Hey everyone and welcome to my very first post! I want to share my birth story and I want to do so for a number of reasons. You may think that I’d make my birth story my first post because parenthood starts at birth, but no… because I think that motherhood starts when one falls pregnant. I chose to start off with my birth story because it set the tone of how I view motherhood and the mentality I have adopted in parenting.
My biggest fear when it came to having a child was childbirth. Actually, I’d say one of my biggest fears in life was childbirth. I think its safe to say that childbirth scares a lot of people, those who want kids and those who don’t. I feel like childbirth is scary enough for some people that the thought of labour, or pushing a baby out, or some of the traumas that can happen during childbirth is enough to scare people out of having kids at all. My birth story was quite a positive and when I tell my friends my birth story all the reactions I've gotten is "Oh my God I didn't know it could be that easy!", "Oh wow, I didn't know it was possible to have that much choice.", "I didn't know that I had that much control over my experience!". So I thought that if I've helped my friends in realising that childbirth can be is empowering and full of choice, then imagine how many more people I could help by just sharing my experience. Before I start I do realise that my birth isn't going to be everyone's experience and there are some people that have very traumatic births and find themselves in situations where it isn't possible to have as much power over their birth as it was for mine, and I do want to acknowledge my privilege in that sense. My story won’t be everyone’s experience. So with that, let's begin.
As I said, my whole life I was scared of childbirth. My situation is a little bit more complicated by the fact that I have pudendal neuralgia where 90% of my day today is completely unaffected, but if the pudendal nerve is triggered in any way it causes me an extremely uncomfortable sensation and is very anxiety provoking and scary to me. To put it in perspective, I have a very low pain tolerance but leading up to my birth I was more afraid of the pudendal neuralgia being triggered then I was the pain of childbirth. However I sort of pushed it in the back of my mind my whole life and thought that was a problem for when I got pregnant and then lo and behold... I got pregnant! I found out I was pregnant in January of 2023 though I kind of had a feeling I was on New Year's Eve where the smallest sip of champagne made me feel gravely ill and I was fast asleep before the clock struck midnight... but that's a story for another time.
When I was on TikTok looking through pregnancy tips and newborn mom hacks, the trend of having a birth plan came up repeatedly. For some reason it never appealed to me to really have such a detailed birth plan. Some of the birth plans I saw detailed whether they wanted delayed clamping or they wanted certain family members in the room or they wanted a caesarean or a water birth or they wanted skin to skin with mom first or skin to skin with dad first and what I kept thinking is "What if it doesn't workout that way?". Sometimes you can have the best birth plan in the world, prepare everything you can possibly prepare for, read all the books and study all the all there is to know about birth, prepare yourself physically mentally emotionally and have the best supports... and your birth ends up being completely out of your hands and completely different to what you expected or planned. On the other side of the coin, some people don't plan or prepare at all and completely leave their birth in the hands of fate and then end up having the most magical birth. I feel like mine was a little bit in column A, a little bit in column B.
