I have one DS, 3.5, who was born at 31+4 and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 21 months. I'm 34 weeks tomorrow and have been more or less advised by the consultant that, if I make it to 37 weeks this time, staying consultant-led and having continual monitoring might be advisable. It's the opposite to what I would choose in other circumstances (although is what actually happened last time, and I did have a natural delivery with only G&A despite having back labour and the circumstances - was a 4lb 2oz baby though). She knows I would prefer a more natural style birth (home was always my pipe dream as that was what I planned first time round) but gave me very balanced advice about the positive and negative sides of CM, saying they can intervene if it picks something up, but also that there is a highish false positive rate on interventions.
Because I have a few other issues as well - an ovarian cyst, although it's not likely to be a problem at all during labour, and a lower than average platelet level, although not low enough to be worrying, but apparently the baby can be prone to it if you are - she was inclining towards consultant-led. However she has arranged for me to see her and a haematologist about the platelet thing along with the consultant midwife who runs the MLU at the hospital to discuss the options on delivery. I went to visit the hospital on Tuesday for a tour of both consultant and MLU bits. It's the same place where I had DS and where he was in special care for five weeks. Now I was very tired after a bad night, and we couldn't see all the bits because some were full, but I came away feeling quite close to tears and depressed and hoping that I could actually have a home birth if I got to 37 weeks. I think, despite many, many visits back to the hospital, it brought back the whole post-birth trauma of having DS removed from me after birth, although I completely know that was essential, you can't quite tell your emotions that! However, my actual birth experience there despite everything was fine, and with enough time to prepare mentally, I'm hoping it would be ok and I could stay calm and relaxed even with monitoring. the consultant also said there is one birth pool on the CLU which you can use even if being monitored, so if it was free that's a possibility too. I really want to avoid unnecessary intervention if possible. I also want to give myself the best chance of getting breastfeeding going well, as it was a total nightmare with a prem baby last time, and very painful for the whole time I did it.
What I'm looking for is tales from other people who were consultant-led but who did have a natural-type birth. What kind of things could you still do - use a birthing ball, move position, be active, birth pool? I did move around quite a bit during my last one. The other thing is, my labour was very quick - from waters to birth in six hours, only really in proper labour for 3.5 hours, and while that is quite common in prem births and I have no way of knowing if it would be the same this time round, or more like a first-time full-term delivery (ie quite a bit longer) then if I did go fast I wouldn't really care that much where I was I suppose!
Thanks for any responses.