Marianne tells her birth story in her own words…

In many ways, and especially looking from the outside in, I have experienced two “easy” (both precipitous labours of less than an hour of active labour) births, but of course there is more to the story than that, and it’s the more to the story part that I think has turned me into a bit of a passionate advocate for empowering women’s choices around birth.

Both of our kids were much longed for pregnancies that took awhile to become reality, and were possible due to the miracle of IVF. When I was pregnant with Ziggy in late 2018/2019, I was so thrilled to finally be pregnant that I really didn’t consider much about birth or the first few months of parenthood.

When Calvary Public Hospital told me I would be induced on his due date, I accepted it without any questions, and when my waters spontaneously broke at 39+6, I just thought “well that’s nice that I wont need to get induced before he’s ready to come out.” After calling them, the hospital asked me to come in for monitoring of bub after 16 hours or so.

I went in around 3pm and he was doing fine, so they asked me to go home and come back in the morning to get induced if labour still hadn’t started. I had been having mild inconsistent contractions all day, and had been wearing my tens machine while hubby and I went out to lunch (a big spicy South Indian all you can eat buffet!) to get through them.

After the excitement of waters breaking and having the tens on all day, and no sleep in over 24 hours, I really didn’t feel like going home just to come in again at 6am, especially since if my waters hadn’t already broken the plan had been for me to be admitted that same evening to start the induction process.

I argued with the midwife, the head midwife, the registrar doctor and finally the consultant on call, who luckily happened to also be a fertility specialist and was empathetic to my concerns. During the time, contractions were getting stronger and I was starting to feel really uncomfortable.

Unfortunately as the monitoring an hour or two earlier hadn’t shown up anything much, the midwives did not believe me that I was in labour (they probably thought I was bunging it on in order to stay the night at the hospital and not go home) and I started saying “I need some pain relief, this is terrible!”

Around 6pm, I went into the toilet near the monitoring room that we were hanging out in and felt a weird need to push! Thinking that I was crazy, not even in labour (according to the midwives), I begged one of them to give me a vaginal examination as I hadn’t had one at all due to the risk of infection after waters had broken. Reluctantly she did and I was relieved to hear “well, you’re 7cm dilated, you are going to have a baby tonight after all!”.

They admitted me, moved me to a birth room and within another 15 mins or so contractions were every couple of minutes and very very strong. In my head I thought “there’s no way I can do this for hours” and begged for an epidural. By the time my husband had found a midwife to come into the room to discuss that I was feeling an overwhelming urge to push and essentially in around 4-5 big pushes over 8 minutes while still standing up (I actually spent the whole labour just standing next to the bed) my son came out in a flying fashion.

We were in total shock (so was the midwife!) at the speed of everything as there had been no time for any pain relief. She told me it was a precipitous labour and to watch out if we ever had another baby. My amazing student midwife unfortunately missed the birth, but we called her and she was with us for most of the next 4 hours while we waited for the doctor to be free to stitch up my 2nd degree tears. We later found out that there had been a few emergency c sections that night at Calvary, hence the long wait for a doctor and possibly them trying to send us home too.

Essentially if we had followed their advice and gone home again, I would have given birth either at home or in the car. So while overall it was a positive birth, the trauma of not being believed that I was in labour followed me around more than I admitted to and showed up in the birth of my daughter 3 years later.

For her birth, I wanted to go all natural and no pain meds again as I knew I could do it. It’s amazing what confidence can do for your mental state before birth. I was super lucky to get into the continuity midwife program at The Canberra Hospital and build a relationship with my midwife over months.

I naively thought she’d be on time like her brother, so when induction at 40w was again discussed due to IVF and diet controlled Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about it again. 40 weeks came along and no signs of anything happening made me worried that I would need to be induced. I think I was more afraid of a possible cascade of interventions than of giving birth itself, just because induction was the unknown and my body doing its thing in its own time was something I had already experienced. The stats around adverse risks for IVF pregnancies going past 40w didn’t scare me as the overall risk is still so tiny.

Thanks to my incredible supportive midwife I never felt pressure to agree to induction, and when 41w came along I just surrendered to the universe’s timing and stopped stressing.

Well, at 41+1, I started feeling mild contractions at 11.30pm and thought “wow, maybe this is the beginning of something”. By 1am they were 6 minutess apart and I popped the tens machine on, and by 2:30am I called my midwife and said I wasn’t sure if I was in labour but wouldn’t mind getting checked. She kindly said she’d come in and at 3.30am we left our 3 year old with his grandmother and headed to the birth centre.

I still had no idea if this was real labour or not as it certainly hadn’t started in the dramatic fashion of my previous waters breaking experience. We pulled into TCH and hubby asked if I wanted to be dropped at the right building. I suggested I come to the multi-storey car park and walk with him the 10-15 mins to building 11, as that would either speed up the process or show me that I wasn’t really in labour. I only had to stop 2 or 3 times during the walk to get through a contraction so still wasn’t convinced one way or the other.

Long story short, we arrived at 4am at the birth centre and Mira was born at 4.57am. Another active labour less than an hour, but this time so much better as my midwife knew me, was with me the whole time, advised me to lie on my side so that when she came out I only had a first degree tear (she was 4.3kg and 57cm so pretty huge in comparison to her 3.6kg 49cm brother!) and we felt so lucky to be able to birth in the birth centre, it didn’t feel like a hospital at all. We were home by 11am that morning.

Overall it was just a much better experience because I felt listened to the entire time.

What do you wish you knew before birth?

That induction for non medical reasons is something people should carefully research and consider before just agreeing to.

That the hormones of giving birth are natural pain relievers.

That it’s the best high in the world once they are out!

If you could, would you do anything differently?

Not stress at all when she was “late”- babies do come eventually, in their own time!

What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?

Push my hips together with counter pressure - helped in the strong contractions. Also repeating positive affirmations :)

What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?

It’s tough, and it hurts. But it’s sooooooooooo worth it. Our bodies are incredible and it’s the best feeling in the world when you literally push a human out of you. It’s wild.

I think I might have a mild prolapse after my daughter’s birth so I’m getting on top of my pelvic floor exercises and going to see the women’s health physio after 6 weeks has passed.