Obviously birth plans are meant to be just a rough idea of how you want things to go so that you don't get lost in all the available options and feel out of control when when your water breaks and it's go time. But I don't know, I just felt like if I had a very detailed plan and things had to be diverted away from that plan I would freak out more than if I didn't have a plan in the first place. As well, and I'm just talking for myself and my own preference, I benefited much more from having a birth IDEA. So for example I knew I wanted only my husband the baby's father in the room with me , i knew i wanted the epidural and any other available drug possible, and I knew I wanted meditation music in the room. The rest was negotiable and I would decide as I went along. Having said that, it brings me back to a benefit of looking at birth plans. I didn't even know that I had options like having mood music or mood lighting, or being able to decorate the birth suite with affirmations or photos or whatever put me at ease . I also didn't know that I had the choice of being able to do skin to skin first or allowing my husband to, or doing delayed clamping or wiping off that sticky mucousy stuff that the baby comes out with or choosing to keep it on. Having the power to dictate how you want your birth to go is so important but how can you dictate it when you don't even know what options are available to you? So in that sense, researching birth plans were really helpful because they gave me an idea of what was important for me and what wasn’t in terms of forming my ideal and most comfortable birth. But ultimately, I mentality prepared myself for everything to be negotiable. So to me it was important that my husband Luis was there, I had meditation music in the room to keep me calm and most definitely that I could have the epidural. As a side note, one thing I loved was when we were doing our birth induction assessment where the midwife asks you a bunch of questions about your medical history and your birth preferences and all of that, I remember telling her that if I was allowed I would love to have the epidural. The nurse stopped writing, put her pen down, looked up at me and said “Let me make one thing clear ... You can have whatever you want in that birth suite.” That midwife set the tone for all the other medical professionals I dealt with, because I felt like my care (which, by the way, was all in a public hospital), was very person centred and everyone made me feel like I was in control of my birth. I got pretty lucky because as I said, most mums, especially first time mums, don't really know what their rights are and what they are allowed to dictate and what Ithey should leave up to the professionals. That was definitely me, but that nurse with that little statement made me feel like I had power in this whole journey.
My pregnancy was a high risk one but maybe I'll do that as a separate post because if I had to tell you about every single time I was admitted to hospital, we will be here till next February. So let's just fast forward through all of that and get to the bit where I was due to give birth. My due date was supposed to be September 21st. I had gestational diabetes which was borderline, and I had high blood pressure which was very serious, to the point that people were surprised I had never had a stroke with numbers that high. I got to about 30-something weeks and I was regularly seeing the renal department, midwives, my GP, an endocrinologist and obstetricians and they felt that there was no need for an induction until about two weeks before my due date, so around early September. They said that at first I need to be induced possibly on the 7th of September if the protein in my urine was high because that is an indicator of preeclampsia (which is really serious condition that I ended up developing later but again... story for another time), and when that urine result was fine they set my induction date for the 14th of September... a week before my due date. That happened to be a Thursday and I had one last appointment with what is known as the 'Risk Associated Pregnancy clinic' (the RAP clinic) on the Monday of that week.. Monday rolled around and I took my mother-in-law with me and truly, I didn't know what I was expecting because the times that I had a regular standard appointment where I felt completely fine and everything was going OK with me and with baby in the belly, and then I get my blood pressure checked and it was so high they sent me to emergency... were more common than when I just got to go home. I should have known by then that if I am scheduled for a regular appointment, I ain't going home. We get to the clinic and my blood pressure was on I think around 170 - 180 on 90 something which was kind of standard for my pregnancy but in actual fact is dangerously high, and the doctor checked it and checked it again and ended up sending me too the Pregnancy Unit. Now at that point while they were trying to bring my blood pressure down and wait for an obstetrician, I had a slight feeling that they may want to induce me that day. Although, I wasn't sure because the one positive thing about my blood pressure being so sky high was that never any stage did it affect my baby. The baby's heart rate and movements and everything else that they check for was always fine, it was just me that was having the problems. I was updating my husband who was at work as often as I could, but I had to wait a long time for the doctor and I didn't know whether to tell him to pick me up in an hour, a day or a week. At that stage I was over my pregnancy I was ready to just get the baby out, so a part of me was hoping that the baby would come out but then a part of me was hoping that I could just delay the thought of birth for a little bit longer. Finally the obstetrician cam over and said that since I was being induced on Thursday and it was a Monday, there really wasn't much point in dragging it out any longer and we may as well just go through with the induction today. She said that judging by the babies gestational age and measurements, it was totally safe for me to be induced that day. I remember she asked me how I felt about it and I had the mentality of "let's just get it over with".
