Hazel Isla Mae woods

3/11/2018

11:32am

3.240kg

50 cm long 

Successful VBAC

On the 2/11/2018, on her due date, at 8pm I started experiencing some cramping, no regularity just on and off period type pains, which had me questioning if what I was experiencing was early labor, it wasn’t untiI then had a bloody show that confirmed my thoughts.  I rang up maternity ward and just gave them heads up. It wasn’t until 11pm i started getting more frequent and stronger cramping coming every 5 minutes or so that I realised this was actually labor I rang up maternity again and they said to go up when I feel like it. Tried to keep myself busy and upright, bounced on my fit ball and jumped in and out of shower. It wasn’t until about 5am I decided to go up.  So packed the last few things for my hospital bag and off we went. When I arrived they did a quick exam and found I was 4cm dilated and in active labor they said I may go home if I like or stay there as I am a vbac if I stayed they would need to monitor me with a ctg which would limit me to the bath, I would also need a drip. As much as I would have loved to labor at home I honestly felt a lot more confident being in hospital so decided to stay. I asked if they could please not have monitering on me for just the first few hours as I didn’t want it to affect my progress in labor. Me and my doctor negotiated and agreed to 30 minutes of good trace and then they would take monitering off. As I was moving around a lot they couldn’t get a good trace so didn’t end up taking it off which I was little annoyed about. I was put into birthing suite where I would walk around bounce on fit ball and practice my breathing through contractions. I was then examined at 8am and found I was 7cm dilated, I decided to then jump in the shower. I used my calm breathing techniques I had learnt in our calm birth lessons, which really helped me deal with the surges. My doctor was called in and they still hadn’t had good trace on baby’s heart rate so I agreed to internal monitoring (where they place a cord on babies head to monitor heart rate) my doctor arrived and did another internal to find I was 8cm, as doctor placed the monitor on her head, she broke my waters. Which happened to be stained brown, baby had pooped inside of me. Which isn’t an issue unless they breathe it in, baby’s heart rate stayed steady and she was happy. The last 2cm I was in bed focusing on breathing as they got closer and more intense, the midwifes asked if I had felt the need to push yet, which I hadn’t. I didn’t really understand what the urge was, as all the labor pain was in my groin and lower back. The midwife suggested I push with next contraction and just see how it felt, well that worked, pushed for about 15 minutes and baby was out! And straight onto me! She had cord around her neck quite tightly,but all was well and she was happy.  She was checked Over on my chest and then jy had some skin to skin time with her too. So grateful and blessed to have had such a quick labor, being a vbac I had a lot of obstacles to over come and had to stick to my guns for the way I wanted things to go. For all my mummy’s trust in your body, remain open minded but also stay informed. Educate yourself and get different medical opinions, you are in control nobody else 💕