I’m a pregnant roller derby athlete part five: My birth story
My birth story is not one of big love and magical moments. I’ve been meaning to write this post for the better part of a year now, but a few things have held me back. One is obviously spare time, but another much bigger reason is stigma. Even as I type this out, I think about Junips eventually reading this as it tainting her view on what kind of mother I am or my feelings about her being entering my life. I don’t want to sound ungrateful about the birth of my child but I have many mixed emotions about how that event went for me.
But I think it’s important to be honest and open about pregnancy and birth instead of conforming to how a new mother “should feel” or how many new mothers do feel (insert comment about best day of your life overwhelming emotion yada yada). Birth for me was a lot of things - empowering, uncomfortable, bewildering and a frustrating battle for consent. I wouldn’t call it the best day of my life by a long shot, I’ve had much better days as a mother since that first one.
I’m sure my birth story is not one that is too unique in the fact that I don’t look back on it with rose colored glasses. The result was a healthy baby girl, but in terms of experience I’d summarize it as frustrating and surreal more than as an overwhelmingly joyous event. It wasn’t “bad but worth it” because of the good. It was both bad AND good all in one day. But anyways, here goes.
It was champs weekend 2017 and I had been watching brawling play their final game on WFTDA tv for the weekend on Saturday night, pretty late UK time. We didn’t play our best game, and I struggled to fall asleep. In hindsight it was probably because my contractions had started in the night. I slept through a lot of it, but didn’t think much of it as actual labor because being that pregnant is pretty uncomfortable in general. Earlier in the week I thought was maybe in labor but it was just Braxton Hicks, so I was tentative to get too excited that this was actually my real labor....Because what are the odds I have the baby during the actual WFTDA champs final? Turns out, pretty good odds.
The morning went on and the contractions got to be more steady so we began to time them. We began to get excited that this was the real deal but pain-wise they still weren’t crazy at all. We hung out and watched some brooklyn 99 to relax until we thought knew for sure it was it. At around 2 pm, I pretty suddenly I felt like I wanted to reposition myself because it was all becoming a bit more uncomfortable, so I went to lie down on the couch. I immediately felt like that was a bad idea with the current contraction and stood up, looked at Balls and said “Annnnnnd my water just broke”. From then on the contractions were undeniably the real deal. We gave Shane a call to give us a lift to the hospital so he headed over with Minnie to get us to the Whittington. It was Sunday in my warehouse (where I live) and everyone was home. I was NOT interested in being here with all my housemates, and felt very looked at while I was trying to leave the place with all my bags to take along to the hospital.
I put my headphones in and listened to some meditation and focused on my breathing whilst I sat in the back of the car with Minnie on the way to the hospital. She had been woken up from her nap to get us, so neither of us were really in the mood to be bumping around in the back of a car over London speed bumps. It felt like a very very long journey even though it was only about 15 min.
We had multiple copies of our birth plan ready to go and gave one to the midwife. In general, Balls and I are pretty flexible and relaxed people so we weren’t stuck on an idea of a “perfect birth” but at the same time, we had done a large amount of research to what we were ok, and not ok with and in which situations. Our plan involved a lot of me following what my body wanted me to do. I didn’t want coaching on “pushing” and I wanted them to defer to him before talking to me. I wanted to work on my breathing and trust my body to do what it was designed to do. Hindsight is 20/20 obviously, and I wished we had stuck to our guns a lot more. We did end up with the classic situation of cascading preventative interventions when nothing was “actually” wrong. Going into this whole experience, it was going to be Ball’s job to be the mouthpiece for me, so I didn’t have to interact with staff too much. But with how quickly my labor progressed, I was extremely dependent on him to help me with contractions. An extra very trusted person to advocate for us, would have been useful. You live and you learn.
