13. Aug
A Calmbirth® story.
We are thrilled to announce the safe arrival of our beautiful baby girl, Neive Mali Elwell at 3:49pm on 26th of May, 2018.
I had a cruisy pregnancy up until the day before 38 weeks, when my right sacroiliac joint decided to pack it in! I woke up that morning, virtually unable to walk, and by 39 weeks I was debilitated, on crutches and a wheelchair for any distance longer than 10 or so metres and doctors were talking induction. After discussions with my midwife, I reluctantly decided to birth at the hospital instead of the birth centre so I could have the option of pain relief if needed, as I was already in a lot of pain from the SI joint, and my plan of using the bath was no longer available as I wasn’t able to get in and out of the bath anymore. Although I felt some grief and sadness that my plans for birth had changed, CalmBirth helped me get some clarity around the choices at hand, and I soon felt happy with my decisions.
The day before my due date, on Tuesday the 22nd (in the afternoon), I started getting cramping, and by 2am Wednesday morning they had turned into contractions that were strong enough to prevent me from sleeping. Had my bloody show at around 9am Wednesday morning and contractions were between 5-15 minutes apart. We thought: this is it, so went out and had a lovely meal for lunch, and came back home waiting for things to intensify. Contractions were still irregular, but we went down to the hospital that afternoon at around 4pm and were really disheartened to discover my cervix was completely closed. I was using deep breathing, heat packs and my TENS machine to manage the surges, but I managed to have a bath, with Jarrod lifting me in and out. I was still getting contractions irregularly, sometimes as close together as two minutes apart lasting for a minute, and sometimes as far apart at 15 minutes, but they weren’t developing a pattern, and so at 4am Thursday morning, back to the hospital we went to try and figure what was going on. They said I had irritable uterus and was having a long latent phase of labour and upon monitoring we realised anytime I moved, or bub moved, I’d get a contraction, but it just wasn’t opening my cervix. We were all getting tired by that stage, so I was given a sleeping tablet and sent home. I slept from 8am to 12pm and I decided that if I hadn’t kicked into active labour by Friday, I’d get induced, as I was really starting to struggle with the lack of sleep.
Friday arrived, and things were much the same, but between 2-10 mins apart – I’d been breathing through every surge, and had already flattened one set of batteries using the TENS machine, but I was getting extremely exhausted and beginning to get quite scared, waiting for the next contraction, and tensing my body, although I knew it was bad for me. As a bonus, it had taken my mind off the SIJ pain! By about 1pm we headed to the hospital, where it was decided that I’d be induced the following morning, and then have an epidural to get some rest. It was so far away from my original birth plan of a drug-free, candlelit, water birth in the birth centre, but I did my best to go with the flow, recognising birth is an unpredictable business. I was only 1cm dilated after all the days of contractions, and I just wanted to meet my baby!
Saturday morning, we were wheeled to the birth suite and I had my waters broken at 7am, followed by a Syntocin drip at 7:30. I used the TENS machine until the contractions got closer together, which was about 9:30am, so we organised the anaesthetist. By about 10am it was in, and by 11am it became apparent that the epidural wasn’t working at all. I remember laughing in horror to Jarrod that I was the one in ten that the epidural didn’t work for, and that I still had all the restrictions of the epidural – stuck on the bed, no TENS, no heatpacks – but none of the benefits.
They tried various different things, including removing the epidural and trying for a second. Meanwhile, Bubba was moving down my birth canal and I not only had no pain relief, but I wasn’t able to move at all through the contractions for a second time; but I had to stay slouched over under a massive plastic sheet to maintain a sterile environment, while they tried to figure out what to do. It was becoming quite intense and I just had to rely on my yoga, meditation and Calmbirth skills and I went to some other realm, really focusing on relaxing my body, and breathing as deeply as I could and visualising walking up and down stairs with each surge. The anaesthetist couldn’t get the second epidural in, so she went to get her boss, and I started getting the urge to push. They wanted to put a third epidural in, but I requested to be examined as I knew I was close and I was – 10cm dilated. As much as I’d love to say I believed I could do it without pain relief, I really doubted myself as I was so exhausted, having slept 4 hours in roughly 4 days. But I didn’t want to try for another epidural, so I decided I needed to squat. The hospital staff said I couldn’t, but I said – I’m getting off the bed, and so I just got off the bed and started squatting off the side. When I was back in control, I was in a totally different zone, and felt really calm. I could feel my legs were going to get fatigued, so I requested a birthing stool and pushed and rocked bubba out slowly. She was in an ideal position and was delivered at 3:49pm. We had skin to skin, and Jarrod cut the cord after it stopped pulsing, then we moved to the bed where she latched on and started breastfeeding.
My placenta decided it didn’t want to come out and that’s where knowing about the physiology of birth came in handy. They booked me in for theatre at 6pm, and said that sometimes the placenta will come beforehand. I hoped this was the case for me, and knew that I had my best chance of delivering it if I stayed calm. I really didn’t want to be apart from my baby, or to have antibiotics, so instead of focusing on the negatives, I focused on how much I loved her (to release more oxytocin), and repeated “I have birthed my baby, I have no need for a placenta anymore, I let it go” as a mantra in my head. Over and over this went, and at 6pm, with the staff standing by the bed ready to take me to theatre, I got the urge to push and out came the placenta.
Later that evening, when I was debriefing with a midwife, she said: “Do you know you delivered your own baby?” I still don’t remember it, but apparently I reached down and picked Neive up and pulled her onto my chest!
I am really grateful for CalmBirth in that it taught me to remain calm no matter what the circumstances were. It helped me listen to my body, and trust my instincts so that in the end I birthed with no pain relief, in an ideal position. If I didn’t do the course, I might not have practiced my breathing as much, I definitely wouldn’t have known about the option of the birthing stool, and I probably would have stressed out about my retained placenta. I’m so grateful it all went well. I had a long few days leading up to it, but I did actually have a really calm birth. However, despite everything I learned, the best thing about CalmBirth overall was the kindred connections I made with the other mothers. Amazingly, we are still in contact every day!