Liv's Birth Story

 
​I had been booked in for cervical ripening on Wednesday the 8th of September. This would be the 42 week mark. The hospital had wanted me to book an induction prior but I was so determined for a spontaneous labour I wanted to give myself as much time as possible so I had declined a few times prior. 

On the Tuesday morning we went for a walk to get a coffee with my in laws! Just as a last hoorah before two became three. 

I decided since I’d be going to hospital the next day I should fill up the freezer, so I did a huge cook up.  Then cleaned the kitchen and did some washing. I cooked us a nice healthy dinner because I knew I had a big day the next day. Lots of nesting! 

After dinner I asked Dom if he would watch Notting hill with me, I had it on my list of things to do while in pre labour because I love that movie and what better film to get some oxytocin flowing. 

I got a message from my MGP midwife at 8.45 saying she would come over in the morning at 8.30am. She had been off for the week. I really wanted to see her before being induced as I was feeling really scared, since it wasn’t the birth plan I had intended. I felt instantly relieved knowing she was back. 

When the movie finished I put my birth playlist on and Dom started watching tv. I was sort of feeling a bit twingey but I was ignoring it because I just didn’t want to get my hopes up again. Then 10.20pm, POP! Water everywhere. It was nice and pink which meant no meconium which was super exciting. Since babies that come later have a greater chance of having mec in the waters. 

Dom jumped up to grab me a towel and I messaged my midwife and Kate Bloom my doula. My midwife called me straight away and we had a laugh that Clementine was obviously waiting for her to get back! 

Dom changed the sheets on the bed while I rang the whole family because I was so exited. I been desperately avoiding induction because I wanted to labour at home. I was so happy to have gone into labour before my scheduled induction. 

Dom forced me to eat a muesli bar because he thought I wouldn’t feel like eating later and he wanted to make sure I had some energy. 

We started burning some clary sage, Dom heated up the heat pack for me and I laid in bed listening to my hypnobirthing tracks to try to get some sleep. 


It got to 12.40am and I felt like the contractions were getting intense-ish. 

Dom said he wasn’t going to sleep anyway and he got up to get the tens machine and set it up. He reheated the heat pack and brought me a heap of towels because there was so much fluid coming out through each contraction. 
I was listening to my hypnobirthing tracks and Dom downloaded a contraction timer on his phone and started timing them. 

After a while we got pretty confused about contractions, they weren’t exactly regular but I was on average having three in 10 minutes lasting between 35seconds to a minute. 

I rang my sister (who is a midwife) at 2.15 to ask what she thought because I didn’t want to bother kate or my midwife so early. I knew I wasn’t hospital ready but the contraction app was saying go, we decided this was obviously to cover their bum legally. I’d also felt the need to poo, which I’d read can be babies head. I knew it was DEFINITELY too early for that but it’s just all so confusing and I wasn’t really sure. It turned out it was just needing to poo lol.

The tens machine was amazing, it was helping so much. It was 3.20am and my contractions were getting more intense but I just keep telling myself this is a long haul and I need to stay calm and relaxed. I would be doing this for hours. I focused on my breathing while listening to the hypnobirthing playlist I had. This really helped me stay calm when things were starting to get intense. 

​The soft touch Dom was doing that we learnt at hypnobirthing felt so comforting and nice. He was also so calm and kept reminding me to relax my shoulders and jaw and that was unbelievably helpful. I didn’t even notice I was tensing until he would touch me and tell me to relax.

We hopped in the shower and Dom had the water on my back which felt good for a bit. 

I feel like having an educated birth partner played such a vital role in me being able to labour the way I wanted to. He knew exactly how I wanted it to be and he didn’t get overwhelmed at all when things were pretty full on. 

​After a while I wanted to get out of the shower and use the tens machine again. I was most comfortable kneeling on the floor leaning over the couch or bouncing on the ball. 

It was getting very intense and Dom was ready to call Kate our Doula, I kept saying no thinking I would have had sooo much longer to labour before going to hospital and I didn’t want to wake her too early.

It got to 4.20am and he put his foot down and said it was time to call her. On the phone call he told her what was happening and she told him to call the midwife. I told him no because I still thought it was too early and I didn’t want to waste her hours early because I needed her to be there for our birth. 

When Kate arrived she said to Dom definitely call the midwife now and that she didn’t think I was far off. 

