Jamie’s Birth Story – Category 1 Emergency Cesarean

This birth story is with Bump to Baby Chapter team member Jamie and the arrival of her second baby Kit. Kit was born in November 2020. Jamie’s birth does come with a trigger warning as she had a very quick category 1 emergency caesarean. What we hope you will take from her story is how hypnobirthing isn’t just for low risk births. Or if you practice hypnobirthing and intervention is needed, then hypnobirthing massively still has it’s place. Hypnobirthing to us at The Bump to Baby Chapter is about education and empowerment, and both of these factors supported Jamie within her birth.

My First Birth

In 2016 I fell pregnant with my first baby and signed up to a Hypnobirthing antenatal class. I had a beautiful, natural water birth that I have gushed over ever since. It felt empowering and I loved the memory of giving birth, even excited at the prospect of someday hopefully getting to do it all again.

I gave birth spontaneously to my first at 39 weeks; my waters broke and 10 hours later my baby was in my arms. I lifted my daughter myself from the pool and she was placed on my chest for immediate skin to skin and I have a treasured photo taken about 30 seconds after.

A Pandemic Pregnancy

In 2020, I fell pregnant with my second baby. I recapped Hypnobirthing, did a refresher course, and did Beth’s online course too. I felt ready to give birth, visualised another calm water birth, and excitedly counted down to my baby’s birthday. Obviously I had the initial complication of being pregnant for the height of the pandemic; I discovered I was pregnant a month before the UK’s first lockdown. However, it was still a very treasured time.

Growth Scan

39 weeks came and went and I found myself at 40 weeks pregnant. I attended a midwife appointment and there were concerns my stomach measurement hadn’t increased so I was sent for a growth scan. I had been having these quite routinely due to having an autoimmune condition. The scan at 40 weeks and 4 days showed the baby had dropped off the growth chart from 33 weeks and 37 weeks.

EBRAN

During a CTG scan there was also some concern over the babies heart not accelerating when it should. This was on a Friday and it was agreed I should be induced at 41 weeks on the Monday. I used EBRAN to support me to make this decision along with my husband. Due to a combination of my autoimmune disease adding a mild risk factor and now these very minor concerns about the baby we decided to go ahead with the induction.

The night before I read through affirmations and listened to relaxation tracks. Whilst I felt nervous for induction I also felt ready and excited to meet my baby.

The Induction

I was induced using a 24 hours propess pessary at 12pm on November 2nd and by 5pm I was in labour. During this time I had been listening to relaxations, bouncing on my ball, went for a little walk, and was really getting in the zone to deliver our baby. I asked me examined around 5:30pm as I was feeling contractions, and the midwife told me I was 4cm. I was a little disheartened as I had hoped to be more, but this meant I was in active labour and could be taken from the maternity ward to the delivery suite.

Things progressed extremely quickly here. I am still a little hazy on it all, even after having a birth debrief from a midwife. My contractions ramped up and unfortunately my baby became very unhappy very quickly. A fetal electrode was fitted onto his head and his rate confirmed this, along with my waters breaking and having thick meconium present.

Before I knew it a (lovely!) doctor was at my bedside explaining that we needed an emergency cesarean section. As soon as the doctor was at my bedside I knew why he was there – again Hypnobirthing had encouraged me to educate myself about all potential outcomes of a birth. I didn’t even need to let the doctor finish talking before I agreed “do a c-section”. Without realising I was still using EBRAN here and stopping at the first point – is this an emergency? Because yes, I knew it was.

Category 1 Emergency Cesarean Section

I still hadn’t quite realised the extent of the emergency as not only was I an emergency c-section, I was a category 1 emergency cesarean which is defined as “immediate threat to the life of the mother or baby”, and in our case it was to our baby.

To explain the extent of the emergency – from this brief conversation with the doctor to my baby being delivered was a total of 9 minutes. I was rushed to theatre and there were 15 people present at our son’s birth; doctors, anaesthetists, NICU nurses, and midwives. Before I was taken into theatre I closed my eyes and breathed; I remember thinking “being stressed right now will only stress my baby”. Focussing on my breathing really grounded me and made me still feel like I had some control over what was happening.

I was put to sleep under general anaesthetic and sadly my husband wasn’t allowed to be present. Again as all this was happening and I remember just trying to ground myself and draw in everything I had learned in hypnobirthing.

I came around 2 hours later and our son had been born and taken to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) for special care. He then spent 8 days before we were both discharged and able to go home.

Hypnobirthing

My birth went so completely differently to how I ever could have imagined. I completely credit Hypnobirthing with supporting me through it and supporting the processing I have gone through since. I never imagined needing such a speedy emergency cesarean. My favourite affirmation has always been:

You are strong enough to walk whatever path your birthing takes”.

Ironically this couldn’t have been more applicable to my birth.

I write this birth story on baby Kit’s first birthday. He is just perfect. I feel so proud of both of us for going through what we did to make his way into this world; as proud as I feel of my daughter and I for our birth. Whilst they are both completely different we still did it together and it is our story. Hypnobirthing was so unbelievably helpful for both my births.

Jamie‘s birth story really does show the power of hypnobirthing.

Click the link for more information about The Bump to Baby Chapter’s Hypnobirthing and Antenatal Online Course. Know what you can do to stack the odds in your favour for the birth that you want. Videos, checklists, audios & a support group all created by a midwife to get you feeling excited, prepared and confident for birth.