I called Luis and told him that we would be having a baby that day and he raced home from work, packed my hospital bag (which was only half done because of course I leave things to the very last minute) and raced over to the hospital . In the meantime, I was transferred to a birth suite. Here's another part where my choice came into play and I could control the uncontrollable just a tiny bit. A midwife explained to me that the induction process would be started that day but most likely the birth would happen overnight or the next day because it takes a few hours to work. She asked me if I wanted to start the induction process now or if I wanted to wait until my husband arrived. I just thought that was so nice because really, it didn't matter because (from my understanding) inductions take so long that it could be hours and hour's until I was even in labour. But the fact that I got the option of having my husband with me through the entire process, and the fact that they were going to wait so that not a second of the birth process was started without him, was really important to me and I really appreciated that. I opted to wait and after a few hours my husband excitedly burst through the door and we agreed that the induction process could start.
Now I don't wanna speak on medical things because I know nothing and I could have this totally wrong, but from my understanding I had two options. The first was some sort of gel that would be inserted inside up into the cervix and they would wait a few hours to see if that would take effect, and the second option was the balloon which is literally a balloon that they put inside you to see make your waters break and start labour. I don't know about you, but both those options sounded absolutely hideous to me. I chose to have the gel. I'm not really a squeamish person or one that's embarrassed so for me someone needing me to undress and look in all the nooks and crannies is no big deal. However keep in mind my anxiety about the pudendal nerve. Before they could do anything they had to check if I was dilated and, as we all know, that requires a finger check. I freaked out. I obviously knew that at some point in my pregnancy someone would have to check how dilated I was and I was fine with that, but what I was not fine with was how deep them fingers have to go! It is no joke, let me tell you. Because I was so scared of my pedal nerve being triggered I would both subconsciously and then consciously literally scoot away from her as this poor midwife (who by the way was very gentle, compassionate, professional, personable and amazing) tried to get the reading that she needed. After a few attempts and feeling incredibly embarrassed and frustrated despite having lots of reassurance from both my husband and the midwife, the midwife offered a solution that she thought would ease my nerves... happy gas. Again, here was another choice I was presented with that was given to me purely so that I could feel more comfortable. I did tell her that I felt that the happy gas wouldn't do anything but I was willing to give it a go. She connected some tubes and told me to suck on the tube until I felt the effects of happy gas, and that she was willing to wait however long it took for me to feel like the happy gas had taken effect. After a few goes I felt the full effect of the happy gas. I felt as if I was drunk. The whole room was spinning, all my nerves had gone and I felt completely relaxed. However, when I gave her permission to try again, I still couldn't do it and I think the midwife realised this was not going to happen. The midwive's concerns with that if I can't even handle a finger check how would I handle the gel being inserted once or multiple times if there needs to be more than one dose. She called in the obstetrician who tried everything from tough love, to compassion, to trying to talk me through it, to trying to offer a different member of staff even though I stressed that it was completely nothing that the midwife was doing wrong. That's another thing I want to flag, another example of where I had choice. Although I loved all the staff members that I had, there was always an option to request a different staff members and a lot of people don't know that they can request a different staff member if they're feeling that the staff member is unprofessional or just making them uncomfortable for whatever reason. Anyways that wasn't the case for me but just another thing to note for anyone who is getting any medical treatment really. Back to the story. So the obstetrician was basically saying that eventually this baby has to come out and the only other option is a caesarean. Now, I had never considered a caesarean but I was never opposed to it if it came down to needing it. In my birth idea I had decided that I would opt for vaginal birth but if for whatever reason I couldn't do that, then a ceasarean was fine with me and clearly the alternative was providing me with way too much anxiety, so after consulting with my husband who told me to do whatever I felt comfortable with, we decided for caesarean. Because this was unplanned it was essentially an emergency caesarean and, after checking, the obstetricians said that it would have to be done the next day because the doctors were busy with caesareans, and probably ones that are far more urgent than mine. The midwife said that all that was left to do was wait until tomorrow and by that stage it was already nearing 10 at night so the next day was not far off. They let my husband sleep in the birth suite which again, I really appreciated because I wasn't in labour, I wasn't having contractions, the process hadn't been started yet and he was allowed to sleep in the birth suite with me.
