to want the down to earth experience of MNers to help me write a birth plan

[dozyrosie]

Bit of background. I previously posted re antenatal classes, I went today and it was a bit of a shambles tbh and most of it was just common sense. So I could do with your help, you last advice was great.

I'm 32 wk pg with DC1. I'll be under consultant lead care because of epilepsy. I still get a say in how things go, unless I get badly affected if I have a seizure, in which case I'd have to have an emergency C section. Obviously I want to avoid this at all costs. My epilepsy is medically controlled atm so fingers crossed I'll be OK.
I know that if you get to follow your birth plan exactly then you are lucky. I certainly don't intend on having a rigid birth plan and my initial plan was simply; do whatever it takes to give me and my DC as safe and quick delivery as possible. But now the more I think about it and read the more I'm not so sure what to do.

With the benefit of your experiences, what would your birth plan be?

Yabu.

When I wrote my birth plan for dd2, I kept it simple and a bit tongue in cheek. I added some humour, which, as it turned out, meant all the MWs had read it and had a laugh at it, so everyone was familiar with it, and I was lucky enough to get pretty much what I wanted (although I never did get George Clooney as my birth partner-pah!)

Writing a plan gives you a chance to think about the things that are important to you, and things you would prefer if you had a choice. Even if the plan goes to pot, I always felt just having one made me feel a bit more organised.

Don't know about the induction thing, but it might be an idea to talk to your MW before writing your plan, so you can know things like this in advance. Good luck.

Mine was:

• Let me move around
• Entonox please
• No pethidine
• Epidural if I can't cope
• No pethidine
• Be flexible about everything except the no pethidine

(deliberate repeat of that last because I didn't want a dopy baby unable to BF)

Worked a treat - had the epidural with DD1 after 16 hours of active labour, didn't need anything but Entonox with DD2 who was kind enough to take only 3.5 hours.

Jolly the anaesthetist who did my epidural looked like a perfect hybrid between Goran Visnic and George Cloonney - I kid you not! Twas a shame he was behind me most of the time .

You may borrow my birth plan if you like. It goes:

Don't come near me if you don't intend to be helpful.
No matter how helpful you would like to be, if you don't actually have a midwifery qualification or experience in pushing a baby out of your vagina, stay downstairs and drink tea.
If you think you are being helpful and then I slap you, take that as a hint that your levels of helpfulness are on the low side and go back downstairs and drink tea.
If I tell you I am actually pushing a baby out of my vagina RIGHT NOW then please accept this as fact and don't have a debate about it. That is definitely not helpful.

I think this gets the salient points across.

I swear pregnancy cured my epilepsy, no episodes since just before I fell preg with ds1. I digress, birth plans waste of time. BUT check with epilepsy nurse re TENS and pethedine, mine gave me a leaflet saying both were contra indicated, but I have found no evidence to support this.

I too imagined the tiredness, pain and stress would trigger a seizure, not so for me, was too focused on job in hand. Managed to mentally stay in the room IYKWIM.

All HCPs were very jumpy about the epilepsy, I can see how it might rub off, aware rather than scare I think is best.

Congrats and good luck!

Kungfu I'd love to see their faces in hospital when they read that birth plan!

www.epilepsyandpregnancy.co.uk/pages/faq.htm

Well you live and learn. No pethidine. And to think the cow of a midwife told me I was making it up.

I would have loved to have had as much rest as possible before hand but unfortunately baby was one week over due kept me up most of the night from 3 weeks before arrival and then waters broke at 10 pm just as I was going to bed! had an 8 hour labour (quite quick considering!) and then couldnt sleep in the hospital as was very PFB and was right next to the corridor with a chinese couple cooking stir fry on a hot plate next to me with their 5ish year old running round all day! dont be afriad to ask a million questions to the maternity staff they are paid to answer you and then you do whatever feels natural and good for you and baby.
My cousin has epilespy and had to have a c-sec due to baby being v big and scared she would seizure!
Hope it goes smoothly!

Peppapig - I am supposed to be having a homebirth so it will be pinned to the front door! Or possibly to the "Do not pass this point without a relevant qualification" barrier half-way up the stairs.

Last time people were unhelpful. In a nice, friendly way, but unhelpful, nevertheless!

Pointy-

Induction possibly a bad idea as Bogeyface says - it can take a long time, and be more stressful, if your body is not ready to go into labour.

Midwife told me that the 3 important things (in a normal low risk birth) are:

Do you want a managed or natural 3rd stage?
Do you want baby to have vitamin K injection at birth?
Do you want baby cleaned up before they put him/her on you or not?

Obviously the epilepsy related things are going to be important too but the thing which relates these 3 in common are that you're generally pretty out of it by the time it's happening, and they're not really affected by other factors. So you might put that you don't want pain relief or want a water birth or whatever but then things might happen in the labour which make this impossible or you might change your mind - and the thing about these kind of decisions is that you're likely to be able to discuss options and express your wishes as you go. Similarly, no point putting that you want to avoid a C-section, episiotomy, etc, as it will probably be in their interests/policy to help you avoid one too! And things like whether DH wants to cut the cord - he's not going to faint they can ask him.

I found a TENS machine helped me sleep in the latent stage, even though I was a wuss and found it hard to sleep through most of it.

You can also write things like "I want to be the first person to discover my baby's gender" or " dh to be handed the baby first " etc...specific wishes to you.

Good luck!

The only thing I did that was as on my birth plan was produce a baby!!

It did help to have learnt about different options while making the plan.

x

My first birthplan was hugely detailed and took me hours of lovingly painstaking thought and planning to write, and was, well, completely ignored. By the time I got to DC 5 it said "arrive at delivery suite, gas and air immediately, then drugs, all the drugs, get the baby out, let us go home" and that was that. They tried to ignore the vital drugs bit but gas n air lent me an eloquent and extensive pleading swearing and making a fuss vocabulary I never knew I had and they gave me them

Birth Plan:
Go to hospital,
do whatever it takes,
have baby.

The best birth plan is not to have one ! I personally think they are a waste of time - mother nature does not work with them !

I have just read catpuss and completely agree .

bringmesunshine2009 Thanks for the link that's great. Unfortunately my epilepsy has got worse in pregnancy. But they started me on medication at the end of 1st trimester and I've been ok since
kungfupannda I may well use your plan. The last thing I will want is a host of students staring at my fanjo making notes.
grumpydwarf a planed c section is something I'm thinking about, I'd rather a planned one than an emergency one. Was your cousins one planned?
PointyLittleDonkeyEars Yes I'm of your anaesthetist

Would I be UR to put in my plan that dp should bring me some at the end?

Might go against the tenor of the thread, but having written a birth plan first time round that was ignored (and it wasn't overly prescriptive!) or only used to point out what I couldn't have, for my subsequent labours I didn't bother and as a result the mws talked to me/it was a far more convivial experience. I do wonder if birth plans are a bit of a sop to make birthing mothers feel empowered, plus mws have lots and lots of paperwork to fill in anyway.

my birth plan was:_

see hoe i go with pain relief, baby not to be cleaned, DH to cut the cord (if possible)and on DC2 vitamin K injection to be given (didn't know about VK on DC1)

Have you considered antenatally expressing colostrum so someone could feed it to your baby afterbirth if you are unable to?