Leah’s Story; Feeling Prepared for a Forceps Birth
Love reading positive birth stories, you’re in the right place…. This positive birth story is with first time mum Leah. Leah felt anxious about birth and wanted to educate herself to help her feel more in control. This allowed feeling prepared for a forceps birth despite this being unexpected.
I wanted to share my birth story as a way of me processing what happened and how the course helped me in ways I didn’t think it would.
Feeling prepared for birth
I had a great pregnancy, no problems, measured on track throughout, baby didn’t stop wriggling and I didn’t have many crazy changes going on. I signed up to the course when I was around 27 weeks pregnant. Initially I wanted a way to ease my anxiety. A way that I use to cope is through preparing and obviously with birth you can’t really prepare. A way of coping with this was by educating myself on the different things that could happen, so that I could be in control with knowledge even if I couldn’t fully prepare.
Itching in Pregnancy
At 36 weeks, I noticed my hands and feet began itching. Like always I Googled this and it recommended I spoke to my midwife/GP. I spoke with my midwife and she dismissed it. I accepted it wasn’t a big deal and left it. Two days later the itching still hadn’t gone so I spoke with my GP. This is where it all changed. I was rushed for bloods, they came back with elevated levels and I was sent straight for monitoring. Baby was all fine. I had several more blood tests and it was confirmed that I had Obstetric Cholestasis.
Choosing Induction
The following day I went back for more monitoring (Christmas Eve) and that’s when they wanted to induce me that night. I remembered from the course that I had options and I could turn it down and ask questions. I found out more, changed where I was giving birth and agreed that leaving the baby in would become more dangerous. We agreed to have the weekend to process it and be induced on the Monday 27th December. All my plans changed. Christmas was a bit of a whirlwind, trying to process what was going to happen. I had lots and lots of tears at the shock of everything changing so quickly.
If you’d like to read more about using EBRAN to support with an empowered birth head here.
The Induction Process
On Monday evening I went in at about 8pm. I got induced with a 24 hour pessary and stayed the whole duration. Initially I barely had any contractions but I walked and walked as much as possible. By the end, they removed it and gave me a gel. The gel kicked in almost instantly and I was in pain but I still had to wait another 6 hours. I had another gel inserted 6 hours later and that’s when the contractions became stronger. 6 hours after that, they had planned for me to be moved over to the labour ward but it was too busy. The baby’s heart rate was elevated by the contractions so they made room and moved me to labour ward.
I was open minded to anything that could happen (that’s all thanks to the course).”
When I got into the room and onto the bed, I had my waters broken. That’s when my labour went from 0-100! Within minutes I was being sick, uncontrollably. I got given an anti-sickness injection and gas and air. I was aware that I wanted to be stood up or on all fours but my body could not cope. My contractions were coming too fast for me to handle so they sat me back down.
Being sat down was so uncomfortable with my contractions all in my back but it was slowing down the contractions this way. I asked for pethidine and I was only given half a dose and it knocked me out. Now I was sleeping through some of the contractions. I don’t have much memory of the time I was there. One thing I remember is tapping my boyfriends hand to know I could hear him. I can remember needing to push and it just wasn’t enough.
Feeling Prepared for a Forceps Birth
This is where my labour changed. I opened my eyes to see a room full of people, all doing their own thing. The baby’s heartbeat had dropped and he was stuck as I didn’t have any more energy left in me to push. My boyfriend saw the needles and he almost fainted. They explained what would happen, I signed an agreement and I was whisked away to theatre. All happened within what felt like minutes.
This is where the course came in handy because I had prepared for the unexpected; I was feeling prepared for a forceps birth. The preparation I had done meanr I knew exactly what to expect. I knew what to envision the theatre looking like and I was so calm despite looking back now and realising it was actually an emergency.
Meeting Baby
My midwife was incredible and she was the reassuring voice I had throughout. She explained everything to me and my boyfriend when I got to theatre, everyone introduced themselves and then they got to work. I had a spinal injection, pushed three times and with the help of forceps my little boy was born at 4:21pm. It was a very quick labour process.
I was able to have skin to skin for a little while whilst they took care of me and my boyfriend then went with our son to be checked over. We got taken to a room where we had time to recover before I got moved up onto the ward. A little over night stay to monitor us and we were sent home the following day.
Thank you to The Bump to Baby Chapter
I am so grateful I decided to enroll onto the course as it prepared me for all aspects. I had planned to use breathing techniques; be up and active and have a relaxing setting but when my plan went out the window. I knew I was still educated to not worry and trust those looking after me. My experience would have been different if I hadn’t been induced and been so exhausted. Despite it not going to plan, my little boy was born safely and healthy. I’m still processing what happened to me and not thinking about future births at the moment as I still have a little bit of trauma. We are loving life as our little family of three and soaking up all the magic of having a baby.
I’d definitely recommend the course to anyone because even if you think you won’t use all of the modules, you’d be surprised what comes in handy when you’re in labour.”
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my story. Take from it what you will but thank you.