We arrived at the birth centre and they checked me to see how dilated I was before being admitted (so that you aren’t there too early). I was not prepared for how much blood that entailed, and how uncomfortable it would be. First off, I had to be on my back for it, and my contractions were much much worse on my back. Throughout my entire pregnancy my regular midwife explained that my baby did not like it when I lay on my back and it generally caused the baby’s heart rate to drop, so to avoid it as much as possible. I explained this repeatedly but it didn’t really seem to change the midwife’s procedure for checking. (this turned into being a common issue through my labor but ill go into that later). The midwife checked at around 4 pm and said I was about 2cm dilated, so if I wanted to go home I could, but it wasn’t busy at the moment so I also had the option to remain at the birth centre. I absolutely did not want to go back to a warehouse full of people, and was quite cozy there so we decided to stay. They left us to it and said they would come back at a certain time to see how we were progressing.
Pretty much from then on, my labor progressed extremely quickly. I did my best to relax, work on my breathing but it was November 5, and for those of you not in the UK, that is Guy Fawks night. Basically there was some idiot outside blowing up a firework what felt like every 5 min or so. Id be lying if i said it didn’t disrupt my calming ocean waves playlist I had on loop to help me meditate during. I started off in the shower with hot running water on me, when standing or sitting on the chair got to be too much, I transitioned to a ball and leaned over the side of the bed. I kept Balls super busy with tasks to help take the edge off the contractions. Mist bottle on my face, light massage and water sips, between contractions, and actually having to lift me slightly off the ball during the contractions. Labor is WORK for everyone yall.
At this point I was very ready to move into the birthing pool. I was hoping to try it and have it dampen the intensity. Despite hating getting checked, I insisted that they do it so they realized I wasn’t bluffing with how far along I was and that it was time to go into the water. (Generally they don’t want you to go into the bath to early on as it can stall progress). Up until now they kept trying to put it off till a bit later. This part is all a bit blurry for me, so I don’t quite remember all the numbers, but they checked and I was much further then they had expected for it only being 3 hrs later.
Somewhere in this point in the evening there was a shift change with the midwives. We didn’t remember to give the new one our birth plan. Even if it’s a small thing and some practitioners choose to ignore it - it’s still one step closer to protecting your boundaries of consent. They set up the birthing pool, and I started to use gas and air. (a dull combo of o2 and laughing gas, specifically for giving birth). Maybe these things helped and it just got more intense, but at this point it all felt the same despite the change of setting. It was around 8 pm and I remember being SO tired. My hair was a sloppy mess and I was barely holding myself up out of the pool. I didn’t have great sleep the night before, and I just felt like I wouldn’t be able to carry on. I would do anything to get a little bit of sleep and relief. The thought of an epidural crossed my mind, but I didn’t tell anyone but Balls because I knew it wasn’t what I wanted. During our time in the pool, the midwife would periodically siv out birth stuff. I completely didn’t realize this was happening and was very surprised at how it felt like nothing had been coming out during that time. After we had been in there for a while, the nurse explained that she had been having a hard time getting a read on the baby’s heartbeat during contractions. She wanted to move us upstairs to check on a machine up there.
Naively, we thought we would be coming back down to the birth centre after just doing a test. She told us to pack just our valuables, but leave the rest down here. She also told me she was going to put an IV in me, “just in case” they were thinking of doing it upstairs. I explained that I hate needles and didn’t like the idea of being hooked up to machines and unable to move. They never ended up putting in an IV later. This is exactly the type of thing that is timesaving for them, but intrusive for a patient. And I had to, even in a state of actually giving birth, be able to advocate to not be coerced into extra procedures. This was the first of what would end up being many more. We grabbed our stuff and they moved me in a wheelchair to the a different floor into a labor room. We didn’t bring our birth plan yet again with an entirely new set of nurses.