After a very sleepless night in which I think I got maybe 15 minutes of sleep, it was Tuesday and staff had confirmed that I would definitely be having a caesarean that day and it was just a matter of waiting for doctors and anaesthesiologists to become available to perform the caesar. I can't remember whether I got told this next part the night before or the day of my daughter's birth but I guess it doesn't really matter. When I found out I was doing a caesarean and I could chose not to be inducted vaginally, I almost felt relief. Overnight I was actually messaging my friend who had a caesarean literally a week before, and she was saying that it was a great experience and she was only confirming that I had nothing to worry about. Since I am not really scared of surgery or operations if I know that area will be completely numb, I thought all my anxiety was gone... at least a good portion of it. That was until they told me that in order to perform a caesarean or really any surgery I would be required to have a catheter inserted. Now if you remember, the entire reason that I opted for the caesarean was because I was literally both consciously and unconsciously rejecting any form of anything going anywhere near my pudendal nerve . So you mean to tell me that you have found me an alternative to confronting my fear which is a caesarean which requires catheter and therefore requires me to confront my fear? I was so upset, scared, angry and I felt trapped because at that moment I realised that this baby had to come out an now every option of her coming out required meet face my worst fear.
Again, I can't remember if that whole conversation happened Monday night or the next morning but that morning (the Tuesday), the doctors allowed me to have an epidural put in because it would numb me enough to be able to have a catheter inserted. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of why I had an epidural because you don't have an epidural when you have a caesarean because they use a spinal block but anyway I ended up having the epidural. The process of getting the epidural really wasn't that bad but I'm OK with needles. The needle to numb your spine hurt far worse than the actual epidural and again it was just a few seconds of stinging pain so it was tolerable. I found the anaesthesiologist that was doing the epidural to be annoying though, because she couldn't get the right spot so I could feel the tingle of the needle weaving through my spine, and then when she got it in what she thought was a good spot, she had to adjust it. So that was uncomfortable but truly it was probably about a 6/10 pain and a 7/10 on the uncomfortability scale. So it wasn't really bad. What was bad was that I expected it to work far better than it did. Because I wasn't having contractions or anything, the nurse was doing an ice test on me, so she would get a bunch of ice and put it on various parts of my lower body. In some places I couldn't feel it at all and in others I could feel it completely. I obviously didn't mind because it was only cold that I was feeling but if I was having contractions or going into labour, I would see the epidural is completely pointless because over half my body could still feel sensations. Also I was having these weird spasms as soon as the epidural went in. I'm sure it had something to do with the pudendal nerve because I would be completely relaxed almost drifting off to sleep because I was so tired and then, all of a sudden, my whole body would jerk and I would completely shoot up in bed in pure shock. Because of this I wasn't comfortable with them inserting the catheter considering nothing was even close to touching me and I was having these horrendous full body spasms. I was incredibly upset and incredibly stressed out because after all that I had gone through and after finally feeling some sort of relief with knowing that I was going to have the caesarean procedure, I know may not be able to do it because the hospital flat out refused to do any surgery of this sort without inserting a catheter. I mentioned a lot about how I had choice and how the hospital was accommodating to my sensitivities and my preferences... well this was something that I had no choice in because the hospital stated they would not do caesareans without inserting Aacatheter for the benefit of themselves, my procedure, and most importantly myself and baby.