While dom was talking to the midwife and getting ready to go to hospital Kate was with me doing soft touch massage and pressure points while I moved between being on the toilet and bouncing on the ball. Her presence was so calming. I remember feeling so hot and her hands felt so soft and cold on my skin. It was really soothing.

Having a doula was priceless, even though she only got to be with us at home as she couldn’t come to hospital because of covid. It made me feel so safe having her there and Dom felt so supported by her too. It was such a confusing time and if she wasn’t there to tell me our baby was definitely coming I probably would have had Clementine on the bathroom floor because I was in complete denial of how things were progressing. 

I kept falling asleep in between contractions and almost falling off the ball. Dom was kneeling in front of me and catching me when I did. He and Kate moved me onto the bed so I could have a sleep. 

Once I was on the bed the contractions ramped up and I started feeling this crazy intense pressure. I wouldn’t describe it as painful in the conventional sense, it was definitely just a feeling of pressure like nothing else I’ve ever felt. My body was literally squeezing itself. 

I was telling Kate I needed to poo and I wanted to push, then once the contraction finished it went away. Kate said it was time to go to the hospital but I wanted a VE first because as much as I felt like I was ready and needed to push I still had it in my head that it was going to be so much longer. Kate called our midwife again and told her she needed to get there ASAP as she thought Clementine was very close. 

When she got there I kept saying it’s ok if I’m only 2cm dilated, I can still do this. 2cm is fine. 

I remember Kate saying your definitely not 2cm. She knew I was transitioning but I just doubted myself so much. I was still telling myself we could be doing this for many more hours and I needed to be prepared and stay calm because I so desperately didn’t want to have any interventions. 

In hindsight I needed to trust how I was feeling but I was so confused about how fast it was happening.

Our midwife checked and said there’s only a small amount of cervix left and it’s time to go to hospital. (I found out later that I was 8cm dilated at this point).

Dom helped me into the car and we left. 

In the car I just kept yelling to myself don’t push, while roaring through every contraction. Dom was thinking little Clementine was going to come out on the back seat. I can’t imagine how he must have been feeling but he just kept saying things like, you’re ok, you’re doing so good Liv. 

In hindsight I wish I had of just stayed relaxed and thought I’d she comes in the car that is ok. Because once I changed my mindset to tell her not to come, it was really hard to change it back when we arrived at hospital. The mind is such a powerful thing. 

We got to hospital at 7.15am, Dom pulled up to the door and got the bags out of the back then helped me out of the car. I had to stop in the entrance through a contraction and I was roaring sooo loudly. I remember there were two men there out the front that would have got the fright of their life but I could not contain my voice I just needed to be loose and let it out. 

They brought out a wheel chair but I didn’t feel like I could sit, so I walked to the birth room. I grabbed onto the side table and started baring down through my contractions. They placed the CTG monitors on because of my gestation being 42weeks. I had thought prior to labour I didn’t want the monitoring but once we were in there I didn’t even really notice it. 

My legs were feeling so tired so they pulled over a mat and I knelt down for a while, then I moved to the toilet because that’s where I felt most comfortable. 

​I was absolutely roaring through every contraction and I remember Dom saying you sound like a warrior, it was the best thing to hear and it made me feel so strong and empowered and I thought.. I am a warrior! 

I moved back to kneeling beside the bed and they started struggling to get a good read on Clementine's heart rate through the monitor so they asked to put on the foetal scalp electrode. Which is a little screw into baby’s scalp to monitor the oxygen levels in their blood. I was happy to do that because I thought if I do need to have any interventions I want to know that it was absolutely necessary to protect her and not just guess work from doctors. 

Her heart rate wasn’t coming back up after dropping and they wanted me to move onto the bed and lay on my left side. I had said the whole way though that I didn’t want to go onto the bed and I would not lay on my back to deliver my baby. But at this point I was so exhausted and I knew that my MGP midwife was going to make sure I got the birth experience I dreamed of if I could. Clementine's safety was the top priority now and trusted that she had both our best interests at heart. So I got up onto the bed. 

Once I was up there Clementine started crowning and my midwife asked if I wanted to move off the bed but I was so tired I just couldn’t.

Dom said her head is there and told me to reach down and feel. I knew it was time to push. 

