off there at around 10.30pm where I was able to continue breathing through my surges and using with a birth ball, and have a bath in a private bathroom if I wanted.
At this point I accepted some paracetamol from a midwife to take the edge off the next bit and continued to work through the surges while my partner and I chatted and watched more of our favourite videos on Youtube to relax us. Every so often, the midwife would pop in to watch me through some surges to gauge how I was reacting again with lots of “Well dones!” and “You’re doing so well”. Every time she said she thought I wasn’t quite ready to move through to labour again yet, but my others half eventually told her I wasn’t quite showing how intense they were – this was all thanks to the hypnobirthing and breathing through the surges keeping me calm. But over time, I started to make more noise with the contractions. I heard someone out in the corridor at one point and worried that I might scare them, even though they were hardly loud shouts, more like moans!
At around midnight, I told Ben something had changed. I started to feel a bit chilly and shaky, and the contractions went up a notch. We called the midwife in and I asked her to check me again. Result – 6cm! She said she’d pop out and give the labour ward a ring to see if they could take me now, and returned to let me know they could be ready for me in 5 minutes. They asked if I wanted to walk or if I needed a wheelchair, and I immediately knew I couldn’t walk – it felt like things were accelerating quickly! A wheelchair was brought, and I was given a couple of puffs on gas and air before we headed down the corridor – my first bit of pain relief aside from paracetamol.
As I said, it felt like things were really accelerating here. We were taken into the delivery room and I vaguely noted through my contractions and hazy gas and air state (it was my first time on gas and air – those couple of puffs had me totally out of it!) that we had a room with a birth pool – win! I was wheeled over to the bed where I hopped straight on, weirdly, as I’d wanted to stay active as much as possible, but apparently that’s what my brain wanted to do.
At this point, the midwife in the delivery room introduced herself and said she’d be back any minute but she had a lady across the corridor who looked like she was about to start pushing and give birth, so she was needed there. I began to ride the next contraction and with my eyes shut, I thought she’d already left the room. And that’s when things really changed!
I shouted to my other half “Quick!! Get the midwife back!! She’s coming! It burns!” It turns out the midwife was still there, literally on the other side of the room – whoops! She came over and asked if I wanted her to check me – I really appreciated the midwives being so courteous and sticking to my birth plan with things like this – they always asked my permission before doing anything. I agreed to the check because I was so certain she was on her way that very moment…and it turns out I was 10cm dilated!
Again, I shocked the midwives! It had taken me all of the 5 minutes being wheeled from the room I was labouring in to the delivery suite to go from 6cm to 10cm – the first midwife was right about me going quickly! So not long after midnight – I noted the time on the clock on the wall because I was hoping she’d come on due date, but it was just too late! – I started to push. There wasn’t even 30 seconds to consider filling the birth pool!
Here is where things went a little awry. All the sensations were in my back and bottom – TMI (as is a lot of this story!), but it’s the truth. I barely felt anything across my abdomen. We now know that this was because she was back to back, meaning it’s potentially harder to get her out. I pushed for over 4 hours, on every single surge, phew - that was hard work. We tried many different positions including laying on the bed (which the midwives said was the more successful one, but which I found more difficult), draped over the back of the bed (which killed my arm muscles the next day!), laying on my side with one leg in the air, all fours on the bed, and squatting beside the bed. Several times I asked my other half and the midwives: “It’s going to be the next push, right? Can you see her?” Apparently they could, and once I was told to feel her head which was right there – that was a totally surreal experience. During this time, a catheter was inserted to drain my bladder in case this was blocking her way, but it didn’t make any difference. I wasn’t at all keen on this part.
Also during this time, I decided I needed a hair bobble, but we hadn’t had chance to bring our bags in as they thought I’d have more time between 6cm and 10cm – whoops! The midwives told my partner he had enough time to run out and grab them, so he did so. He also managed to pour water on my shoulder from my cup at some point and this seemingly bothered me more than the contractions!
But being back to back, it was more difficult to push her out that last bit – apparently she was crowning with every push but going back up. Eventually the midwives decided to call in the doctor as they thought we might need an intervention in the form of forceps or ventouse. They explained this to me and my partner fully and we agreed to let a doctor see me.
So while the midwives were so wonderful, the doctor was…not. He walked in, barely introduced himself and said: “I’m going to examine you now” then shoved his hand inside me – not even waiting for a contraction to end before doing so, which the midwives had done. My partner said it looked like he was examining a cow, and it certainly felt like it too! I had barely felt the midwives’ checks, but this felt like he was just rummaging around in there, and honestly, I was scared he was going to crush the baby’s face! At this point, our hypnobirthing took over and I remembered I was in control of this situation. I shouted: “Stop, stop!!” at him. He did, but he wasn’t pleased about it! My partner then said to him something along the lines of: “Look, you’ve just barged in here and changed everything, please can you calm down a bit?”