While I was freaking out thinking all hope was gone, I was presented with a choice. A small one, but still something that gave me some agency. The midwife told me that there was another option where I could have the caesarean under full anaesthesia so instead of just my bottom half being numb, they could put me to sleep. She did say that it meant that Luis couldn't be in the room, and also that I won't be able to meet my baby straight away because it may take a bit for me to wake up from the anaesthesia. I really did not want to do this because I always envisioned that at my birth, Luis would be in the room and I felt like it was almost robbing him of that opportunity. If it was like a life or death thing and he couldn't be in the room I would be OK with that but if I could control it I would really prefer him to be in the room. I remember feeling so devastated, overwhelmed, anxious, excited, sleep deprived but also full of adrenaline and I did not know what to do. I just remember crying most of that day.
I opted to not be put to sleep and all I remember next was midwives telling Luis to get into scrubs and me being wheeled into theatre. Now we're getting to the good part because this is where I really felt like my experience could not have been better. I could not have faulted anyone or anything that happened in that room. So let me set the scene… I was wheeled into the entry room of the theatre and was told that Luis would only be allowed into theatre after I was prepped and ready for surgery. I am met with an anaesthesiologist and thank the Lord it was a different one than the one who liked to play hide and seek in my spine. As soon as I met the anaesthesiologist, I knew I was in good hands. He was so excited and full of life and you could tell that he truly loved his job and working with people. He introduced himself, explained the procedure and then he asked me something small but meaningful... he said "Would you like us to play music during the surgery? Pop, hip-hop, relaxing music or we can have no music?". I replied that I wanted meditation music and he said "done". When you give birth in a birth suite you can set it up in any way that you like. You can bring your own speakers, fairy lights, as I said you can decorate the walls as long as you can easily take them down without any damage… but I'm coming into an operating theatre. I feel like I was coming into a surgeon's space and yet that fact that they allowed me to pick what kind of music I want so I can almost at least make a little bit of it my own, meant everything to me.
Fast forward to me entering the actual theatre where there were probably 15 people in the room. This kind of overwhelmed me and was something that I didn't expect. I didn't mind, I just was a bit taken aback. Two of those people were midwives that were in the birth suite with me all day that day, and one of them was actually with me since I went to the Pregnancy Unit the day before so I felt like at least there were some familiar faces. Next the anaesthesiologist prepped me to have the spinal block inserted and it was really similar to having the epidural except he didn't have to take a few goes to make sure that it was correct. After pulling out my epidural he got to spinal block in straight away and all I felt was a pinch and a sting. Almost immediately I felt like the feeling in my feet and legs started to go and, after what felt like a minute later, my entire lower body was numb. They had to literally lift me and then roll me onto the operating bed and I remember there was a lot of commotion.
At that point Luis was allowed in and he got to stand right beside me. Besides him, I just remember seeing a lot of medical people hustling and bustling about. There were a lot of people, a lot of instruments, a lot of people yelling out to each other confirming that they've got everything they need and everything's in place. Amongst all of that, the anaesthesiologist really took the attention off them by making sure my focus was on him. I don't know if it was on purpose or not but the anaesthesiologist was so charismatic that soon I totally forgot how many people were in the room and it just felt like it was him, Luis and I. I remember him asking if I preferred him to be silent or chatty and my response was that I wanted him to talk about anything he wanted as long as he distracted me from everything that's going on. Well I can tell you that sir delivered. He was sensational. He asked me if I had been watching any shows and at that time I was rewatching Suits so we started talking about Suits. He was asking me if Donna and Harvey end up together and what my opinion was on them as a couple and of course... I had thoughts. We were chatting away and I was really enjoying his company but there came a moment where I was thinking to myself "okay I am at ease now, he's completely distracted me, they can start?" It felt as though no one had started, and no one had even touched me let alone cut me open. I held my tongue and continued chatting with him until after about another 5 minutes went past and I grew impatient. I asked him when the procedure was going to start and he made funny face, looked over the sheet thing that divides you from your lower half so you can't see what's going on, and he said "What do you mean, they're already more than halfway?" When I tell you I was shook. I asked about the catheter and he told me it went in ages ago! I was amazed at how I could not feel a single thing. There would have been multiple people cutting into me literally playing around in my organs and I couldn't even feel that someone had touched my leg or brushing against me. I literally felt 0% of the procedure. Not 1% not even .5%... 0. I do remember him saying in about 10 minutes I'd be meeting my daughter and then I felt what felt like pulling and tugging but it was literally as if somebody was like needing a massage in my stomach. It was not painful at all, it wasn't even like someone pressing down, it was just like a like a wave kind of motion on my stomach.
