CW: This story mentions birth trauma.

I knew before I even got pregnant that I wanted to try and persue a physiological birth. I was obsessed with listening to and reading birth stories (especially the Australian Birth Stories podcast), and have always been amazed at what our bodies can do throughout pregnancy and birth. My husband and I got pregnant very early in our journey to try and conceive, but unfortunately had an early pregnancy loss and took a little while to get pregnant again with our little boy. This meant I was quite anxious, especially during the first trimester, but once we hit the second trimester, and had been accepted into our first preference of pregnancy care, the Continuity of Care Midwifery program, we were starting to feel more at ease.

I was so excited to birth in the Birth Centre with our beautiful midwife. My dream was to have a water birth. I was preparing for birth as much as I felt like I could. I did a Calm Birth course, I bought a TENS machine, I did all the exercises to help baby get into ideal position, I drank my raspberry leaf tea and forced myself into eating four dates a day! I had been having "pre labour" contractions and pains randomly for almost a month. Then my baby went over 40 weeks - my big baby, who was weighing me down and making me feel sore and exhausted. I could NOT wait for the pregnancy to be over.

Baby had been in the ideal spot, fully engaged, for weeks.Then, on the morning of my 41st week, my waters broke. Well, I didn't quite realise they had. I woke up after a particularly bad night of sleep, and thought maybe I'd wet my pants overnight. I had an appointment with my midwife scheduled for that morning for a stretch and sweep, so when we went in, she tested the liquid and surprise, it was amniotic fluid! I think I had accepted at this point that I was going to need to be induced, so I was pleasantly surprised that my waters had broken on their own. We did some monitoring and I went into spontaneous labour on the CTG! Contractions started as pain in my lower back, but settled in at regular timings from the moment it started. My husband, Gregory, and I planned to go home and keep my oxytocin up and see how things progressed. I insisted on stopping at a cafe for our last lunch date as a family of two, and Gregory looked at me quite concerned as I sat and ate my burger and chips while having contractions in our local cafe! 

I spent the day trying my hardest to stay calm, but on one hand I was getting very excited to give birth and meet our baby, and on the other hand the contractions were intensifying quite fast. I managed my pain at home with hot showers, hypnobirthing techniques, and my TENS machine. I remember feeling proud of myself for managing the contractions. Gregory was in "fix it" mode and kept calling our midwife asking when to come in to the birth centre. I wanted to try and stay at home as long as I could, but by the time evening rolled around, I was struggled to manage the pain on my own, so we headed in to the birth centre.

We met my midwife and student midwife there, and they had already run the bath. My contractions were frequent and regular. I got into the bath and felt a beautiful sense of relief wash over me. The hot water was surprisingly amazing for my pain relief, and I have always personally found submerging myself in water to be one of my mental health techniques for calming my anxiety and fear. I remained in the bath for a while, and the back pain started to get worse. I requested the sterile water injections and let me tell you, while these did work to relieve the back pain, I would never ask them for again! The pain was like nothing else I had ever felt, albeit short lived. My husband watched my screaming face and started to worry, until I felt the back pain ease and let myself sink back into the bath.

The bath helped for a while but I wasn't feeling any desire to push so opted to have a cervical exam. I was nearly at 10cm dilated but a bulge of the amniotic sack was stuck in my cervix. We tried to work towards breaking this naturally, doing some funny looking exercises, including one where my midwife shook my butt with a towel while I hunched over a chair - this was when my husband returned from getting a coffee and was a bit surprised by the maneuvers taking place! None of these worked so my midwife broke the sack, and found there was meconium in the amniotic fluid. This meant we had to move to the birth suite as baby and I needed to be monitored. I was fully dilated though and felt motivated to get a move on so I could meet my baby, so we walked (very slowly) down the hall with my TENS machine on.

I had started using the gas at this point for pain relief and it was working absolute wonders. However after a couple more hours of a hot bath and the gas, I still wasn't feeling a desire to push, and I had been awake for a long time and was exhausted. The pain was getting worse and I was feeling pressure and pain in between contractions, something I hadn't experienced until this point. It was so late, and I was so tired, and Gregory was growing worried for me and baby. I tried to manage my pain for a bit longer, but requested an epidural in the early hours of the morning. I initially didn't want an epidural - I never judged anyone for getting them, but I wanted to try and have an active labour and a water birth, and an epidural wasn't going to work with my original birth preferences. But at this point of labour, after over 12 hours of being fully dilated, and having regular contractions, I didn't care what was in my birth preferences. I just needed to find the strength to push my baby out, and have even momentary relief. The epidural was incredible. Finally, I could lie down and have a rest. I felt like I had exhausted my options for pain relief and my body was tired of fighting. While my body could relax a bit, my mind was started to feel scared. Why weren't things progressing? Why was I in so much pain? 