My midwife came up with us, but was handling another case concurrently, so she was in and out of the room. I set myself up on the hospital bed, leaning over the side while I kneeled. Again, they wanted to check me and it was awful. They attached a strap to my belly with a monitor on it so that they could try to read her heartbeat during contractions. I don’t know how much time went by, but they were fiddling with it and still couldn’t get a reading with it. The labor ward was no longer a very private setting. Lots of people coming in and out- not that I cared massively about feeling shame with my state of undress, but it definitely took away any intimacy I could have felt with giving birth. I remember at one point my midwife came in and was annoyed that she had to correct them with how they were using the machine. It didn’t fill me with confidence that this was all necessary seeing as how they didn’t even have it calibrated correctly. They kept telling me how good I was doing and how I was so close to being done. I joked with them that it felt like I was stuck on the tarmac of a delayed plane with the flight crew telling me there was “just 15 more minutes” till we leave when in reality it would be hours.
At this point I got a massive second wind. I must have transitioned in the move to upstairs, or shortly after, because I could feel immense pressure during contractions. It was relatively better feeling than before because it was less pinchy and more stretchy if that makes sense to all you moms out there. I had more energy and at this point I could see an end in sight. I felt my body push uncontrollably with each contraction passing without any conscious thought to do so.
During this entire thing, they were STILL having issues with reading her heart rate during contractions despite it going back to normal between them. This in itself isn’t really an issue. Just because you can’t read the heart rate during contractions doesn’t mean there’s an issue, it just means they don’t know what’s happening. They decided to attach a wire to her head and internally monitor her. Again, this wasnt a “do you want to be internally monitored” it was “we are going to do this” and you have to know when it’s right to step in and say no. This basically meant I was attached by a wire to a machine and it was now even harder to change positions. At the time this was another thing that seemed harmless so I didn’t object.
A bit more explanation below of pretty much what happened to me... “Fetal monitoring can sometimes detect a problem when there isn’t one. If it shows an irregularity, your doctor may decide your baby needs to be delivered sooner. He or she could recommend giving medicine to speed up labor. Or they could decide to use forceps or a vacuum-assisted delivery. But sometimes the irregularity could actually be indicating nothing. Then the baby is born sooner and with assistance for no reason.”
Despite internal monitoring, they were unable to read her heart rate. Their continued inability to read the heart rate made them more pushy about getting the baby out more quickly. A doctor said to me, “I am going to give you an injection to numb you locally to give you an episotomy” and I said “like hell youre doing that. You are not cutting me.” Again - this was a consent battle. She didn’t ask me, I vividly remember her telling me that she was going to do this, and I had to know enough to say no way.
They wanted to check one more time how far along I was and I pleaded with them that I didn’t want that. 1- because it was incredibly painful on my back, 2, because I knew that I didn’t want to give birth on my back. This is where I wished I had just refused, but after pressure from the doctors, I flipped over in extreme pain (contractions were really close together now). They added a catheter to empty my bladder, which was actually very useful because I had been drinking water between every contraction and hadn’t peed in hours. They checked me and I was fully dilated. They wouldn’t have needed to check, they only needed to wait, I was about to have her anyways.
I don’t recall how long this last part was, but it felt super long and super short all at once. Decisions were being thrust upon us quickly and they were in a hurry. Now that I was on my back, the contractions had slowed in intensity for the first time in the entire labor. My body was no longer just pushing unconciously and uncontrollably and they started to instruct me to push. This was exactly what I never wanted. I said more that I didn’t want to be on my back, my midwife tried to adjust me to my side and lift my leg so that it was more like a squat. But the doctors realized the head was positioned in a way that they’d rather have my on my other side, but because of the cable attached to her head, I wasn’t able to flip all the way to the other side. The midwife was really trying to do my wishes to the best of her ability, but she was definitely outnumbered by staff of the delivery ward. I really appreciated her efforts though, and overall I think midwife led culture is truly the best. It’s good to have doctors when you need them, but it’s not so great to have them when they aren’t actually needed.
They started to talk about forceps and ventouse. We said no to forceps and waited a while to think about ventouse. They pressed harder on getting her out and so we consented. They attached the ventouse with the next order to push, and the damn thing popped off. Balls felt light headed and the nurse instructed him to sit on the floor. He didnt’ pass out but he was close because he pretty much hadn’t eaten all day.
