My Mum has been a midwife her entire career, so growing up for me talking about placentas and all things birth was very normal conversation. After school we would walk over to the hospital where my Mum worked and hang out there until she was done, so the sound of moaning and roaring down the halls was nothing new as I knew it meant a new baby was almost born! I could sense the beauty in birth even from such a young age.
As I got older I started asking all the questions about it, and even became the source of knowledge for my friends who were having babies before I did.
And then I got pregnant with my first baby, and the questions for my Mum were non-stop! (That's young me with first pregnancy in the photos below - gosh these kids have aged me!).
Also, just as a pre-warning, this blog is basically quite an in-depth and detailed explanation of my own births (as they, along with other factors, is where my passion for birth photography was born), so if that’s your thing then stick around, but if not, I won’t be offended if you decide this blog post isn’t for you...
So anyway, like all First time Mums, I had the perfect Birth plan. Filled with sunshine and daisies and all things perfect in this world – ha!
Not long before I was pregnant with my first baby, I had just gone through some health conditions that made me question our overly medicalized world, so was already well on my way down the path of natural/holistic health. Being pregnant then heightened that path for me immensely, as all us Mums want to do is protect our babies the best we know how. So of-course my birth plan included all things natural, no drugs, and birthing at Birth Centre. I loved the idea of a homebirth, but for some reason I just didn’t feel the peace I would have liked around doing it, and I’m a big believer in listening to your gut, especially as a mum!
Anyway, my first birth could not have been farther from my plan. It was the smorgasbord of intervention.
After 3 nights of very painful latent labour and no sleep, it started off with a quick check at home to see if I was dilating, but alas, still barely 2-3cm. During this examination, and without warning (or my consent for that matter!), I got the most painful stretch and sweep ever. I was writhing on the bed! I have had 3 babies now, and that particular moment is still burned into my mind. Yea cool, thanks for that midwife I hadn’t even met before.
Another sleepless night goes by and still nothing, but by this point I’m basically in constant tears from being so exhausted, no idea when it would end, and no way to help it along.
The decision was made that maybe if I could get some sleep at the hospital then things will either slow down, or pick up by themselves after I was rested. At 41+5 weeks I sure wasn’t keen for it to slow down either, but hey, anything to make the pain stop at this point.
Got to hospital, and quite quickly was given Pethidine. So uh, that’s an opiate, and I have never been someone who has taken drugs in my life. Even as a teenager I steered clear as I just didn’t like the feeling they gave me, I don’t like the feeling of being ‘out of control’, yes hello I’m Frances and I'm a control freak haha. I had hoped this drug would just help me relax and sleep. Nope, very soon I was PEAKING. And I hated it. I pretty much was having a panic attack, but thankfully my former drug taking husband (teenage years just to clarify haha), was able to talk me through it and reassure me that I was ok.
He finally talked me off the cliff, and they started transferring me to a room for some sleep, ahhhh finally I thought. Got to the room and the blimmen drug was already wearing off now.
Ok, still no sleep for me! Tried gas, nope hated it. Another night of painful contractions went by. I still had a moment to snap this selfie below at 4am...
Next morning while in tears again, I told my midwife to just get this baby out now. She broke my waters. Wow ok, more painful contractions now. Check again few hours later… nope no progress. Need to start synto (the synthetic drug they use for induction). My Mum at this point is telling me things are about to get even more painful *cue way more waterworks from me*. She convinced me an epidural was a good idea, and even though I was terrified of getting one, I went with it because I didn’t think I could handle this anymore. Needle in the spine cool cool, husband as white as ghost watching, laying on the bed and then the epidural kicked in… ahhhh, but on ONE SIDE OF MY BODY. So now I’m stuck on the bed with what felt like white hot fire on one side of my body, and the other completely numb.
Oki doki, another needle to the spine to see if we can fix it. Finally! Pain free, what a relief! Lay there for a while trying to rest while my body did its thing.
Finally time to push, that all went fine, baby is out! Midwife asks husband to push emergency button, blood everywhere. I haemorrhaged, but thankfully they got placenta out fast and managed to stop it at a 1.2L blood loss. Hold on, now I have super high blood pressure and a temperature. Pre-eclampsia after giving birth? I had never even heard of that, but yup that's what I had. Oh and 2nd degree tear. Photo below is of me all puffed up minutes after baby arrived, I could barely see from all the puffiness in my face! Don't look if you don't want to see a little bit of nipple too haha.
