Shannon’s Birth Story

I’ll start with my pregnancy… it was all pretty low risk, however I was closely monitored for high blood pressure as I usually have high numbers when I go to the drs or to hospital. Although, at home it’s completely normal. I also suffered from pelvic girdle pain and a lot of discomfort in general. Therefore, I did end up finishing work at around 28 weeks as I am a domestic cleaner.

That all being said I really embraced being pregnant and really wanted a positive and natural birth. I really dove right in with the positive affirmations and meditation tracks. Everyday I would find so much joy in having a warm relaxing bath with my positive affirmation tracks playing. This, I really believe made all the difference in my mindset towards the ability to birth my baby without pain relief.

So I was 35 weeks and 2 days pregnant when my waters broke at around 3:30pm on the 16th of December 2022. On this exact day, my husband and I had completed the birth rehearsal video and the oxytocin was really flowing! Literally an hour later my waters broke!

I was actually concerned at this point as I was so early. I called the hospital and they advised me to come in and get the fluid checked out. I had already put a pad in as the fluid was still leaking. So we got in the car, I started to feel contractions in the car over to the hospital. They were already starting to get pretty close together. We arrived at the hospital and we were asked to wait for the dr to assess me. One of the midwives asked me to place my pad in the bathroom which I did. We spent what seemed like forever waiting for the dr to come and advise what the process was going to be as I still didn’t know whether I was in labour or not. The surges at this point got a lot more intense and closer together, I was pretty sure at this point I was definitely in labour but was still needing that confirmation that baby was going to be okay.

We were then sent to a birthing room which was actually pretty horrible as it stunk like bleach and I was feeling really uncomfortable at this point. Another midwife came in and told me they were going to insert a cannula into my arm and start administering antibiotics as I didn’t have the test for strep b. I was starting to really panic at this point as I started to think I might be here in hospital for a long time and with a drip and monitors attached to me. I was also aware once they start hooking you up to machines it limits my movement and can start the cascade of interventions.

I was sitting on the bed at this point and starting to get really bad back cramps with every surge. So I wanted to keep getting up. I refused the cannula and the midwife was really rude about it and made me feel very uncomfortable. They ended up getting the dr to come in finally, who confirmed for us that baby was definitely on his way and asked very nicely if I would think about getting the antibiotics in a cannula without any cords just a through a vial. I agreed to this. We had to pause the conversation every few minutes as my surges were that close together. As soon as the dr left the room I took off my pants as I couldn’t stand them anymore! We were then moved to another birthing suite.

This is when I looked at the time, it was 8pm. The nurse came in and started trying to find a vein in my hand to insert the cannula. This took a very long time and she had to poke me about 3 times, while I was having intense surges!! As soon as it was inserted and she had left, i immediately got down on all fours and screamed “I need to poo!!!” And looked behind me for a toilet. The midwife was reading through my birth preferences while this happened and turned off the lights and started getting things ready as she knew I was pushing.

She was very understanding and accepting of our preferences and was happy to let me do my thing but at this point there wasn’t much time to do anything. The midwife asked me to move to a better location as she had layed down a mattress and the disposable puppy pads. I very reluctantly moved as it felt impossible. I then started pushing with my hands on the bed and my knees on the floor. By 8:39pm baby Isaiah was born, completely naturally with not even a Panadol in the space of 5 hours!!