Support during a difficult birth
My now two year old was born at 35+4 (as it turns out I have a bicornurate uterus which I didn't know at the time). What initially appeared to be a straight forward delivery with good progression went down hill pretty quickly, with significant fetal distress (less than100 heart rate). We went from having a 'planned' emergency c-section to a full blown emergency c-section under a general anaesthetic. My poor husband was left crying in the hall with very little idea of what was going on.
I had dialated from 3 to 7cm in the run down the hall! So was in a lot of pain with onset of contractions.
I think the hardest part of it all was not being there for the first contact with my daughter and I still now feel cheated of that initial contact with her. I know my husband is more traumatised by it all with a lot of reluctance to go back for another.
And just to top it all off this was on the back of a 3 year conception challenging which included IVF and ectopic pregnancy and discovering I had endometriosis!
My obstetrician was fantastic! He was aware I wanted to avoid a c section unless there was a medical need so when he raised the concern about the level of distress he was factual and supportive in the decision making.
And secondly I had 2 wonderful midwives! They were there through the whole thing completely encouraging and supportive and due to the length of stay in hospital post birth gave me some wonderful feedback on how well I had been doing, how if it wasn't for my daughter being so distressed I would have had a very quick and (potentially) easy delivery with the way I was handling it all and progressing. And that give every thing I would likely be able to have a VBac with a second if we had one.
If we do have another I know I'll have the same wonderful obstetrician and I now know a little more about what choices I have rather than having to make them at 4am when the shit has hit.
