Hello all! Unfortunately no natural, water, home birth here, but a baby nonetheless: Murdo Fraser, 8lb 6 and 57cm long.
In simple terms 'meconium staining sucks' but 'hypnobirthing rocks'.
I'll do my full birth story in the announcements section at some point when I have access to more than my mobile but I ended up in hospital with an'intervention cascade'. I laboured at home until the midwife came out when the contractions were every 3 mins and I was 6cm dilated at that point with only hip wiggling, hypno breathing and sitting on the loo to aid me. She wasn't happy at all with the heavy level of meconium staining of my waters and strongly advised transfer. As I was so far along, and because they had been so great as a team all along I took her advice and went in.
After that the level of monitoring did for me, I was on a continuous monitor which only worked if I was stood up or perched on the edge of the bed (or laid down - but no way was I doing that) and gave me a range to 2ft square. If I bent forward or sat on a ball it would lose the trace. Baby was back to back so obviously this wasn't ideal for moving him.
My dilation went backwards to around 5cm and my contractions dissappeared. I got advised to go on the synto drip which I resisted for a while knowing it would make the contractions more intense and that with limited movement I didn't have many ways of dealing with that. But the hypnobirthing was brilliant, in the end I got to contracting every minute fully dilated, except for a small anterior lip, on the synto drip, with a limited range of movement and an OP baby on nothing more than humming and breathing! I half heard the midwife ask MrUrban if I normally had an exceptionally high pain threshold, and later say to him "this is not what a women at 9cm normally looks like" as I stood there humming and breathing. She asked loads of questions about it and is now thinking about training in it.
At this point though although he had half turned his head was still highish and he wasn't putting enough pressure on that last bit of cervix to get rid of it. So in the end the consultant advised c-section. He said we could leave it longer but that he wasn't convinced that it would get us anywhere but more tired. So we went with it. Thinking about it now I wish I had ripped the monitors off at that point and got down on all fours to move that baby round! But hindsight is a wonderful thing at the time the section seemed like the unfortunate but right decision.
The team were all very respectful of my birth plan, and were very good on using quiet voices, leaving us to discuss things, and not distracting me when I was 'in the zone' with my breathing. And I got almost immediate skin to skin and plenty of it. Murdo crawled to the breast but has been a bitreluctant since, prefering to sleep or suck his fist! But ultimately the experience was very medical. But I feel quite zen about it, I think the hypnobirthing has helped there too. I would highly reccommend it.
Wow, that was longer than I meant it to be!
Tell me if it is too negative to have all that on this thread, I really wouldn't mind deleting it, and finding somewhere else to put it if people wanted me to, so do just say. I wouldn't want it to put anyone on a downer.
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