A second caesarean

“I went through the whole thing feeling confident and powerful, without a thought for pain relief at any point (until we went to theatre). I have dealt with the baggage of my first birth and had an amazing empowering experience.”

I had (compared with my previous experience) a very quick labour and, thanks to Hypnobirthing and my wonderful doula, I felt confident throughout.  I woke up with contractions at 1.30 am on Sunday 15th June and by about 3 am they were about 2 mins apart and quite intense, though I didn’t believe it when Neil said that on the phone to the hospital and refused to go in!  The doula finally managed to get me out of the bath and into hospital where I was examined to find I was 9 cm dilated.  The stint in hospital was really intense.  I felt like they were trying to do something to me (fit the canula, monitor the baby, examine me) almost constantly.  I was aware of my doula quietly negotiating with midwives and doctors and asking them to wait until I’d finished a contraction before interfering.  This enabled me to focus on myself. Every now and then Neil would mention something from my affirmations poster which brought me right back in the zone.  Unfortunately I was pushing for hours with no joy and eventually they became concerned about the baby.  We agreed (after careful consideration) to try forceps in theatre with a spinal block in case of the need for a c-section.  Forceps didn’t work as baby was back to back with its head tilted back and was being repeatedly bashed against my pubic bone.  No-one had realised until this point!  So we ended up with a c-section again (at about 10 am) – and a beautiful baby girl, Anna.  The bizarre thing is that, although on paper it looks like a similar birth to my first, it couldn’t have been more different!  I’m disappointed to be having to recover from surgery again but I went through the whole thing feeling confident and powerful, without a thought for pain relief at any point (until we went to theatre).  I have dealt with the baggage of my first birth and had an amazing empowering experience.  I am in a bit of a state physically and effectively having to recover from having given birth both ways, which begs the question – With hindsight maybe I should have just booked myself in for the c-section??  Absolutely not.  I’d still have felt like a failure, not have addressed issues from my first birth and most importantly, I wouldn’t have had the amazing experience of (pretty much) giving birth to my little girl.  A great journey.

Thank you so much for being a part of it.