Did you have a normal second birth?

[Welshcake15]

With my first baby I had a very normal first stage in a midwife led centre, but then when it came to the second stage I didn't feel the urge to push and after two hours of pushing (one of which was coached) I was told that my two hours of pushing were up and they'd have to call an ambulance to take me to the consultant led unit half an hour away. Shortly before the ambulance turned up I began having a strong pushing sensation, but nothing happened and eventually I ended up having a forceps birth in theatre.

I've spent the time since my baby's birth feeling really confused about what happened. I was told different things about the baby's position by different midwives - some told me the baby was back to back and some said the baby was in a perfect position. Before they started the forceps delivery they told me the baby was in the perfect position, and in the end he came out with one pull. They told me later that when he was turning during labour the baby's head swelled up, and that's why they didn't come out, but the measurement in the red book is right on the 50th centile, so that doesn't make any sense to me. I never felt the head drop down during labour like some people describe, and for the first two hours of pushing once I reached 10cms I didn't feel any urge to push at all. It was only at the nearly three hours point (my second stage was just over 4.5 hours in total) that I had an uncontrollable urge to push, but still nothing happened.

All of this has led me feeling like maybe there's some sort of physical deformity with me that would affect a future birth. I know this sounds stupid, but I'm just really grasping at straws because I don't feel like I understand at all what happened. I feel sad that this happened and I lost the lovely calm birth that I had hoped for. I can't stop Googling things to try and help understand what happened. I don't know if there's a birth reflections service with my trust as everything has been so disrupted because of covid.

Has anyone had a similar situation and then gone on to have a normal second birth? I did the PBC digital pack first time round, but if anything I now feel that some of the affirmations has made me feel that I must have a problem (if my baby knows how and when to be born then it must have been a problem with me).

I had an emcs first time (planned home birth) for failure to progress. He was too big to even slide down enough to put pressure on my cervix to dilate. I did try it was a week from first contraction to out. He was born at 42+1 by the scan dates, by LMP 41 weeks.
Planned CS for second at 39 weeks. Labour started at 38 +4, I thought would make it to my pre op 2 days laters. When I should have had my pre op I was busy pushing. I did push for 2 hours some of it coached but apart from the episiotomy it was unassisted. The midwives said if I have a third it'll be much easier, I'm not sure.

Have you asked for a formal discussion and access to your notes regarding your previous labour? It sounds like it would be really beneficial to you given you have been told conflicting things and it's clearly worrying you a lot.

Similarly to you, I started labour in a MLU but was transferred to hospital when my contractions stopped later and given the drip to kickstart things. I was in labour for 23 hours.

7.5 years later I had DS2 alone on the bathroom floor after 3 contractions. DH had taken DS1 to his Mum's when I started to feel like things may be starting to happen but given my experience previously I assumed I had ages and wanted to be at home for as long as possible. From first twinge to giving birth was just over an hour.

DS1: back to back, longest labour in the history of man and no urge to push but pushed anyway. DS2: sudden urge to push, almost one push and there he was!

Hi @Welshcake15 no advice about a second birth as I'm pregnant with baby no.2 but I was induced with DS and never felt the urge to push, they got me to push for a couple of hours and he just wasn't budging so it ended in an Emcs.
I recently had an appointment with a consultant to discuss birth choices with this one and she said that because DS was back to back and in a star gazing position his head wasn't able to descend.

All mine were back to back. First birth was horrendous but the second was textbook and I actually enjoyed it.

Sorry, I meant to say that the consultant believes that is was the position rather than anything else and that next time I'd likely not have an issue.

First was a 4-day labour (3 days from 4cm dilated to birth) because DD was back-to-back. Very little urge to push even though she turned round so had ventouse delivery.

Second was a shorter labour and textbook waterbirth even though DS was also back-to-back to start with.

It took the second birth to make me realise I hadn't somehow failed to push hard enough with the first, as I realised DD wouldn't have been born without assistance.

My first was back to back. I refused dilation checks so laboured until I had urge to push. Then pushed for 2.5hrs.
The rest of my births were normal and far less painful. Pushing took 30mins.

One thing I have learned is that every birth is different even with same mother.

My first was forceps after a failed ventouse. I'm not sure I ever really felt an urge to push despite not having an epidural. I think I was involuntarily pushing for quite a long time - it's all a bit of a blur!

Baby number 2 was a waterbirth in the midwife led unit, absolutely 100% felt the urge to push & it genuinely was like my body just knew what to do. I'd done a short birth preparation course focussing on positioning & breathing so that helped me have more control but it was a world apart from birth number 1.

It's so hard when you have hazy memories of labour but I requested my birth notes and it helped me make things clear in my head. I didn't feel I needed a birth reflection session but you should absolutely ask for one if you feel it would benefit you.

Thanks for all of your replies. I think I do need to request my notes and try and see if I can get someone to talk things through with me. It's also really encouraging to know that other people have had positive second births if there were problems the first time round, which gives me hope for the future. I just really hope I can get back the confidence that I had in my body's ability to birth a baby without intervention.

@Welshcake15
I suspect that your baby was back to back (occiput posterior (OP)) when you were fully dilated. This means that the urge to push wasn't there in the same way as when they are in an OA position. Often labours are longer but meet the criteria of progress. I'd imagine your baby then rotated (the long way round) during the second stage. This is quite common. The head swelling is likely due to an OP position, exacerbated by the active second (pushing) stage, which resolves quite quickly after birth.

Yes, most second labours are quicker. The first paves the way. Transfer rates out of birth centres for failure to progress (awful term) are very low in second and subsequent births.

With my first baby I had a very quick first stage for a first baby but then things failed to progress during the second stage. I was pushing as I had the urge but he just wasn't coming. After a couple of hours I was getting really tired so they gave me a Sentocinon drip to try and kick start my contractions again but it slowed them down. My midwife kept buzzing for the consultant to come but he was busy with someone else so I was left to keep pushing for 5.5 hours, and it was only when his heart rate did a sudden big drop that the consultant came and established straight away that he was back to back which is why he wasn't coming with my pushing. I was rushed into theatre and given a spinal (by this point I'd only been able to have gas and air as I was too far dilated for an epidural when they checked me). I was told I was allowed one attempt at forceps, and if that didn't work it would be an emergency section. Fortunately the forceps worked, but the whole experience still affects me now.

My second baby was an extremely straightforward labour in comparison. My waters broke at 9am, contractions started close together straight after and she was here 1 hour 40 minutes later, just 20 minutes after we arrived at hospital. We had to stay in overnight as there was meconium in my waters, but she was absolutely fine.

It was only after having our second baby that we realised how much was wrong with my first labour experience as we had nothing to compare it to until then, if that makes sense? I didn't want to put myself in the hospital environment again so we decided on a home birth for our third baby. Again a very quick and straightforward labour, so much so that she arrived before the midwives did but everything was fine!

I had our fourth baby a couple of months ago and had the most amazing water birth at home. It was such a positive experience and the easiest labour of them all.

So I had a traumatic first labour then my other labours have got easier each time. Your body has done it once so it knows what it is doing next time. I also did an online hypnobirthing course with my last baby and found that helped a lot too as it gave me such a positive mindset.