I delivered her myself without any assistance in the next few pushes, all in much more pain than needed because I was on my back. I also had a 2nd degree tear, also thanks to a delivery on my back and straining to actually push. Juniper still has a lump on her head from the ventouse. They went against our wishes and didnt do delayed cord clamping because they wanted to test the cord to see if she had been missing oxygen during contractions. The tests all came back negative and none of the interventions were necessary. I am still bitter as I write this 10 months later. I can see why I waited so long to sit down and write this out. I feel pretty frustrated right now.
We heard the cry as she came out, they placed her on my chest and her big eyes stared at me. Both Balls and I looked at her and thought “who is this? she doesn’t look like either of us” and it all felt very surreal. She was here, but what I had just experienced left me with so many feelings. Frustration about how it went down, but proud of delivering a baby using my body without any drugs, glad that part was done with and that she was healthy. I had smashed my personal birth champs out of the park, it was 12:19 am UK time, during the actual WFTDA 2017 wftda champs final in Philly.
I forgot to mention, as she was born out, she also took her very first poo. So these moments of waiting for her to breastfeed were also covered in blood and her menconium tar poop all over my body and arm. I lied there while they stitched me up, still in the stirrups with only half of a bed and we waited for the next instructions. Some time had passed, and they still hadn’t put my bed together so that I could get myself out of the stirrups (and not have my body completely on display). It was safe to say that, combined with meeting and infant you’re now responsible for keeping alive was a weird, weird time. Someone finally came after about 40 min and put the bed together and told me I could go take a shower. I was impressed at how I was able to walk around easily and bending over all of a sudden didn’t have a giant obstruction.
After I had showered, my midwife came and instructed us to pack our things and go to the post labor ward (which is the 7th circle of hell in my opinion, if you have the option to pay for a room, do it). She gave us the results of the cord test and apologized multiple times for the unnecessary interventions and the giant lag time on leaving me in the stirrups. It felt good to be validated but awful to know that it didn’t have to go the way it did. Like buyers remorse or something.
We packed up our stuff and I rolled the baby in her little wheelie cot to the labor ward. I was offered a wheelchair ride but declined and walked her. I joked that I was feeling really good, but wasn’t ready to go horseback riding anytime soon.
I could go into the post natal ward and learning to breastfeed saga, but that all felt reallly normal and supportive. I think I wanted to write this post to get my feelings out about my experience with birth, and the lack of consent, and the dismissal of having negative feelings about your birth experience.
Along with all the bad, also was the good and special moments. It is incredible and daunting to look down at a newborn you just created. It’s harder to realize that you just also created a mother of yourself and what that actually means. The truth is not only a baby is being born, but so is a new identity as a mother. It’s especially tricky to navigate all that while just having gone through a bewildering experience of battling a doctor about what they are going to do to you.
You might read this story or hear a story like this and go, “but it’s all worth it because you have a healthy baby in the end”. Or “if something would have been wrong you’d have been glad they did all that stuff”. Which is what people said to me. I can tell you right now, that really sucked to hear. A healthy baby shouldn’t baby and a traumatized mother shouldn’t be enough. It completely invalidated my experience and made it even more difficult to navigate the complexity of feelings I had in those early days surrounding the birth of my child. It also made me feel like I shouldn’t feel the things I felt, that I still feel. I don’t weigh up the good and the bad in any other part of my life and interrupt a complaint about it by saying “oh worth it!” Of course it’s worth it, by that doesn’t mean parts of it don’t suck. The experience of birth heavily involves a mother, and it’s a shame expressing negative experiences are so quickly dismissed by those around you. Or what I find more commonly, those thoughts are reserved for a “hush land” you’re not supposed to speak of or you’re an ungrateful mother.
But here is my truth. I love my baby but I didn’t love her birthday.