On my birth plan I had written not to give me push prompts, I would push as my body feels. But I guess as it was my first time it was a strange feeling. I knew I had to push but I wasn’t sure how and I was feeling lost in the contractions as they were short and I couldn’t quite work it out. The midwife then said to me the doctors wanted to come in and do an episiotomy and asked what I thought. I told her I trusted her and what she thought was right. I feel like she gave me a bit of a look and said something along the lines of ‘push, you can do it.’ So I knew I had to dig deep.

I clenched my teeth and pushed with everything I had. The midwives were holding my legs so I could push against them. Dom was cheering me on like I was about to win gold at the Olympics or something and his voice gave me every power I needed to push this little girl out. 

Her head came out and I had to push again to get her body out but I think I was hesitating a bit, I just kept saying “Dom get her.” He assured me he’s got her and so I pushed again and out she came at 9am on the dot. 

Someone had to help him because Clementine had the cord around her neck. I could see the cord wrapped around her but from the education I had done I knew that wasn’t anything to worry about and I was calm while they detangled her. Then Dom lifted her up onto my chest. It was the most bizarre feeling in the world. I looked at this baby and I just couldn’t believe my eyes. She was perfect. I was rubbing her and willing her to cry, so that I knew she was ok and breathing. She let out a big cry and it was the best moment of my life. 

I asked for her apgar score and they said 8 and 9, I was very proud! 

I had requested to birth my placenta on my own without the injection. Those after pains/uterus contractions were awful. I moved to the toilet to try and get it moving, they usually don’t let you have too long to try a physiological third stage. I think my midwife was really buying me my time.  I got 90minutes into that and I decided to have the oxytocin injection to get it moving. The instant relief after it was out I can’t even describe. I’m glad I tried the physiological third stage but next time I’d be happy to have the injection much sooner. 

I had a second degree tear and also a bit of an upwards tear. I’m blaming this on me tensing up and stopping Clementine from coming while I was in the car and not just relaxing and letting my body birth her. 

​I had a local anaesthetic to numb the area so I wouldn’t feel the stitching and I went to town on the gas because that feeling of having stitches down there was so uncomfortable. I squeezed Dom's hand and he squeezed my arm really firm so I could concentrate on him instead of the stitching and that really helped. 

The gas made me so spaced out and I couldn’t help but think that I was so glad I didn’t have it through labour because I wouldn’t have wanted to feel like that when I first met Clementine face to face. 

The grogginess did wear off really quickly though which was good. 

I had Clementine on my chest doing skin to skin the whole way through doing that. She stayed on my chest for the 3 golden hours, which is meant to help with starting off a positive breast feeding journey. 

My midwife helped me get her to latch onto the nipple and she had a short feed. 

After we had the 3 golden hours Dom took her and she got weighed, 4.070kgs, 9 pounds they said. She was 50cm long and her head circumference was 36cm. A big bubba! 

Dom and Clemmy had skin on skin while I had a shower and she got her needles then too. 

​We went to dress her but I had only brought in 5x0 clothing not thinking we would have such a big baby. So Dom had to go to the car to get the 4x0 clothing. When he went he took our bags back so he had less to carry when we left. But he took the bag that had the blankets in it. So after we dressed her and we were ready to leave birth suite and go home we had to wrap Clementine up in Dom's jumper that he had been wearing all night. 

We chose to go straight home from birth suite as I was in the MGP program and would have support from our midwife at home over the following days. Also because of Covid the restrictions on the ward meant Dom could only stay two hours and we couldn’t have any other visitors. So we birthed Clementine at 9am and we left hospital by 2.30pm. I was so happy to get home. 

The education I did during pregnancy- 

• Hypnobirthing Australia course - Geelong born 
• Head start to breast feeding, one-on-one class- Geelong born 
• Birth world, birth time documentary 
• The breastfeeding program- Dr Robyn Thompson method 
• Australian Birth Stories: the birth class. 1. Physiological childbirth with doula Rhea Dempsey & 6. Pain management and birth interventions with midwife Beth Ryan.(I wish I signed up earlier and listened to them all and not just two).

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​Rosie Fitzclarence is a Registered Midwife, Registered Nurse, Childbirth Educator (Geelong Born) and a Hypnobirthing Australia™ Certified Practitioner.

​Rosie is based in Geelong and can be contacted by email at [email protected] or phone 0419170783.
 
To find out more about her Hypnobirthing Australia™ classes CLICK HERE