A Powerhouse Birth – Where team work makes the dream work

Story by Ange & Tina

We’re excited to welcome baby girl Luca to the Calmbirth clan, born Monday 9th December at 12:54am to two very excited mummas! Ange has been amazing! She did such a stellar job throughout the whole pregnancy but particularly at the end!

We presented with decreased fetal movements at 39+3 days and of course when we checked her up, she was absolutely fine! This did however put us on the radar with the doctors who were already recommending an induction due to IVF (policy to induce due to risk of placenta ageing because of the embryo being created externally via IVF). Once we went in for this check-up and subsequent reassurance checks they really started pushing the induction route but Ange stood firm on wanting to spontaneously labour and so we were able to hold them off by booking an induction for 40 + 4. We then pushed this out to 40 + 6 to give us some more time as she hadn’t really begun to soften or dilate and so wanted to increase her chances.

She did acupuncture every second day, lots of raspberry leaf tea, dates, ball bouncing, curb walking – you name it, she tried it! We also had sweeps done every second day. She started to get some good cramping and was feeling as though things were starting!

By 40+4 Ange developed a sinus infection and everything stopped. She was in a lot of pain and was definitely not in any state to spontaneously labour or be induced so we pushed out to 41 + 4. Again, lots of things to try get her cervix in the right place but by the 5th sweep they still couldn’t break her waters and she had to go in for the tape. We spent the day Saturday at the hospital for the tape, which unfortunately didn’t do much and so she had to have the cooks catheter for 12 hours. After both of these steps she’d still only slightly dilated but had thinned out, so they were able to break her waters (after 3 tries thanks to there being barely any water at the head, all at her feet). We then jumped on the syntho and by 4pm Sunday afternoon she was having good strong contractions.

Around 5:30pm baby became quite posterior and was pushing into Ange’s back causing her a lot of pain. We requested the sterile water injections (glad we knew about them as they weren’t offered), but by the time the midwife came back with them the baby had moved further into the pelvis and the lower back pain had ceased (with her cervical pain ramping up). At this stage Ange decided that she’d had enough, she’d barely slept for 2 days and had a complete crisis of confidence and asked me to get her the epidural so she could lay down and sleep.

It was an intense part of the labour, so difficult to see her in so much pain and with such a lack of confidence. We had spent a lot of time after our Calmbirth classes talking about the things she wanted during labour and the things she didn’t, what experiences she wanted and what she wanted to avoid, and epidural was something she had always said she never wanted. I talked to her about what options were available to her and to perhaps try the other pain relief first before that and to remember how she wanted to be active and feel the labour and she eventually decided to go for the gas & air and the morphine. I’m so glad she chose this because it was the most beautiful labour!

She was in established labour by 6pm and dilated to 5cm by 10pm. By 11:30pm she went to the toilet to empty her bladder to make sure the baby could descend properly and said to the midwife that she could feel her head. The midwife thought that she meant it was in her pelvis and that we had another 4 hours to go but she was actually on show, and we could feel her full head of hair poking out! We managed to slowly walk her back to the delivery room, to get Ange back into her preferred position on all fours, and by 12:25am she was pushing, and by 12:54am Luca was born into my arms!

We had a managed third stage, but the placenta just wouldn’t come out, so she had to go back on the oxytocin drip. After a lot of pushing from Ange and tugging and pulling from the doctors we got it out and avoided a trip to the theatre!

Honestly it was the most beautiful experience, Ange was full earth mumma in her power, and took every piece of the Calmbirth course into the labour. The breathing changed everything for her, the midwife said she was the calmest labour she’d ever had; she’d never experienced someone fully dilated with a head on show be so calm and be able to walk back to where she wanted to birth. She was able to breathe all the way up to the end and not bear down until the midwife told her to, controlling her breathing and urges thanks to what she learnt in the class.

Whilst she didn’t get the spontaneous labour she had wished for; she did have the labour she wanted and that is all we could ask! Thanks to being so well informed we were able to manage every obstacle that came at us with calmness and patience and got through it all beautifully. I am in complete awe of her, she is a powerhouse.