So here you have Tilda's birth story, just as I wrote it for my pregnancy yoga friends. We used to send around our birth stories and I think this is an amazing thing.
Baby Matilda was born Monday 21st of
February at 2.54 am, weighing kg 3.164 (7 lbs). We are doing fine and now at
one week she has already put on 400 grams!
But let's get to my birth story. For
the second time we ended up with a C-Section, but this time it's been a lot
less upsetting than last time.
I had had some very random
contractions since Wednesday, but Sunday at 3am, I woke up because of the pain
of contractions. I called the hospital at 9 am and an hour after the midwife Anne was at mine. She checked me and I was only 1cm dilated, so she told me that my body
was behaving like this was a first pregnancy, but that she was sure I'd been in
touch very soon again, so she left and I just kept going, used breathing and
yoga positions. Had a lovely lunch with my husband, my daughter and my mum.
Then at 4 pm my waters went (and it was Niagara falls again like in my previous labour), so I called the hospital and my Doula - Lindsey - and in less
than an hour both, her and the MW, were here.
From then until 11.30 pm we've been
home, I've kept breathing and used two full canisters of gas and air!!! Had
some massage done by my husband and my doula in turn (Lindsey used clary sage oil and I loved it!) , we've been chatting
together when I wasn't contracting of course, and we tried to keep the
environment as quiet as possible. I've also been vocalising my pain through
some vowels, and some mooing, and it was really good! My little daughter was
allowed to come in and out of the room, and I was so happy about it: during some
contractions she would imitate me breathing and this was filling me up and
keeping my morale hour after hour.
At 10.30 pm we decided to have
another examination and I was only 4 cm dilated by then and starting to feel
exhausted. During the vaginal examination my unborn baby grabbed the MW
finger!!! She was amazed, but said her hand was in a strange position. We then decided to go to the hospital, where I should have been offered an
epidural. When I got into the hospital we talked about this option and decided to
go for it, but we had to wait for an hour because the anaesthetist was already
in theatre
I was monitored by then, and after a
while my baby's heartbeat went down, so the doctor came and said that it was
better to have a C-section. I really wanted a vaginal birth this time, but there is no shame in changing our minds, and what we all
wanted then was to meet our baby and make sure she was fine.
So at around 2.30 I've been taken
into the theatre and Matilda was born at 2.54 am.
All in all I feel great this time, I
did all I could and have been labouring at mine for as long as it has been safe to
do so, I've had the help of three fantastic persons (my husband, my Doula and
the midwife), and had the C-section when really there was nothing else that
could have been done.
We stayed in hospital for three days,
and are now settling very well, breastfeeding is well established and Elisabetta is doing fine with
her new sister, plus it feels great to be a mum of two.
There are probably a few things I feel different about now, but that was the story then, and that is how I like to remember it.