Anyway, he’d felt enough to know that the baby was definitely back to back, and that an intervention was necessary. Unfortunately, he didn’t explain that well at all to us. He simply said: “Okay, we can cut you here or take you to surgery, what do you want?”. It wasn’t just me in the midst of 4 hours of pushing that didn’t understand this – my partner was thrown too. We both thought he meant he could do a C section there and then or take me through to surgery, so we were totally thrown!
Luckily, the amazing midwives were stood right there so we turned to them and asked them to explain better what was happening. I keep gushing about the midwives, but honestly, I couldn’t have done it without them – they were fantastic. They explained that the situation required an episiotomy with the forceps or ventouse, so he could either do that in the delivery room with local anaesthetic injections or he could take me to surgery where I would have a spinal block before carrying out the delivery. While interventions like this weren’t something I wanted (who does?!), I did completely understand that they might be necessary and had prepared for the possibility, so we put the hypnobirthing BRAIN acronym into practice.
We’d already researched benefits and risks of these interventions, and we knew in this situation, it was needed. The midwives explained that I was starting to tire, and, even though baby wasn’t in distress yet (I’d allowed them to put the heart monitors around my abdomen just before this so they could check her heart), she might begin to get distressed soon. As such, we knew there weren’t many alternative options. My partner asked the “what happens if we wait and do nothing?” question – I was very pleased he thought to do so! They explained that, due to the factors they’d already explained, the “do nothing” choice wouldn’t really help at this stage, but that we had around 15 minutes while the doctor prepared the local anaesthetic and his equipment, and we could use that time to continue trying. This gave both me and my partner a second wind, and I pushed as hard as I possibly could while he encouraged me on and on with every surge.
But it wasn’t to be – she was well and truly wedged in there! So the doctor had to catheterise me before starting, and I really didn’t like this part – in fact, I think this was potentially the most painful part of the whole experience! I think I’m just particularly sensitive about my bladder and urethra – whether that’s physically or just mentally – due to all my previous cystitis and bladder issues. And here’s another one of my proud moments where my hypnobirthing confidence came into play – I again shouted at him to stop and said: “I understand you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, but can you please be a bit more gentle about it?!” I’d totally forgotten I said this until my partner reminded me a few days later – that was very assertive for me!
Seconds later, the episiotomy happened, and possibly due to the local anaesthetic, this wasn’t even a thing that registered to me. The midwives stood by my side so that we knew what to do. They told me that the next push was going to be far more intense than all the rest, so I asked them to tell me, honestly, if it was going to be worse but if it would get her here, and they answered, again honestly, that it would be worse but she would be here. Again, hypnobirthing came into play – I didn’t mind that it would be “worse”, I just wanted to know so I was prepared. Then suddenly I felt enormous pressure as the doctor pulled on the ventouse suction cup, and her head was out – her head!! The midwives were massively encouraging, telling me to look and see that she was almost here – but I just said: “Okay, now the rest!!” The next surge and her body followed, and she came shouting into the world at 4.55am as they plopped her on my chest – just as I wanted! All I could do was stare and say: “Hi! Hello! Hi baby! Hi!”
The placenta followed easily with a simple but fairly gentle push on my abdomen. They showed it to my partner who bluntly said: “I don’t want to eat that”, and even in my shocked state of brand new baby on my chest, I managed to laugh.
I was stitched up, and it was mentioned that I had a tear as well. The stitches also weren’t all that fun, but I had a brand new baby on my chest so I wasn’t too fussed. Interestingly, I later couldn’t figure out where this tear was, but the home visiting midwife explained that it was most likely at the end of the episiotomy.
We then managed to have that “golden hour” that’s recommended with our new baby. After this I was encouraged to get up and go for a wee – at which point I became surprisingly modest after being totally stripped off during birth, and when my partner came to check on me, I flapped my arms and waved him away, telling him he couldn’t see me like this! Then a new midwife came in, wrapped our baby up for us, and told me to jump in the bath. My partner thinks this bit was hilarious as I just laid in the birth pool totally zonked out while our tiny baby slept across the room from us. Once I was out of the bath – and the midwife had to come and tell me to get out because I’d been there for ages, whoops! – we were wheeled down to the post natal ward.
For me despite my birth not being exactly what I wanted, I do feel it was a really positive experience and I feel very proud of myself. Both how i coped with the intensity of the surges (even the midwives were impressed), and also how I was able to assert myself - and my partner too. We are so thankful to have been on the course with Susan and feel empowered by the course and the experience we had.