Tahnee's Birth Story - 43 hours, 16 active and 2 hours pushing.

24/11/22

Contractions started at 4pm, light, averaging about 15 minutes apart. I laboured through the night at home as things intensified, using the tens machine from the get go which was a huge relief.

We left for the hospital at 4am on 25/11/22 after reaching what felt like my limit at home. Unfortunately we were only 2cm dilated and were encouraged to go back home and continue to labour in the comfort of our own space. This was heart-breaking and a huge mental barrier I had to find a way to get past if I was going to push through. The next 13 hours are a blur, I laboured at home from 7am until 8pm that day, testing myself and reaching my absolute limit. I entered such a deep state, going inward. I spent hours labouring on the toilet to continue to progress and dilate, breathing him down with every painful contraction. I should add, the tens machine had ridden the whole journey with me at this point. It felt like my team mate throughout the whole thing. I felt really confident I had breathed through all of my contractions and would have progressed significantly during this time.

Wanting to achieve an intervention free birth, trusting my body and the entire process, unfortunately I was checked again at the hospital, going against my wishes however each time we went back to the hospital contractions slowed right now to 7-10 minutes apart, where at home they were about 2 minutes apart. This meant that without checking how far along I was they were likely to send us home again to the lack of progression. I was checked again, however requested that they not tell me how far along I was. We were told to stay and we later found out we’re now at 5cm, I was really hopeful for a water birth however there was no one with the accreditation during our stay. While this was disheartening I had prepared myself for it. We had a beautiful midwife who wholeheartedly respected my wishes to trust my body and the process without interventions. She left us to continue to get into the state I had going at home, continuing to labour and push myself. Having entered the birth suite at about 9pm, things intensified massively by about 1am. I went from being in control and in my zone, to suddenly doubting my ability to continue further. By this stage I had started to vomit and couldn’t go any further. It was clear that I was in transition. Unknown to me however, my midwife had been having discussions with the team leader for hours about the length of my labour and concerns about it stalling, giving that my waters still hadn’t broken. It was at this point that it was brought to my attention with concern and a strong recommendation to check my progress and break my waters. I consented as I was at breaking point. Upon checking, I was informed that I was admitted at 5cm and had only dilated another 1cm in the last 5 hours since being at the hospital due to my waters being so strong and prohibiting my cervix from dilating. I queried if my waters were to be broken, would things progress really quickly given my body was in a state of transition, to which they indicated that it could. My waters were broken. It was at this point that I had a handover of midwife as her shift had come to an end.

For the next couple of hours I continued to labour in excruciating pain with it clear my cervix was quickly catching up to where my body thought it was. I was in agony. I was beyond tired having not slept since Thursday, in between contractions I was falling asleep standing up. The midwives we’re struggling to locate bub’s heart rate so were constantly touching me and adjusting the monitoring straps. I knew our little boy was close. My body was working over drive and I knew I had progressed a lot since having my waters broken. As I had wanted to do the whole time, I was trusting my body and I knew things had shifted, however I did feel like my new midwife had a stronger desire to do things by the book and not enable me to trust myself.

I was beginning to feel a lot of pressure below and like my body was starting to push. At the same time, the midwives were growing concern that they couldn’t clearly monitor his heart rate and were wanting to put a monitoring device on his head. I agreed to do a cervical check to see how far I’d progressed since having my waters break as I felt like I needed to push but knew they were also hoping to place the monitoring device on his head at the time which I strongly didn’t want. I had asked that we check and if I was further along as I suspected that we wouldn’t need to place it on his head as I’d soon be pushing. I was 9cm, my gut was right which was really reassuring. I was close.

Since I couldn’t have a water birth like I was hoping for, it was at this point I decided to move to the shower to hopefully birth with gravity and water. Although the thought of going through anymore contractions without my tens machine was terrifying. I was ready to push, every part of my body was pushing and trying to deliver my boy, I knew it was time, however the midwife was so adamant I needed to be 10cm to push that she had me defy gravity, go against my body and do the opposite of what I’d been doing for almost 40 hours and that was to hold him in rather than breathe him down. It was hell. I was at breaking point, he was coming. How was I meant to stop that?!?

I spent almost an hour and a half in the shower trying to fight my bodies natural reaction to push. My midwife was going on break, I was spiralling. Eventually she came back and I made clear I had to push, I couldn’t do it anymore and so she instructed me with my next contraction to push. She had a mirror and a torch and was crouched down to watch to see if I was fully dilated and if he was coming. With the next couple of contractions I tried to push but it didn’t feel right, I couldn’t feel him and just knew this didn’t feel right. So she got me up on the bed to check if I had any cervix left, so again with the next couple of contractions she had me push. This time felt different, I could feel my boy making his way down. I was fully dilated and he was coming. I did my next few contractions here with my student midwife Kristin on one side and Jordan on the other pushing my legs up towards me with each contraction so my focus was solely on pushing.

My son was finally coming after 41 hours. Knowing I absolutely didn’t want to deliver on my back on the bed, my midwife asked if I wanted to jump off the bed and push in another position. In that moment, as much as delivering on the bed was the last thing I wanted, it was right. I needed to, he was coming and it was the first time I felt that. With each push, I felt him making his way out but after an hour and a half of pushing we had made no progress because he kept slipping back as he couldn’t get over what my midwife said was a strong muscle. While pushing she tried to do perineal massage to try and get him over the muscle but it wasn’t happening.

We were now getting to a pointy end where if I continued pushing any longer both mine and bub’s heart rate could be at risk. It was then that they made clear it was recommended and likely necessary that I would need an episiotomy in order to deliver him. My birth plan going in was that I would prefer to tear rather than get an episiotomy, however the concern was that he wouldn’t be able to get out. He was stuck.

Due to my allergy to local anaesthetic, one of the midwives left the room to query what else they could give me for the episiotomy. With my mind so strongly set that I didn’t want one, with the next 2 pushes despite having given it everything I could for the last 2 hours, I pushed his head out with no intervention! I’d done it. With next couple of pushes, he was here!

My beautiful boy, came out screaming, healthy and did a poo straight on me. He was instantly put on my chest, my gorgeous boy. It was the most overwhelming, consuming experience of love I’ve never felt.

My labour in total was 43 hours, 16 active and 2 hours pushing.