Annnnnyyywaaaay…. All was uphill from there, and thankfully breastfeeding was established really well. Which by the way, I 100% believe that expressing antenatally was a huge reason for breastfeeding starting so well. My baby was gulping down colostrum on the first feed haha!
So that was my first birth. Vaginal delivery, but basically every other intervention was used to get me there. Which of-course I’m thankful for even though it’s not what I wanted.
After this birth, I learnt a lot! Things that I didn’t like that happened (and shouldn’t have happened) things that I could have been better prepared for, and in general a lot more about the whole birthing world. My intrigue and passion for this intense and crazy time of our lives was even higher...
So then my second birth. I was so excited! I knew it would be nothing like the first because first births usually just aren’t great. I read the hypnobirthing book and was practicing it all leading up to the birth. Feeling good and couldn’t wait.
Latent labour started again… doh! Trauma starting to set in from my first birth. Nope, used my hypnobirthing techniques to push through. And I hands down credit those techniques getting me through what ended up being 3 nights of latent labour again.
But this time, on the 3rd night, things finally started picking up. Mum was watching me and knew by how I was acting things were moving nicely. Started struggling to breathe through contractions so decided to call in my dad to come watch my eldest daughter. The moment I got off the phone to him I knew we had leave NOW to the hospital. Didn’t have time to wait for my dad, so my Mum brought my daughter Ava with her and my husband handed her over at the hospital.
That car ride is still burned in my mind as being HORRID. I started to feel like her head was coming about 5 mins away from hospital. Basically jumped out the car when we got there, stopped on my way to maternity ward about 3 times to collapse from the pain, but I got to a room. Hubby went to setup the carseat with my dad for Ava, which took aggeesss, and then he arrived back into the room juuuuuust in time to see his second daughter starting to crown! So after 3 days, only just made it to the hospital with 45 mins to spare ha.
But YAY completely natural birth this time! However, the first words out of my mouth were “I’M NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN”.
With my first birth I thought the epidural had worn off when I was pushing. After this one I can confirm no it had not. WOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW that was painful! So painful I ripped out the IV in my hand without even realizing, and there was blood everywhere, oops. I think I even felt more traumatized thinking about my second birth vs my first for a while! But very smooth and quick recovery which was amazing. Pics below from my second baby, including a placenta, so again 'trigger warning' if you don't like that stuff!
Buuuuuut, I did do it again…. Hahaha. Third baby threw a spanner in the works though!
It was in- between my second and third baby that I found my love for Photography and started my business. Just before I got pregnant with my 3rd it felt like a great time to finally expand into the birth photography world, but then I got pregnant so decided to put it on hold again for a while, because pregnancy and I DO NOT get along.
But here I was all excited, again, because 3rd births are just about always the easiest, right? And this time I was excited to hire a birth photographer now that I know about it! I couldn’t wait to have amazing memories of my 3rd and last birth. Or so I thought…
I’m someone who is very in-tune with my body, I can feel everything, including which position baby is in. My midwives have always been quite impressed that I tell them how baby is lying before they palpate, and I was always right.
So, from about 35 weeks onwards I was aware that baby was still somersaulting all over the place. But my second did this and still got head down about 37 weeks, so still time, all good.
Got to 37 weeks and still a different position every day. Went for a scan just to confirm the breech position she was in, which to be honest was pointless as I knew she would move again not long after the scan, which she did, but anyway. So then at almost 38 weeks my midwife called and said she’s only just now got the scan and recommends I go into hospital that day to come up with a plan as baby is now considered an ‘unstable lie’. For those not sure what that it is, basically it means that if I went into labour and waters broke, because she could be in any position when that happens the risk of the cord coming down first (cord prolapse) was high, which is a life-threatening emergency.
I left my poor very sick toddler at home to go for an ‘appointment’ at the hospital. Straight off the bat they wanted to try and induce me THAT night. Which was a firm no from me, I hadn’t even had time to think about it all yet and the thought of inducing a very healthy pregnancy that early, and for only a very small risk seemed a bit over the top to me. So I stayed in hospital that night to make a plan for the next day and give myself time to think.
The next day I woke up and knew that baby was head down, and that was confirmed with an ultrasound. I felt so much relief when I thought this crisis was averted, because if she stayed head down until the next morning then I could go home and go on as usual. By lunchtime she was back to transverse, bugger!
The very hard decision was made that I would stay in hospital until she either stays head down for 24 hours, or until we decide to try ECV (turn her from the outside) and induce, or go for a c-section.
