My Birth Story — Anna Carson. It is impossible for me to tell my 2nd…
By: Anna Carson
Tags: Birth, Healing, Kinesiology, Birth Trauma, Home Birth

Healing the Trauma through Home Birth

It is impossible for me to tell my 2nd birth story without telling my first. They go hand in hand as my first birth experience, I realise now, was essential, in order for me to experience the second.

So, to my beautiful daughter Charlotte, I thankyou, for all that your birth has taught me, given me and enabled me to achieve, you are forever my teacher. I love you.

My first birth with my daughter, was traumatic. Physically, mentally, emotionally. In every sense. I was dismissed, I wasn’t listened to. I didn’t feel safe or held. I had begged, screamed and swore but I was not heard. I was cut and stitched badly and I was lied to.

My wonderful husband did everything he could but once we were in the cogs of the great medical machine, there was little he could do.

My pregnancy had been beautiful — I had loved every minute of it, finally being in love with my body as I watched it slowly grow and blossom, relishing every kick I felt and dreaming of the day I was going to meet the bubba that so regularly could be felt hiccupping inside of me.

I wrote my birth plan; a water birth, with no pain relief, attended the NCT classes, took the tour of the hospital, impressed with all the equipment they had to facilitate a natural birth, birthing balls, beautifully lit pools, amazing Swedish designed equipment where you could birth in any position that felt right, and midwives who appeared to really support this. I was nervous, of course, as all the women were as we walked around the birthing rooms but I was confident, even when we entered the labour suite and they talked us through all the interventions and scenarios, I just vowed in my head that I wouldn’t go there.

However nothing can really prepare you for your first birth can it? You never can know how you are going to respond when you start feeling the intensity of the contractions building. I was so excited when I realised labour was starting and I decided not to wake my husband for a couple of hours, while I relished in the sensations and the thought that my baby was coming earthside but the excitement slowly turned to apprehension.

I had always had it in my head that I would have a fast birth, as my mother and grandmother had both experienced quick deliveries, and so as the time between contractions shortened, I became more anxious to get to the hospital and after projectile vomiting my fruit smoothie all over the bathroom, we decided it was time.

At hospital and we were greeted by the midwife. I had my first internal and it was discovered that I was 4cm dilated which I was really pleased about. However the first warning bell rang when, after asking to use the birthing pools, the midwife stated that she would just find out where they were! We found out later that she had not attended a birth at this hospital for many years and actually had not attended any birth for a couple of years and that day she was in for her compulsory update. I realise now that we should have turned around at that point and demanded another midwife, because already I didn’t feel safe under her care.

If we look at nature, we can see many examples of how mammals will delay birth or even re-absorb their foetus, if they do not feel safe (Gazelles in the Serengeti can actually delay their birth to up to 2 weeks if necessary and if after this time, the rains have not arrived, they will re-absorb their foetus as they know there will be a shortage of food in the coming year) but this understanding of how our physiology works, has been near forgotten in the western medical world, but can explain so many examples of labours that are classed as ‘failure to progress.’ We did not feel safe.

From the moment that our midwife said this, I had no confidence in her or her ability to support us, and although I was able to further dilate, when I reached transition the panic set in. I demanded another midwife, but this was ignored. I was told to push, but baby was stuck against an anterior lip of my cervix, causing internal and external swelling as well as nerve damage to my pelvic floor and bladder. Eventually after over 2 hours of pushing against my cervix, they called in the doctor. They realised that baby was posterior and stuck and then offered me an epidural so they could manually turn her. I begged for more time and so we tried other positions but she didn’t turn. So I had no choice but to have the epidural, At that point I just broke down in tears. Tears of exhaustion, tears of pain, of desperation, of grief of the dream that I had held of the way I was going to meet my baby, and tears from the sense of losing complete control.

