Ella's Birth (Edited)

The point of this article is to mostly tell you my story of my birth but also please be aware that not all births are easy and things can go wrong and when they do please, please be prepared. I do not however agree with home births or water births as of my story you are yet to read but that is of course your decision. Enjoy!

I had a fantastic pregnancy. I had a little morning sickness up until 12 weeks. Then fine through second trimester and third trimester. We had our chances to find out whether it was a girl or a boy, but we flipped a coin and it said don’t find out. We flip a coin for everything.  My due date came, no baby. I had an appointment to be induced two weeks after the baby was due.

Wednesday night we went to bed quite late because we were sick of waiting for this baby to come. So we got to bed around 12 midnight and at 2am Thursday morning, I woke up feeling this wet feeling coming out of me. I thought am I going to the toilet in bed? No “my waters have broken” I said to my husband Shannon. So he got the phone I called the midwife and said my waters have broken. She said I needed to come in about an hour so that they could do an evaluation if I’m dilated or not. So we arrived at King Edward Family Birth centre at around 3am and they did an evaluation. I hadn’t dilated as yet and no contractions had started but my waters were definitely broken. So it was a waiting game unfortunately.

We walked around outside to try and get things going. We started to walk back and still nothing was happening. I sat down with Shannon and watched some TV and at about 9am my contractions started and got worse by 11am. At this time they did an evaluation of me and they said my waters were changing colour on the pad so it meant baby had done its first stool called Meconium. This usually happens when the baby is stressed or over due. The Family Birth Centre had to send me to the actual hospital because they only deal with births that aren’t complicated. I was a bit upset because I really wanted to try having a all natural birth. I arrived at the hospital and I tried so hard with out any drugs.

My mum & dad came to the hospital and mum actually passed out in the corridor.  Shannon’s parents came also to the hospital and they stayed as Shannon’s mum was going to be in the birth suite to help. T got evaluated and I was only 3cm at around 5.30pm so all that time I had only dilated 3cm I wasn’t happy. I cant even remember how long it was until I asked for a epidural, I think it was around 6pm as I was so exhausted and in so much pain and upset that I had gone through all this pain and not dilated very much. The anaesthetist came and did the epidural, it was great for 3 hours and then it wore off well I thought it did anyway.

The problem was sometimes epidurals don’t work properly and surprisingly mine didn’t it was one sided. The side I needed it on it wasn’t working and I was in pain. Anyway the Anaesthetist adjusted the epidural and they left it for an hour but that didn’t work. At this stage the doctor had checked to see how much I had dilated and my midwife had a lunch break and it wasn’t communicated back to the midwife that I was fully dilated 10cm. I had a second epidural after I was 10cm dilated which wasn’t supposed to happen.

The midwife examined me and said oh my goodness your 10cm and you need to start pushing. I said “Push what exactly I cant feel a thing.” Anyway they were telling me how to push and I’m trying so hard not feeling anything at all, which was great but not so great. I needed some help so the doctor came in and got the suction caps out to get the babies head out. They got the head out and the umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck. I had no idea of this until later on after the birth.

They cut the cord and they couldn’t get the babies shoulders out. “CODE BLUE” they said pushing buttons, calling people and I had around 6 six midwifes in the room pounding on my pelvis to get the shoulder to come out (Mild Shoulder Dystocia). Then around 7 paediatricians came in the room. After about 5-10 minutes without any oxygen going to the baby they got the shoulder unstuck and the rest of the baby came out.

They put her on me for 1 second took her away and started putting things down her throat to get her to breathe. My husband, mother in law and myself were crying and worrying what was going on. Shannon’s mum (mother in law) she knew what was happening as she is a nurse and I looked at her and she looked really worried and she was telling me it’s ok. The paediatricians took her away and Shannon went with her and Shannon’s mum stayed with me.

At this stage I didn’t know whether I had a boy or a girl. Shannon came back an hour or so later and said it’s a beautiful girl. I was so happy yet so sad because I didn’t really see her. Ella was born at 6.00am 3/3/06 weighing 8.3 pounds and 3770 kg. I seen her eventually 6 hours after the birth when they stitched me up and I wasn’t bleeding too much. I went down to see her at intensive care and she looked so beautiful she had a bit of a mark on her head from the suction caps but other than that she was beautiful. Ella stayed in intensive care for around 4-5 days as she was on antibiotics as she had swallowed some meconium and every day she moved to different intensive care units which meant she was getting better. After she got out of the intensive care she slept in the room with me for one night and then we went home after her course of antibiotics had finished. I was so glad to get home and Ella is a healthy baby and she is hardly ever sick.  

Thank you for reading my story.

Here are some helpful links regarding shoulder Dystocia:

www.birth.com.au/class.asp

www.thewomens.org.au/ShoulderDystocia

Love Kelly