Then before I knew it, they pulled out the most beautiful thing we had ever seen in our entire lives. She started crying and it was the most beautiful sound we'd ever heard in our entire lives. While they were stitching me back up there were nurses and midwives on hand to take care of baby, they let Luis cut the umbilical cord. They did whatever they needed to do and I could look over from my left side and see my baby but I was crying so many tears of happiness and overwhelm and relief that I barely saw anything! I remember that I could not stop saying "I did it I did it I did it". One of the midwives who was actually a student midwife who had been with me since I went to the Pregnancy Unit the day before came over to congratulate me and tell me that baby was happy and healthy and all I could say was "I did it I did it I did it" and just sobbing uncontrollably. The midwife started crying with me. She had been there through the news I was being induced that day, to chatting me through all my anxieties, calming me through my meltdowns and finally here we were. It was a really beautiful moment etched in my brain forever. Next Luis came over and we got to have pictures and any anxiety I had, any stress that I had, any lack of sleep that I had, any fear that I had was just completely irrelevant because all of that led to me having my baby, and I would do it all again 100 times over. Even the fail finger checks!
After all of that I was wheeled into the recovery bay Area and I became really ill... probably from all the drugs that were pumped into me. I vomited and soon, after maybe an hour or two post-surgery, (I can't really remember because I had lost all concept of time) I started regaining sensation in certain parts of my lower half and then eventually everywhere. I was kept in recovery for a few hours because my blood pressure was elevated (what else is new) and they had to stabilise it before I headed down to the maternity ward. My parents and Luis's parents were already waiting downstairs because Luis was updating them every step of the way as per my request, and they got to meet their first grandchild! Shortly after I was wheeled into their maternity ward to start my recovery and learn how to care for our new baby!
And that was it! That was my birth! As I said, I really wanted to share this because overall, despite the bumps in the road, I really felt like I had a positive birth experience and I wanted to not only show people that birth doesn't have to be scary and daunting, but that as well as this we as parents are entitled to shape our birth and our birth experience as much as we can (within reason of course). We have choice and free agency in the whole experience and should use it wherever possible. When I thought about giving birth before giving birth, I literally thought you were at the mercy of doctors surgeons and all other medical staff and you just have to shut up and go with whatever they say is best but really, nobody knows your body better than you, nobody knows you better than you and at the end of the day... you are the one that is undergoing an enormous feat no matter which way you choose to give birth and at the very very least you deserve to undergo it in whatever way you are comfortable. Yes, there are some things that are unavoidable but if my experience shows you anything it's that it is (or should be) the job of doctors and nurses and hospitals in general to try to make it as comfortable for you as possible and find ways around anything that is going to make you uncomfortable. I think one thing that I did really well and will encourage other people to do the same is really advocating for myself and being strong and assertive with what I'm willing to try and not willing to try. That doesn't mean being difficult. Most of the time it means trusting medical professionals by at least giving their suggestions a go but also knowing where you draw the line and knowing not to go ahead with something that is only going to traumatise you.
If you guys made it this far, thank you for reading. I don't know if this was super interesting for a lot of you as it's not some really funny or scary or controversial story but I don't really care, as long as it has helped at least one person feel less scared about birth and feel as though they can have more control of their birth. If you are pregnant and approaching your birth soon I wish you all the very best good luck and just know that Mama, we'll be alright!
Lots of Love,
Elissa 🌸
Thanks so much for sharing! Super interesting :) Excited to hear more.