When melissa met poppy
Melissa gave birth to Poppy through the continuity program at Canberra hospital, during lockdown last year.
Melissa had a balloon placed in her cervix during labour and when the midwife was checking its placement, he not only found that it had fallen out and was sitting weirdly inside Melissa, but he noticed that Poppy’s cord was at the top of her head.
Melissa tells her birth story in her own words…
Like a lot of women, I gave birth during Canberra’s lockdown in September 21.
My birth story begins at 41 weeks pregnant, I had hyperemesis gravidarum my whole pregnancy, so as you can imagine I was ready for it to be over.
An induction was booked for Tuesday - Thursday the following week if there was no baby arrival before then.
My contractions began about 5am on Sunday the 19th. It started off with about one contraction per 5 minutes, they took my breath away, but I was able to breathe through them and continue on with my morning.
They had fizzled out by 1pm that afternoon and became very irregular. I was only having one strong contraction every 12 minutes or so.
At 3pm I contacted my midwife and came into the birth centre due to not feeling Poppy move around very much. Poppy was fine, but as I had been seen for reduced movement previously at 39 weeks they asked if wanted to stay and be induced that very night or go home and wait it out. Thankfully me and my impatient self opted to stay and we were admitted.
At around 4:15pm while my husband made his way into the hospital (lockdown rules), they put the balloon into my cervix.
My contractions started picking up almost immediately and were 100x more painful. I think I was already telling Daniel “I can’t do this” by the 3rd/4th contraction in.
After about two hours I asked for pain medication. They gave me some Panadeine and something else but it didn’t make a dint.
So not long after that I asked for morphine. This was enough to bring my contractions back down to a bearable level and I was able to get some broken sleep.
I found with the balloon in, I wasn’t able to pee, so they gave me a catheter. I had a top up on the morphine about 1am after that, and asked for more at around 3:30am. The midwife decided to check the balloon and see where if it was sitting and causing unnecessary pain, as the morphine should realistically still have been effective.
They found the balloon had actually already fallen out and was just sitting in me weirdly so I didn’t notice, I was already about 5cm dilated.
When doing the check he suddenly mentioned that he was feeling cord at the top of her head, and he asked Daniel to press the emergency assistance button. Within about 13 seconds 6 people were in the room spouting off words such as possible cord pro lapse if my water breaks (it was still unbroken at this point). They did some scans and confirmed cord placement on the top of bubs head, it was decided to go into theatre ASAP before my waters broke and created an emergency situation. It was all abit full on, we were taken into surgery within 30 minutes of the first check. I was able to have a spinal and be awake during surgery, having a C-section is definelty one of the weirdest feelings, not quite painful but very uncomfortable. I even vomited all over myself for good measure.
But hearing Poppy’s first cry was the best moment of my life. It felt like my heart swelled up and I could explode.
At 5:26am on Monday the 20th of September my sweet baby girl Poppy Neath Dwyer arrived into the world. She was 3.8kg and 50cm long. And she is absolutely perfect.
I’m super relieved I am such a baby and I complained about the pain so they checked me.
I shudder to think what could of happened if my waters had broken on their own accord.
What do you wish you knew before birth?
I don’t think I would choose to know anything more about birth than I did, I felt like I knew the basic premise and options available to me. But I tried not to overwhelm myself with details.
The one thing I do wish I knew, was more about recovery with a C-section. I felt like I had a much longer recovery then some of my peers, I was in pain for a really long time. I would of liked to have been better prepared.
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
Honestly just being there and listening to me. Having someone to fetch your water or hold your hand is really comforting. Seeing your partner there with you makes you feel like your at home (even if they do sleep through a lot of it).
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
My advice would be to go with the flow. It’s perfectly fine and encouraged to have a birth plan, but if something doesn’t go to plan, don’t stress yourself out of it. Let your partner know your wishes ahead of time, so they can speak for you.
It’s going to hurt, focus on your coping techniques for that.