In this heartfelt story Lara tells of the traumatic birth of Jacob. To me it illustrates perfectly how vulnerable women are within the system of the NHS and dis-empowered when they feel that they are not being adequately listened to.
When I was six months pregnant shop assistants and old ladies kept saying things to me such as “Ooo, not long now” and the like. When I told them I still had 3 months to go they couldn’t believe it – I had a very big bump and was carrying a very big baby.
My GP was awful – the practice where I was based lost their practice nurse quite early on during my pregnancy and couldn’t get another one so I was stuck with my overworked male GP not long from another country with a very different culture. He wasn’t at all re-assuring and told me he couldn’t hear my baby’s heartbeat properly as I was carrying too much fat around my abdomen. For someone already sensitive about this issue – this wasn’t something that filled me with confidence and put me at ease. I was only 23 and not a very confident person – if a GP said that to me now, I would simply not go back and may even make a complaint, but at the time I just thought he was being factual and I should put up with it.No one at the hospital made any suggestions that it might be hard for my baby to be born as he was so big. I had had blood tests and they didn’t seem to think I had any problems but my mum was worried – she thought that it might cause problems. When I look back I can’t believe some of the things that happened to me. I was allowed to go 10 days over my due date even though I could barely walk as my bump was so big. When my waters at last broke at about 7pm one evening I went into the hospital and at about 10pm my partner was sent home as nothing was happening. I had decided I wanted to have my baby in hospital. I felt that if something were to go wrong at least I would be in the right place and my baby would have the best chance without having to make a mad dash to hospital.
At 1am, the nurses noticed that the fluid coming out of me was stained and decided that the baby might have pooed in the birth fluid. This is dangerous as the baby can be poisoned if he swallows any of it.
I was told I would have to be induced and the drugs were started on a drip. My partner was summoned back to the hospital and a long difficult night began. They said that induction caused fast and full-on contractions and I would need major pain relief or by the time came to push I would be too exhausted. I had already been through the gas and air, which had made me feel paranoid, and so I decided to have an epidural – I didn’t want anything else that would make me feel tripped-out! A junior doctor came, obviously just dragged out of bed, to give me the epidural and once it was in my system I began to feel very weird. I felt peaceful and as if everything was very far away. I became aware of lots of people coming into the room and a sense of panic about them. I just felt very calm and above it all. Someone leaned over me and said something about my blood pressure dropping – I was moved around and someone stuck a huge wedge of foam underneath me to make me lean to one side. “How strange” I remember thinking! I was injected several times and after a while I started to feel as if I had come back into the room and was more aware. It turned out my blood pressure had fallen to nothing and I was slipping away. It was funny as afterwards I thought how calm I had felt – it reminded me of reports of Near Death Experiences and how people say they feel totally calm and understand everything. I also thought about it years later when I had a serious car crash. In the moments before I crashed I felt totally peaceful and in the hands of something higher. I surrendered to it.Things seemed to calm down after that and for a few hours I dozed. Early in the morning the midwives changed shifts and I had a new midwife. She said that my cervix was still only 3cm dilated and I may have to have a caesarean. I was pleased about this because I thought it would avoid any problems I might have pushing out such a large baby. However, after this I began to dilate pretty quickly and I moved into the transition part of the birth process, after the dilation stops and before the pushing starts. I had been told that I might feel odd and panicky during this phase but, at the time, I forgot all about that. It became very clear to me that something had to be done. I felt that if I explained myself very calmly and clearly, the midwife would have to take me seriously. I explained that I could no longer carry on having a baby and someone would have to do something about it. I felt I was being very rational and clear and authoritative. I laugh about this now because, at the time, I was convinced that if I appeared to be calm they would knock me out and remove my baby and I would wake up and it would all be over!
Eventually I realised that I was going to have to push the baby out myself and I had better just get on with it. It took about an hour but he came out just fine. They lay my baby beside me and all I can remember are his intense blue eyes and how much I loved him. I felt that until this moment I had never really understood love. Then the midwives began to mumble and things happened very quickly. They took my baby and rushed him off to special care. There was a paediatrician and she said my baby was “shutting down”. I felt that nothing else in the world mattered but that my baby would be ok. The midwife stitched up the cut she had made to get the baby out and for hours and hours I just lay there. I couldn’t get up as the epidural hadn’t worn off.
My partner and I didn’t talk to one another. There was nothing to say – it was just waiting. Eventually a doctor came and explained that my baby had swallowed meconium (the baby’s first poo) and it had made him very ill. I asked if he might die and the doctor just looked at me gravely. I took that to mean that he might. More waiting.
My partner went to see my son and then came back for me and wheeled me to special care in a wheelchair. Everyone seemed much more upbeat and talked about how my baby had recovered his colour and was much better. I felt I couldn’t feel optimistic until I knew for sure that he was completely better. I spent the night in a side room. I said I couldn’t go onto the ward with all the other women with their healthy babies. In the morning we went back to see my son and the doctors said he could come back to the ward. He had had a brain scan in case he had been oxygen deprived on the way out and they said he would have to have another in six weeks to check again. After that things were quite normal. I remember my partner came in and I showed him how to change the baby’s nappy. He took off the old nappy and Jacob poo-ed all over his hands. He was really squeamish about it but it was very funny.
I didn’t blame my midwife. She told me a few weeks later it was the most traumatic and difficult birth she had ever been at and she had been a midwife for ten years. She was great during the whole process and stayed with me for several hours after her shift had finished. I felt lucky to have had her really despite the sewing errors!Jacob’s birth wasn’t a positive experience – more of a bad dream really. It makes me think of the fragility of life despite everything known about medicine. Jacob is fine now. He weighed eleven pounds when he was born, but settled down to normal weight quite quickly. He’s the most amazing thing in my life – I never knew how much it was possible to love someone until he came along. As I’m sure other parents will know – it hurts in its intensity and can be almost a burden until you get used to it. I guess the worry will never go away but I’ve been told that’s pretty normal too! Jacob is nine now – it was just his birthday on Monday so kind of a good time to write the story really.I suppose in terms of being a woman, what I feel is that I wish I had known more and been more aware that mistakes DO happen. I suppose I just trusted that I was in the hands of professionals and they would do the best they could and, in many ways, on the day/s of the birth they did. I just feel that someone should have
intervened beforehand and anticipated the problems I might have with Jacob being so big. I don’t have any other children and, as I have such bad endometriosis now, it’s unlikely that I ever will. I suppose I feel a little sad about that although, all things considered, taking into account some other things that have happened in my life, one is probably enough! If I did go through the process again I would be much more assertive and demanding about what I felt was right for me. I would still go into hospital but I would make sure a consultant supervised the whole of my birth and that EVERYTHING I wanted was taken into account. If I felt that one person involved in the birth was wrong for me I would ask that that person be removed and replaced by someone else. This is partly a result of being older and wiser but my first experience has certainly shaped that viewpoint. I trust my own experience of my body much more now and see healthcare professionals as someone to work with rather than submit oneself to these days!
I was involved with Paganism at the time and sadly, some would say, the experience left me feeling that there was nothing spiritual about giving birth at all. Unless it is perhaps the feeling that the baby makes his or her journey into the world alone and although we are all waiting there on the other side of the veil, each one of us makes the journey alone. It reminds me of a shamanic initiation experience. We make the journeys through the barriers of life and death alone despite who may be waiting on the other side. It is an extremely dangerous and worrying time. It didn’t affect my feelings about my spirituality – I didn’t feel ‘let down’ or anything. I suppose, again, things might be very different now but I’m not sure I will ever find out!