When natasha met alexis
While sharing the birth of her first child Alexis, Natasha talks about the importance of advocating for yourself. She found herself being recommended by a doctor to bring her baby out at 39 weeks due to her blood pressure trending up and belly growth concerns, but Alexis wanted the full picture before making a decision.
Natasha tells her birth stories in her own words…
I had a relatively easy pregnancy apart from the first trimester nausea and everything was tracking along really well until about 39 weeks.
I was lucky enough to get into the continuity program at Canberra Hospital and had a lovely midwife look after me, for my 39 week appointment she came to visit me at home, doing all the normal blood pressure, belly measurement checks etc. Things seemed to be tracking well, however the next day I got a call from the midwife after she had reviewed all my results again and she was concerned that my blood pressure was trending up and that my belly had not grown since my last check up 2 weeks earlier and she asked us to come into the hospital to get checked out.
I went into the hospital for monitoring and that day my blood pressure had sky rocketed, probably because I was so anxious, and she re-measured my belly and was concerned that bub had stopped growing. At that point we had a doctor came to chat to us and was quite straightforward 'at this stage your baby is probably safer out than in, if bub isn't growing you're at risk of stillbirth so you should probably just get an induction today', that was quite scary to hear, but I had listened to quite a few podcasts and the birth course I had done was all about advocating for yourself and getting the full picture before going down the medical intervention route so before saying yes to the induction I asked for some additional tests to see what was actually going on.
I didn't have any other signs of pre-eclampsia and they were able to do a quick ultrasound to check that bub still had enough amniotic fluid and that there was still good blood flow through the placenta, these were all good signs and didn't indicate that anything was wrong with bub. They couldn't do a proper growth scan at the hospital because it was a Friday afternoon so I decided to wait until the Monday when I could get a growth scan to make any decisions about an induction, with the plan to get CTG monitoring every 48 hours until then.
The Monday came and I had the growth scan and bub was measuring on the smaller side, on the 6th percentile or about 35 weeks even though I was close to 40 weeks. With these results it was decided that bub would be safer out than in and so we went ahead with an induction, although I still had to wait for a bed to become available. Two days later we went into the hospital for the induction and I had the balloon catheter placed mid morning, I got some pretty strong contractions after that for a few hours but they subsided overnight. The next morning they removed the balloon and I was 3cm dilated so they went ahead and broke my waters and started the oxytocin drip.
The contractions came on hard and fast and were 2-3 minutes apart and 45-60sec long from the beginning. I had done a calm birth style class in the preparation for birth but I felt like all the meditations I had done went out the window and it was a battle right from the start, I used the tens machine from the start and even though it didn't seem to ease the pain it was a good distraction.
I tried the gas for some pain relief but I found it too hard to breathe and so I gave up on that, then I tried the bath however they were having a hard time picking up bubs heart rate so I had to hop out and they put a scalp monitor on bub instead. At that stage I had been in labour for about 3 hours and was now 4cm dilated, hearing that I was only 4cm dilated was a struggle mentally as I felt like I was already at my limit but could have hours and hours to go! However, just 45 minutes later my body started getting the urge to push, it was an incredible feeling, I got checked just to make I was fully dilated and I was ready to push! Bub was still really far up the birth canal so I had to push for over an hour to get her down.
Towards the end bubs heart rate was starting to drop and the midwife told me that I needed to get her out ASAP, so the calm breathing went out the window and I was told to hold my breath and push as hard as I could (I pushed so hard i burst blood vessels in my face!) , it honestly felt like my tail bone was breaking, but a few more pushes and she was out! She came out and they placed her directly on my chest. We did breast crawl and she latched herself for her first feed within the hour. She ended up being just over 2.8kg putting her just over the 10th percentile which meant we didn't need any additional monitoring. Everyone was doing well and so we went home just 5 hours later, it was a whirlwind!! Those first few weeks were magical and bub was absolutely thriving.
At 4 weeks postpartum I ended up with a delayed postpartum hemorrhage due to retained placenta which was a scary experience. I ended up having to go back in to the hospital for a few days for antibiotics and a D&C but thankfully everything went smoothly.
Nothing prepares you for the journey that is birth and motherhood but I wouldn't change a thing.
What do you wish you knew before birth?
I listened to lots of podcasts and reading to prepare for birth but my my midwife kept telling me to prepare for postpartum. I thought I had by having my mum stay to cook meals and help with washing but looking back now she meant preparing for breastfeeding, sleeping and all the baby related jobs. I would encourage any pregnant mummas to do some reading on breastfeeding before the baby is here, breastfeeding really is a journey and even though we seemed to have it down pat in the first few weeks things changed quickly and I had a very unsettled fussy bub! The Maternal Child Health Nurses have been a great help on our feeding journey!
If you could, would you do anything differently?
In hindsight it would've been nice to have more scans along the way to check on bubs growth as there was no way to know if something had gone wrong with my placenta towards the end or if I was always going to have a small baby!
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
My partner was amazing, he was full of encouraging words and affirmations and was great at getting me to drink water and reminding me to go to the toilet. We did a transform parenting birth class together (highly recommend!!) and this was so helpful as he got to understand what his role in the birth could be and went in fully prepared, he had a little book full of notes and had even printed off and laminated our birth plan (which of course we didn't even use haha).
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
Birth is a wild ride and it doesn't often go to plan but at the end of the day it truly doesn't matter how your baby comes into the world, drugs, no drugs, vaginal birth or c-section, the only thing that matters is having a happy, healthy bub. Also take more pictures of the labour/birth! I wish I had some more videos or pictures to look back on from that time.