As the epidural started to work and I could no longer feel the contractions, I lost connection with my body and the process. I could see when the contractions were happening on the monitor but I couldn’t feel a thing. It felt like it was no longer my birth, this was something happening to me. They tried to manually turn her and when this also failed, I was moved into theatre, given a top up of epidural, and then an episiotomy and forceps were used to pull her out. I can remember the sense of them tugging and pulling, I can remember asking them to delay chord clamping, (which they ignored) I can remember them taking her away from me to be checked and screaming at my husband to ‘stay with her’, ‘keep touching her’ and then panicking when I couldn’t hear her. At last they bought her to me and lay her on my chest. My beautiful daughter, battered and bruised but just divinely beautiful, was here.

It took months to heal physically but the wonders and pressures of new motherhood meant that I did not take the time to heal emotionally. I buried it as deep as I could so that I could be the mum I needed to be for my daughter.

Fast forward nearly 2 years and I found myself pregnant again, in another continent, walking into a hospital for my first midwife appointment, and bursting into tears. All the emotions, all the pain, the disappointment, the fears all came flooding back. I cancelled my appointment and walked straight back out again. I couldn’t do it. The hospital, the smell, the clinical environment, the anonymity of the system all felt so wrong, and agitated every cell in my body, so I drove back home and phoned my husband, who was away for work, and told him that this time was going to be different.

I didn’t know how and I didn’t know in what way, but this time I was taking control. I was never going to be made to feel like I did with my daughter.

So now started my quest for that something different.

Here I was in a completely different country, I knew hardly anyone and had absolutely no idea of how the birthing system worked here, but I had Google and Facebook. I discovered that there was such a thing as a private midwife (something I had never heard of in the UK) and so I started contacting them all. But everyone I managed to speak with, was already booked up ( I was already 15 weeks pregnant) and I started to get a bit panicked. I researched the nearby hospitals to see whether any of them offered a different service, tried to get on the MGP program, only to be told that there was a waiting list of over 10 women and so really no chance of that either.

Eventually we found a Birth Maia (un-registered midwife) who agreed to meet us. Technically she was fully booked also but she agreed that she would consider us if I also hired a Doula, so that there was some form of back up should she already be attending another birth.

The moment we sat down with her to discuss what we wanted we knew she was exactly what we were looking for. She had been a midwife for 30 years, she believed 100% in a woman's ability to birth naturally, she wasn’t afraid of a fight if required, and yet she was so incredibly gentle, nurturing and was able to set our minds at ease immediately with inappropriate jokes and wonderful laughter. We signed her up there and then. She recommended a Doula and again, the moment I spoke with her on the phone, I knew that we had our team.

As my pregnancy progressed, many emotions, fears and anxieties were brought to the surface. Not just for me but for my husband too. In fact he probably held as much fear and trauma as I did from our first birth, as he had actually witnessed it. He had seen the blood, had heard my screams, had not been allowed into theatre for 30minutes and seen the faces of the surgical team when things were not going to plan. He heard the lies and was fully aware throughout (unlike me). So we had a lot of talking, healing to do before we could both fully embrace the prospect of a homebirth. We signed up for a Hypnobirthing course, we watched beautiful empowered births, I had kinesiology sessions to clear the trauma I held physically and emotionally, and we chatted and we chatted some more and we cherished our visits with our midwife and doula.

For us, the biggest thing that made this preparation for birth so different, was the fact that we were in control. At one point I had an obstetrician (who I had never met) call me at home and basically say to me that I was risking my life by having a homebirth and my GP then sent me a letter to state that she could no longer be my GP because of the concerns the obstetrician had.

I discussed this with my midwife (who knew my whole history), I found a magnificent GP, we ensured that all scenarios were discussed and plans were made, and we carried on. It was so empowering to be involved in every decision. At no point did my midwife give me ultimatums, she taught us to always use the ?? acronym when trying to make a decision a, and talked through every eventuality, giving us the decision at every stage.

My pregnancy continued without any concerns and through my midwife we had been introduced to a number of her other clients in the area and so we had already built up incredible support network.

