Brittney shares her first birth story after her infertility battles. The long awaited arrival of her baby girl and it certainly wasn't easy. Birth is incredible and we are so damn strong!
"Pregnancy was pretty smooth right up until the end when I had severe swelling and itchy rashes come up all over my body which was nearly a cause for them to induce me early. Thankfully it settled and I was able to enjoy the rest of my pregnancy until the waiting game of an overdue baby had me impatiently waiting.
It was Friday morning 15th July 2016 and my daughter was 4 days over due, I had acupuncture the day before so was hoping something would happen, and it did. I started getting some light cramps which felt like period pain. I had a busy day ahead though so just pushed it to the side and carried on with my day, just wincing every now and then when these cramps would appear.
By Friday night I was sure something was happening now as the cramping had gotten stronger. We decided after watching the movie ‘What to expect when expecting’ (don’t watch this before birth) to finally go to bed and just see where things go. I slept terribly because I constantly felt like I needed to go to the toilet and had constant cramping. By 11pm they had turned into contractions had become regular and harder to talk through so I decided to hop in the shower. That was where I saw my mucus plug come out. In the early hours of the morning after a rough night I had finally drifted off when I felt like I had wet my pants so jumped up to find it was my waters, my daughter had torn a small hole in the sack so I had a constant water feature now going on down below.
We waited until 7am to contact my midwife but wanted her to come check me because my contractions were now 5-7 minutes apart. She came and inspected me only to find I was 2cm dilated. I was so disappointed, my expectations of how labour should start and how quick it should be were not being met and so I felt deflated. I was told to try and sleep but every time I laid down the contractions were 10x worse. I rested as much as I could all Saturday whilst enduring these contractions which were close together but getting me nowhere.
All Saturday night I could not sleep. We were so confused because my contractions would come hard and fast and be 5 mins apart and then all of a sudden stretch out to longer intervals. Because it was so painful to lay down I remember walking our house in the early hours of the morning with my husband who was right by my side and we would play I spy in between contractions. I won Sunday morning I had a midwife come and give me a stretch and sweep (which in my own experience was so painful). Fast forward to another day of labouring, having baths, walking the halls and bouncing on medicine balls and I burst into tears and told my husband I was done and just to get me to the hospital. I was exhausted and wanted this baby out!
Off we went finally Sunday night 17th July 9:45pm but I was soon so deflated to find out I was only 4cm. Like how! My midwife had me bouncing on balls in the shower, in and out of the tub, an hour and a half passed and nothing changed. My midwife recognised I was exhausted from little to no sleep for a couple of days and recommended I have some pethidine to try and sleep. 1.5 hours later of dozing in between contractions I woke up in so much pain and said I couldn’t sleep any more. I was 6cms thank goodness because if things hadn’t changed I feel like I would of broken down and lost it. I needed a change of scenery and the bed was hurting me so I hopped back into the tub for some pain relief. The night went on and as my energy deteriorated I finally turned to my husband and said “just cut her out, I’m done” he knew how much I didn’t really want that so lovingly encouraged me to keep going if I could. My Hypnobirthing tracks were the only things so far that helped me get through this long ordeal.
After asking for panadol for pain relief, my midwife laughed at me for only asking for that and recommended we tried the gas with breaking my waters to see if it would help me progress even more. It was so painful and my husband said I went all space like with the gas but I was honestly in heaven and didn’t want to let that gas out of my sight. Breaking my waters and me trying different positions got me to 8cms.
Unfortunately my daughter was distressed so my water birth went out the window because I had to get out of the water so she could be monitored through a probe on her head.
As the morning progressed we still couldn’t work out why things were moving so slowly but it became apparent my daughter needed out and needed out very soon. I was put up on the bed and told it was time to try and push which was weird to me because I didn’t have any feeling of needing to push like I thought would happen. A doctor came in and his nurses who were getting ready to wheel me off for a c- section and told me they wanted to try a couple more things before they take me.
I was given an episiotomy and the vacuum put on her head to firstly try that. She was that stuck it kept popping off. So he then put it on and used the vacuum to just turn her head into a different position as by now they had realised my daughters head was in an awkward position which is what was causing her to not make the contact with my Cervix to make me dilate normally and therefore resulting in this prolonged birth. She was that stuck the probe which should of been on the crown of her head was in the side of her head above her ear
So back to the now turned baby head, I finally gave one last push with every ounce of energy I had left after those three days and she finally made her entrance into the world at 10:15am Monday 18th July at 8 pound 7 ounces. One week exactly after she was due.
To say I was relieved was an understatement, I just burst into tears. We were so glad this ordeal was over and we had our little Holland Grace Jose safely with us."
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