The epidural, my anxiety and my exhaustion ended up slowing down labour. I needed to have an oxytocin drip administered to maintain my contractions. I tried to push for two hours, but baby wasn't budging. The obstetrician was called in. He did a bedside ultrasound and found that Alexander had shifted to a posterior position with a deflexed head, he was almost trying to come out chin first, and pushing and contractions weren't helping, he was stuck above the cervix. He determined that we could try for a vacuum delivery, and I agreed. Something needed to be done to help baby along, and this could be done in the delivery suite. I waited for this to roll around, but started feeling my motivation dry up. I was just SO tired. The next obstetrician came in an hour or so later and checked Alexander's position again. He decided against a vacuum delivery as his head wasn't far down enough, and the contractions weren't moving things along. Discussion was started about a forceps delivery in the theatre, as there could be the potential for an episiotomy or an emergency Caesarean. I broke down in tears. This was the last thing I wanted to happen. I was tired, I was scared. It had been a full 24 hours of active labour, and things were stuck. Failure to progress. I felt like my body had failed me.

We were rushed to theatre, as consent forms were given to me, I was introduced to new clinicians, my beautiful midwives put my compression socks on and helped my husband into scrubs. When we got to the theatre I had a panic attack. Gregory was brought in ASAP to help calm me. I was so thankful that my midwives could be with me. I pushed with everything I had to see if we could have a forceps delivery, but Alexander's head just wasn't in a safe or ideal position, I needed to have an emergency Caesarean. Things happened so quickly. The surgery was started and before I could even fully understand what was happening, I heard a cry. My beautiful son, Alexander, was brought up above the curtain. Covered in blood and meconium. He needed to be checked by the paediatrician, and I was so grateful that Gregory could still cut the cord shorter. It felt like we could try and still have a small part of the birth we envisioned. My baby was brought to my chest. I cried. He was perfect. But everything came back to me again, the panic, the nausea, the pain, the fear. I asked my husband to hold him. I just felt defeated, unwell. Happy, but struggling to understand how a situation could be so traumatising and so incredible at the same time.

It has taken time to work through my birth experience. I grieve the birth I didn't have, and have processed things slowly over time. Alexander was destined to be born via Caesarean, and it was the absolute safest option for the both of us. I am so grateful we were in the hospital and that the situation was dealt with so quickly once a solution was found. I am so grateful that Alexander was delivered safely and that he was so big and healthy. I wish things had gone differently. No one puts an emergency Caesarean in their birth preferences - it was simply a footnote in mine, an after thought. I trusted my body and unfortunately things went a different way. Birth is unpredictable. My entire pregnancy was low risk, and yet birth ended up going in a completely different direction. I saw a counsellor, and a psychologist, to help work through my feelings and birth trauma. I am still not fully healed, body or mind, but every day I spend with my perfect family, and the work I put in to healing, brings me closer to peace with my birth experience.

What do you wish you knew before birth?

I wish I knew and understood that birth is unpredictable and that our babies didn't attend the prenatal courses. I was a bit naive about birth, and thought that because I had "done all the prep" and "knew my body" that my birth would go smoothly and to plan, but that's not always the case, and that's why interventions and doctors are sometimes needed to step in, and save mum and baby.

If you could, would you do anything differently?

I would have spent less time preparing for a single type of birth. I think I leant too deeply into the idea of "my body will know what to do", and went single minded on how my birth would progress. Rather than a birth plan, I would have put together a birth map, looking at all options, and understanding and reminding myself that if I needed interventions, like an epidural, instruments, or synthetic oxytocin, it could be necessary and okay, and wouldn't meant that I had failed. 

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

My partner was my rock! He was there with affirmations when I felt like I couldn't do it, supported me through every contraction, put on my music, my TENS machine, held my water bottle while I drank from it. Most importantly, he was there with a clear mind to help me understand what was happening when things were going wrong, and throughout the whole process, he helped advocate for my and our baby. I could not have gone through this without him.

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

Birth is just the beginning. Preparing for a baby by just thinking about the birth, is like planning a wedding and not a marriage. I wish I had spent less time worrying about birth, and more time reading about and understanding early postpartum, for me and for my baby. I wish I had better knowledge of newborns and how to tend to their needs, as well as how to care for my own body and mind postpartum.