The morning of my due date arrived. I was feeling pretty good, well as good as you can when you are 40 weeks pregnant and have a 2 year old to run after! Baby had been 2/5 engaged for a couple of weeks and I felt that we didnt have long to wait. I was due to have an appointment with my midwife that afternoon but she contacted me at 10am to say that she was attending to another birth (my gorgeous friend Naomi) and so wouldn’t be able to make it.

I told her that I didn’t think baby was far away and so she said if she got a chance she would pop over quickly. At about 2pm I got a call to say that Naomi was resting and she had 30 minutes to pop over, so she came and was happy to report that baby was still only 2/5 engaged and seemed pretty happy in there.

I carried on with the day and later started to prepare dinner for the family, give my daughter a bath, and put her to bed. I had noticed that from 4pm I had been having Braxton Hicks and they hadn’t stopped and seemed very regular, so after Charlotte was asleep I asked Nathan to time them. They were 10 minutes apart. I could still talk through them and there was relatively little discomfort. However within another 20 minutes they were down to 7 minutes and def building in intensity. We decided to text Trish and Sheila to warn them that baby was on its way that night and to also see how Naomi was getting on with her labour. Sheila immediately texted back to inform us that Naomi had only just given birth and her placenta was also birthed and BAM that’s when my contractions really started. They went from 7 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart and then down to 1 minute apart within 30 minutes. Nathan was desperately trying to fill the pool, with a hose and buckets, Trish had jumped in the car and was on her way as was Sheila. I quietly prepared my altar and room; stop regularly for the contractions which were now incredibly intense but I felt calm and ready. There was no panic (from me) no doubt in my mind, just a certainty that my baby was going to be born tonight at home.

By the time Trish and Sheila arrived at 8.50pm the contractions were almost continuous. They immediately helped me undress and got me in the pool — ahhh the relief, I had forgotten how blissful the warm water on my skin was, how it made my muscles instantly relax, and how supported I felt in the cosy, dark room. Trish stayed with me and Nathan and was incredible at guiding me in my breathing, keeping me connected and present, calming me, while Sheila grabbed a quick bowl of soup for sustenance (she had been with Naomi since early that morning).

Then I started to feel babys head bearing down, the intensity, the stretching, the feeling of being opened like never before, was beyond words. I had never experienced anything like it but I wouldn’t call it pain, it went beyond that, it was deeper than that. More soul based than pain, but wow was it intense. Each time I felt I couldn’t bear any more, we surged and reached another level, baby and body working together, separate of all conscious thought or control, I felt all I could do was hold on and try to breathe my way through it. Trish guiding me throughout while Sheila jumped into the pool to try and stop baby coming quite so fast.

And then he crowned…….

And I remember screaming at Sheila to stop moving the baby, but she wasn’t. Babies, once they crown, if left to their own devices, will start to turn to enable the shoulders to be birthed, and that was exactly what he was doing, but that was just a whole new level of intensity…..and I remember waiting and both Sheila and Trish just calming telling me to wait, wait until he is ready, until your body is ready…. And then there was one final push and he was born. My beautiful baby boy was born in the Cawl, into water, 35 minutes after Trish and Sheila arrived at 9.24pm. My daughter had been woken by my final scream and came in to the room, just as he was lifted out of the water and into my arms….

And that is where he stayed for the next hour… in my arms, as we sat in the water. He had his first breastfeed as we sat there in complete calm, the room still dark and deliciously warm and it wasn’t until I had to birth my placenta and stand up that the chord was clamped and cut and he was passed to Nathan to hold. There was no rush to weigh him or check him. We had already gently counted his fingers and toes and fallen in love but there was no rush to do anything. I was gently helped out of the pool and into the shower and then wrapped up in my pyjamas and dressing gown and slowly helped to walk down the hall into our living room where I was made tea and toast and we all just sat, looking in complete amazement at our son.

I had just had the birth of my dreams.

Anna Carson is an Intuitive Kinesiologist and Guide

Releasing the Resistance to being YOU

www.annacarson.com.au

https://www.facebook.com/AnnaCarsonHealing/