This is less of a birth story and more the decision making process/thoughts I had after going from Green pathway to Red in what felt like 10 seconds flat. It's long!!
Thursday morning (39 +1) we visited the hospital because we moved area for what we thought was a tick box exercise, had growth scan (asked sonographer to tell us when to look away so we didn't spoil the surprise), took bloods etc etc.
Spoke to doctor and midwife after scan, as they were concerned that baby was measuring by scan at close to 4.5 kg which for me was well over the 95th centile.
To cut a long story short this meant no giving birth in the MLU, while it may have been possible to labour in the MLU if I had gone into labour on my own, the giving birth part would need to have happened on the labour ward with medical team as the concern was shoulder dystocia. Doctor also said they would prefer to have an epidural in because in case I needed help to deliver in addition to very probably needing an episiotomy.
The doctor examined me to check baby's engagement and see if she could have done a sweep. Baby wasn't engaged at all, so no sweep and doctor explained that for her this was an additional concern as for a first baby she would expect the head to be at least partly engaged and may be a sign that baby wasn't going to engage on their own. This added an additional question for her around whether induction would be successful.
Given the fact that I had been green all the way to this point we hadn't looked into c-sections at all and only into inductions to the point I knew I didn't want to go down that route just because I was x days past my EDD.
After discussions with the doctor we agreed to be booked in for an induction on Friday morning which would give us time to go away and process our options and then be able to talk to the doctor at the hospital again. (We is me and DH who was awesome at talking all this through and being another pair of ears)
We spent most of Thursday afternoon going round in circles over what to do and I'm lucky to have a cousin who is a midwife and who has been really good through my pregnancy with the number of daft questions that I've asked. So I also talked it through with her. Which was really good because she kept reminding me that everything was my choice and whatever o chose was right for me and baby. Her advice was to look at the birth "wish list" I had and work out what option stayed as true to that as possible, but to also consider how I'd feel if I had a section and the baby was much smaller.
Essentially I chose to have a C-Section because I felt like it still gave me control (I am a control enthusiast!) over over the situation. My birth plan started with "give birth in the MLU and I don't want to be induced" everything about the induction process (having waters broken, constant monitoring -even wireless- etc) was everything I didn't want and all induction meant to me was an increasing cycle anxiety. My biggest fear was that I'd start the induction process, it would take ages to work then I'd get so far but get stuck for whatever reason and end up with a section anyway in an emergency situation. As soon as I'd made the decision I felt 100 times better.
I arrived at the hospital on Friday morning and told the midwife that I didn't want the induction (in tears) she was lovely and again once I'd said it I relaxed. I'd also found hypnobirthing c-section tracks on iTunes which we used while we were waiting.
Because I wasn't booked, I was essentially waiting for a gap in the schedule and one that wasn't filled by an emergency. Essentially on Friday no-one else's babies did what they were supposed to do and we got bumped and bumped and bumped down the queue... I spoke to 2 anaesthetists as we were next on the list twice, then at 8pm the Doctor we'd seen in the morning to explain everything came to tell us that we were calling it a day and there was no point starving me any more. I've never met so many people who apologised for everything so many times they were all so nice (crazy but in a good way) I was put in a private room, we were both fed and DH went home so we both got a decent sleep and for us to try again on Saturday.
Saturday morning we went down to recovery at about 10 am and you could tell straight away it was a much calmer morning. Again everyone was lovely, 3rd anaesthetist was as mad as a box of frogs and explained everything that would happen again and we walked into theatre at about 11 am.
Theatre is a scary place, I've never been somewhere so bright and so busy (and that was without the bright lights on) the nurse that took me through warned me but it still took me by surprise. The worst bit was getting the spinal, DH kept talking to me and we used the hypnobirthing breathing that we'd been practicing, there is no way I would have been able to stay still enough otherwise. How anyone gets an epidural mid-labour amazes me!
The operation itself was really quick, she was out within about 10 mins, they dropped the screen to let us see her then she was off to get weighed and rubbed down and have her vitamin K (which she didn't like) then DH held her til I was ready. I was getting a running commentary of what was happening with the baby from the anaesthetist until DH came back over with her. I couldn't really do anything other than stroke her cheek, but the anaesthetist kept checking over the screen and told me when they were at skin level (definitely mad as a box of frogs!) Once I was stitched up, baby went in her cot DH went to get changed and I was slid over onto the bed (most bizarre situation when they put a bed beside you and your head thinks slide over and your body doesn't move) then they took off my gown and gave me baby so I could do skin to skin. Midwife helped me position her and she was feeding within a minute of being in recovery.
Baby was 3.79kg so smaller than the 4.44kg predicted by the scan but still on the 93rd Centile according to my growth chart. I don't know if I would have been able to deliver her on my own if we'd waited for me to go into labour by myself but I don't feel that matters. I do know I wouldn't have coped well with the induction process so that decision was the right one for me. I have a beautiful baby girl, and we're both healthy and that's all that matters.