tags - wombtoworldarticle
Subject: Birth Theme: Birth plans go out of the window Differentiation: Birth plans change whether you’re at home or in the hospital
I threw my bedpan across the room at the midwife.
For over an hour, I had been waiting for pain relief - and I was getting impatient.
Months earlier, I’d been diagnosed with a low papay score. Low papay is when XYZ… which means XYZ.
I’d been warned that I may not make it to term, so it came as no shock when, at week 38, the consultant said I’d need to start induction.
The first step was to be admitted to hospital and have a pessary inserted - an XYZ that XYZ.
24 hours later, nothing had happened.
The pessary was replaced.
6 hours later - no changes.
At that point was given two choices: (1) have a caesarean or (2) try another form of induction described at the time as “rods”.
Apparently they were on trial. They work like XYZ and XYZ…
Even though I was getting impatient and worried, I really wanted a natural birth. I figured I’d come this far so I might as well try everything I could.
The rods went in and stayed there for 12 hours.
Then, at 1pm, I was taken to the delivery suite to have my water’s broken.
That was also the point that my husband would join (at the time, no partner’s or guests were allowed on the wards and were only invited when in labour on the delivery suite).
By 4pm, I was given syntocinin - a hormon drip that brings on contractions.
And that’s exactly what it did. They came on fast and hard. It didn’t take long before I was using gas & air (nitrous oxide).
And not long after that, I began to feel like the gas & air wasn’t touching the sides.
I persisted for as long as I could because I thought I’d be better off waiting until I really needed it.
By the time I was repeating “I can’t do this”, Cal asked if I wanted pain relief.
“YES!”
So he went to find the midwife to ask.
It was an extremely busy shift at the hospital so my midwife was trying to care for other women simultaneously.
In the early stages of labour, we didn’t see her much.
Time went on and there was no pain relief in sight.
Cal asked again.
The midwife said she’d be there in a few minutes.
By the time she arrived, I was losing patience, more and more in pain.
When the midwife arrived, it was hand-over time.
She arrived with another handover
I was getting lairy.
With hindsight, they obviously weren’t concerned, and possibly trying to keep me going on gas & air - without oral pain relief - for as long as possible. I don’t know. But I do know that I was in no mood to be ignored…
So I picked up a bed pan from the end of the bed, took aim, and chucked it in the direction of the poor midwives.
They were safe; the pan was empty and I’ve never been the best thrower, so it didn’t even come close to hitting them.
Anyway…
It wasn’t long after that I was introduced to a new midwife who eventually delivered my baby.
I have to say, I think I skipped the introductions and insisted on pain relief.
From that point on, my memories are pretty hazy.
But I DO remember, very clearly, the moment Mabel arrived at 1am.
Why am I telling you this story?
Well, I can tell you that I had hoped for a water birth, didn’t want to be induced, and I’d never even heard of rods - so they certainly weren’t in my birth plan!
Actually, to tell you the truth, I didn’t have a birth plan. Not on paper, anyway. I knew I wanted a hospital birth but, beyond that, I was advised not to write a plan because it was right in the middle of the first Covid-19 lockdown when nobody knew what was around the corner, and therefore didn’t know how it would affect maternity care.
As it turns out, that was the right decision for me, because everything I’d imagined and hoped for went out of the window in a few short days.
Does this mean you shouldn’t make a birth plan?
No, that’s not what I’m saying.
In a way, I did have a birth plan; I knew what my ideal birth looked like.
But I also knew there was a good chance it wouldn’t happen that way.
For some it does.
And you do have a degree of control over the outcome.
In fact, you can only make good decisions about your birth when you know what you want.
Completely winging it is like captaining a ship without a destination in mind. How would you know which direction to go in or when to turn?
What I discovered, though, is that I was guided by my real goal: to deliver my baby without harm.
With that goal in mind, I knew that the journey and route might change, but that was ok with me as long as he or she arrived safely.
This end result, in my humble opinion, is as (if not more) empowering to define than your specific birth preferences.