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Birth Story - Part 1: The Birth Plan After An Emergecy Ceasarean

The first time I said the words "my children" caught me by surprise. What an amazing thing to be able to say....

You see, my Baby Girl made me a mother in 2014 and that was the happiest day of my life. Fast forward 3 years and I have been blessed again with another princess. I shall call her Baby Bear. And all of a sudden I have "children".

How could I have ever imagine that back In 2009 when I made an impulse decision to book a one way ticket from Melbourne, Australia to London would bring me to the 29th January 2018? The day that my Baby Bear made me a mother of children. The greatest gift I could ever ask for.


I told myself that I would enjoy my second pregnancy. I didn’t want to miss a single moment of appreciating the miracle of growing our sweet princess, so I made the most of everything. Every feeling, every kick, every hiccup, every scan, every day my bump got bigger. The only thing that I let worry me was how I would safely bring Baby Bear into this world. Having had a emergency caesarean the first time around, at times I wish I could have had a crystal ball to help me decide how I would plan my second birth. I wanted to birth naturally, of course I did. What I didn’t want was to go through labour, put stress on my baby if things weren’t progressing and end up in another emergency situation that we weren’t able to plan for. The 6 week recovery time and having to look after my three year old also gave me sleepless nights but I felt that if it was planned we would be able to manage better at home. 

After a number of chats with the midwife, a group discussion, and a one on one chat with a consultant I made a birth plan that I felt in control of, that was both sensible and planned but also left the ultimate outcome up to the universe. I would go all the way up to my due date and if I went into labour I would try to birth naturally but I was also booked in for a caesarean 2 days after my due date. The theory behind that was the later in the pregnancy the more chance that it wouldn’t happen on its own. I had a plan that I felt comfortable with and put myself in the headspace of what will be, will be.

The universe certainly had a plan and it wasn’t either of those two!

The whole way through my pregnancy I was always happy with Baby Bear’s movements. She was an active bubba. I knew her awake times and her sleepy times. There were some days that were quieter than others but normally if she had a quiet period, after a few hours she would be kicking again. This was different one Sunday the week before my due date. I woke up and things were a little quiet with my Baby Bear. I spent the morning playing with my three year old and we all sat down and had lunch together as a family. I realised that even after drinking a cold lemonade that I hadn’t felt movements so I told my husband J. As soon as I told him we decided to ring up our maternity unit and seek advice. They assured me things were probably fine but the best thing to do would be to come in for monitoring just to be safe. There was something in me that knew everything would be ok, but not willing to take any risks we rushed over to the hospital with our first Baby Girl and thought we would get hooked up and sent on our way in no time.


When we got there we realised things were very busy that day. There was no bed for me in triage and we had to wait about 45 minutes just to be hooked up. J wasn’t really happy that we had to wait when potentially this could be a situation that needed urgent attention. I was strangely calm and still had the feeling that everything would be ok. Baby Girl was entertained by the new environment for all of 10 minutes and started to get restless after that.

When I finally got a bed, I was very grateful that it was a private room. I made myself comfortable in the bed and they put the pink and blue straps on me. The midwife found my baby’s heartbeat (thank goodness) and left me there to monitor the movements. I have learnt to appreciate these times in a maternity unit. So on that Sunday afternoon as I was hooked up and stuck to a bed - we talked, we waited, we laughed and we enjoyed what I now know, was our last few hours together as a threesome.

When my first observation time was up, the midwife picked up that Baby Bear’s heart rate was on the higher side of normal at between 160 - 165bpm so they decided to keep monitoring for longer. By this time Baby Girl had enough of being stuck in a hospital room so we decided that my husband would drop her to his family. When I said goodbye I wrapped my arms around her extra tightly and felt pretty emotional. I knew that it could be my last when I was all hers. 

Straight after J had popped out I was visited by a consultant. She wheeled in a scan machine with her and I was happy I was going to get to see my baby but felt sad that J and Baby Girl has just missed it. The consultant had a good look around and said that she was very comfortable that the baby was ok and that she could see movements, however she did agree that they weren’t very strong movements so she could understand why I was concerned. Along with that and observing the higher heart rate, she didn’t want to send me home just yet. She asked me to go for a walk to the hospital cafe, have something sugary and come back to see if that made a difference.

I took my heavily pregnant body down to the cafe and enjoyed a hot chocolate and a bag of crisps. I walked around a bit more and went back to triage for more monitoring. At this point J was back after dropping Baby Girl off and before we knew it, it had been 6 hours and it didn’t look like we were going anywhere any time soon. Baby Bear’s heart rate was still on the high side of normal. Still not happy to send me home they inserted a canulla and  put me on a drip because maybe I was dehydrated. I am someone who hates needles so having a big one inserted and taped into a vein on my hand was no fun. According to the midwife, they love putting them in and they played scissors, paper, rock in the hallway to determine who would be the lucky one to put mine in. 




After being hooked up to the drip, Baby Bear’s movements were still sluggish and her heart rate remained the same so we were told that we would be seen by a consultant again as soon as the 8pm changeover happened.

Now the only time that I really panicked that whole day was when the room filled with doctors. They all came in saying who they were and what they did and for a split second I felt like we may not have been kept informed on exactly what was going on and for some reason this room full of doctors was going to deliver us some terrible news. They quickly put my mind at ease when the lead consultant explained that at handover time, every doctor on the night shift visits every patient and there was nothing to be worried about.

They all looked at my charts and then gathered around the scan machine where the lead had a really thorough look at what was going on. They could see clear movements and they showed me on the scan and pointed out times when Baby Bear was moving and asked me if I could feel them. Some I couldn’t others I could just. They showed me a shot of Baby Bear practicing her breathing. They also measured her and let me know that the scan was showing she was a big baby and running out of room in there!

They all concluded and said while they had no concerns at all they would take my feelings of reduced movements seriously. I was just a week away from my planned section date and she was very well cooked so they would go away, discuss the next steps and see if they could bring forward my section date. 30 minutes after that the midwife popped back in and let me know that I was being admitted over night and I have been scheduled in for surgery the very next day. It was happening!


I had my alternate plans and left it to the universe, but even then the universe decided otherwise...


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10 comments

  1. Such a lovely update - look forward to reading the next part!

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  2. Oh heck, but you get to meet your baba a week early :) Cannot wait for the next post :) Sim xx

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  3. I had a EMCS myself five years ago so I’ll likely be in the same predicament should I be lucky enough to have another. Really interested to hear the rest of the story x

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  4. Looking forward to reading more . I had an emergency c section and none of my birthing plans went to plan but I was very lucky to have three little ones at the end of each birth . Sending you love x

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  5. I really can't wait to read the next bit. My birth stories are all so different but just as amazing! :)

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  6. Ooh I can;'t wait to read the next part!! I love reading other peoples birth stories, I never had a c-section so it's interesting for me to read these stories!

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  7. Interesting reading others birth stories, i was having a planned section with my twins but they had other ideas and mine was brought forward. Look forward to hearing about the next part!

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  8. Loved this post. I could remember my pregnancy. Waiting for the next part.

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