So 7 long nights later when I was now 39 weeks, still in hospital as baby flip flopped all over the show the entire time, I finally made the hard call that I would try ECV and then ARM (artificial rupturing of membranes) and synto to keep her in position. Because what is the point of flipping her round if she got the chance to just flip back again. I could have just stayed in hospital even longer until I went into labour myself, but I had two other kids at home, and that was the hardest part of this whole thing so far! I had never spent a night away from my older two before, let alone what ended up being 2 weeks. Picture below of me trying to cover myself after a shower in the hospital during my stay, why the hell are hospital towels sooo small??
So that afternoon a lady with very small pointy fingers did the ECV (not a pleasant experience!), which took all of about 10 mins as baby was all loosey goosey in there anyway. Performed ARM, and then got me hooked up to all the machines and drugs. Being my 3rd baby everyone was expecting only a small amount of drugs to get me going before my body kicked in and did the rest. Ok I thought, I’ve got this, and chose not to have an epidural at this point to see how I would go with the drugs on-board first.
Well apparently there are levels you give of synto, and it’s very rare to need to go even close to 10 with a multip (someone who is on second or more baby). Well, we got to 10, then had to get sign off to keep going higher, and however many hours later, my body was just not kicking into gear. The contractions were getting super painful but not efficient. Unfortunately, baby started having decels now too, so it was a race against the clock. Either my body kicked in and got her out soon, or she would get distressed and I’d end up c-section. I had been using my hypnobirthing techniques and found the contractions easiest to manage lying very calmly in bed breathing through them. Eventually I decided to get up off the bed as I was covered in my waters, and wanted to see if that would help things along. But as soon as I got a contraction standing up, baby’s heart rate plummeted into the 60’s and was not recovering like it should. It was terrifying watching that monitor and it not going back up. The whole room went silent as we waited. Baby did not like having her head squished so much! Her heartrate still wasn’t recovering so I was very quickly put back into bed and painfully examined to make sure her head wasn’t compressing the cord. Nope, wasn’t that! Every man and their dog were all of a sudden in the room as I was about to be quickly put under a GA to get her out now. Thankfully while they were prepping everything her heartrate very very slowly started increasing, but I was still taken away ASAP for an emergency c-section.
I HATED the whole c-section experience. From the spinal, to my jaw locking and body shaking, to the numb leg feeling, and then especially hated the part once they got baby out and I heard them announce I was hemorrhaging. Everyone starts talking faster and moving faster, and my poor husband was as white as a ghost. I just lay there, realizing I had no control over this situation and just prayed these people inside my abdomen would be able to stop it. I was very thankful for my Faith in Jesus at this point, especially because no-one gave me any kind of reassurance that all was fine and that they were getting it under control. They just let me lay there worrying until finally someone said, ‘ok all done let’s get you off to recovery’. Pheewwww!
Thanks third baby! Thought I had managed to avoid a c-section birth. It was by far the hardest recovery for me, I didn’t like the experience AT ALL. And I’m glad I decided to still try and birth vaginally (rather than just go for elective c-section), as I at least know I tried everything to avoid the route that I didn't enjoy. I know lots of people who said they loved their section experience, which is amazing for them, but that wasn't my experience.
However, in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t decide to wait for my own labour to start either! I think the reason baby was an 'unstable lie’ the whole time was that she just really didn’t like her head being squished, so would move out of that position all the time whenever I would have a Braxton hick during my pregnancy. And if I had gone into labour naturally, I never would have known she was in distress as I wouldn’t have been hooked up to monitors. I definitely believe everything happens for a reason, and thank God for getting us both through that ordeal safely. Here's the couple pics I got after begging for someone in the OR to please take some photos on my phone... it shows blood and my open tummy FYI!
Phew, that was a long essay, if you got this far well done! You must be like me and love birth details, as I always ask people for more when they tell their birth stories. It's just so fascinating hearing everyone's unique experience I think.
But in summary, I have had my fair share of experiences when it comes to birth and just about every single one of them is a blur for me. I so wish I had proper photos to look back on of all my births so I can remember the details of those very monumental moments in my life. Because unfortunately I didn’t even know about birth photography before my 3rd, so it didn’t even cross my mind, and because my 3rd threw me a curve ball I couldn't have that captured either! So that’s now where I step in, ready and super excited to capture other women’s births, so they can look back on those moments and remember their own life changing journey's for themselves.
