Second time around for Lucy

About Lucy

With my first pregnancy, I'd been fortunate enough to be on a pilot one-to-one midwifery scheme, which basically meant that I had my own midwife, Emma, for the duration of the pregnancy and birth. We'd got on very well and before she left to travel the world, she told me: “When I get back from my travels, you'll be pregnant again. Phone me if you would like me to deliver your second child - it will be a better experience next time.”

I pooh-poohed her prediction but when I was pregnant with my second, I phoned her. Somewhat spookily she had returned from travelling the day before and was just about to return to work. I was instantly relieved, as my first birth had been a long, arduous labour, culminating in an emergency c-section. Because that experience I was now under consultant care and was to be monitored throughout my pregnancy. I had very definite views about the birth of my second child: I did not want another caesarean. My recovery had been slow and I had felt terrible for months, which had made it hard to look after my newborn baby. But as soon as I set foot in my consultant's office, I knew I would have a fight on my hands.

He studied my notes and asked me my height and my shoe size. Then he declared that I would have roughly a 20% chance of delivering vaginally and advised me to have an elective caesarean so I wouldn't go into labour and my recovery would be a good deal quicker. I said I would think about it but the whole height and feet issue seemed so ridiculously unscientific. Talking it over with Emma, she told me that 4ft Amazonian women with tiny feet give birth in the jungle and, after all, I was just under 5ft 3” with size 5 feet.

So I opted for what is known as “trial of labour” - a vaginal birth following a caesarean. I researched the topic and I knew women who had successfully managed to do this and I really wanted to avoid a c-section.

My first contractions began on a Monday at 8pm. Emma had given me two “sweeps” to speed up the onset of labour because the consultant had pencilled in a date for a c-section if the baby had not been born by then.

The contractions were fast and furious from the start - every five minutes. I spent about three hours getting in and out of the bath, trying to control the pain, followed by frantic pacing up and down the hallway, with my TENS machine strapped to my bod. Lying down was out of the question - far too painful. So, just in the same way as my first labour, I was up all night in a great deal of pain. I took two paracetamol every four hours to take the edge off it, though I rather think that my body had become immune to them.

At 9am the next morning Emma came round to give me an internal examination: 4cm dilated. I was doing well. By 11am, I had my hospital bag packed, grandparents had come to collect my rather bemused toddler and we were on the way to hospital, with me urging my partner to go easy on the speed bumps. The contractions were incredibly painful - and compounded by the fact that we had to park far away from the hospital. I resembled a tree-hugging hippy, as I clung onto every trunk en-route in order to ease the pain. Once we checked in, my midwife wired me up to a monitor but in a considerate way so that I could easily move around. I had a show before long, but just as in my previous labour, my waters showed no signs of breaking. My midwife then broke my waters to speed up the labour and the contractions grew stronger.

Unlike the first time, I decided I ought to give the gas and air pain relief (Entonox) a chance. I didn't enjoy the smell but persevered with my partner proving a complete hero in the breathing stakes, egging me on with every breath. At one point I became hysterical as if I'd inhaled a whole canister of Mary Poppins' laughing gas but tragically I didn't manage to repeat the experience.

I kept watching the patterns my contractions were making on the monitor and I realised they were slowing down. The pain was unbearable, even with the gas and air, and I was starting to feel low. It was now almost 7pm and I still hadn't had that baby. Every time Emma asked me if I felt like pushing in her own scatalogically frank manner: “Surely by now you must feel as if you want to do an enormous poo?”, my answer was no. I felt the consultant would be proved right and I would end up having another c-section. “I need some real drugs, Emma,” I said. My relentless contractions had been going for almost 24 hours.

The doctor came to examine me. I was still only 6cm dilated. The news hit me like a brick. So she attempted to insert a tube into my arm in case I ended up having another emergency caesarean but she couldn't puncture the vein and it was agony. It seemed to me that she didn't know what the hell she was doing and this compounded my distress.

I discussed matters with my midwife, in between my agonised yelping, and we called a more senior doctor. It was looking increasingly likely that I could be in labour for 20 more hours, as I had been with my daughter. Deep down I knew I would need another caesarean so I sadly resigned myself to it, if only at this point to enjoy the wonders of a mobile epidural.

With a heavy heart, I was wheeled into theatre to see the anaesthetist but he wasn't there. He was attending to someone else and he did not appear for an hour and a half. This was possibly the worst part of all - I had been forced to rescind my TENS machine and the Entonox to go into theatre. Now I screamed the house down as I had no pain relief whatsoever and no one to administer any. I became very distressed. But when the anaesthetists appeared, they seemed to take an age to attend to me - putting on a CD, joking with each other. I was livid at their lack of concern and respect and shouted at them to hurry up.

Eventually, after the epidural, the pain floated away as if by witchcraft, and my operation began. My little boy was born at 8.50pm - almost 25 hours after my first contractions had started. He snuggled into my partner's gown as I waited to be stitched.

But I was wheeled out of theatre to find the bed Emma had booked for me had been given away to another patient and there were no beds left. The bed I was given on the antenatal ward was far from ideal - the mothers were either asleep or experiencing labour pains and my baby was crying. The following evening I discharged myself. I felt I had been completely neglected in the antenatal ward - no paediatrician had come to routinely check the baby despite my requests. I would have better care at home from my partner and mother.

I felt let down by the hospital system. I also wondered what on earth was wrong with my body that meant I had to go under the knife each time. Then I remembered how my wonderful, dedicated midwife had supported me throughout, and, most importantly, my beautiful bouncing baby boy. He was okay and so was I.

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