Polly's story, Hertfordshire - premature ceasarean, no SCBU stay

"After one of my fellow Tweeters asked about the birth of my daughter Joss, I thought I should write up a proper birth story for those that are interested, but mainly for those who are pregnant and concerned about premature labour. I had such a positive experience I wanted to share it so if you are faced with the same situation you can stay calm!

Although falling pregnant with Joss had been difficult (I have PCOS) my pregnancy itself was plain sailing. The only concern I ever had was that she wasn’t much of a kicker. Her movements were far and few between and more like wriggles rather than kicks but I was reassured by my midwife that some babies are just like that, and as long as that was the way it had always been that I was not to worry.

Her due date had been given as 24th August 2010 but I was totally and utterly convinced that she would be late. I myself was 16 days late, my brother 14 days late, and my husband and his sister were also late. I was so convinced in fact that I had planned to work up until 4 days before my due date.

After chatting to a couple of colleagues who had done Hypnobirthing classes and gone on to have ‘easy’ labours my husband and I decided to take classes too and were set on having as natural a labour as possible. Much to my parents dismay we had also decided to try for a water birth at home (they felt the only safe place for us to be was hospital). The pool had been delivered when I was 34 weeks pregnant and we were getting so excited about the impending birth of ‘Peanut’(we didn’t know the sex of our baby so this was her pet name until she was born!).

As I said, all had gone rather smoothly throughout the pregnancy so it was a bit of a shock when it all started to go wrong on the evening of Thursday 23rd July at 35 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I’d had a busy day at work as it had been my company's AGM, but my colleagues had assigned me jobs to do sitting down and I was feeling fine if only a little tired – nothing new there! While the AGM was going on I started to write a list of things to do that weekend, top of the list was ‘pack hospital bag’ just in case the homebirth didn’t go to plan and we had to head in. Little did I know that the weekend would be too late!

I got the train home as usual and then got a lift from the station home with a neighbour. I was so knackered I had a lay down on the bed and when my hubby got home he joined me. We lay there for about 30 mins discussing our day then had dinner and had a shower. All a pretty normal evening.

At 9:30 we were putting on our PJ’s to go and watch a bit of telly before bed. I popped off to the bathroom to do what felt like my 100th wee of the day, but when I wiped there was a little bit of mucus on the tissue. I called my hubby in to take a look. He looked pretty worried, but to be honest I wasn’t concerned. It was only a tiny bit and I knew that you can loose bits of the plug and that it can regenerate. Also there wasn’t any blood. But it was the first time I began to think maybe Peanut wasn’t going to be as late as I had always assumed! I reassured hubby there was nothing to worry about and said I’d maybe call the midwife in the morning just to check. Five mins had passed, and I was still sitting on the loo. I now needed wee 101 of the day so stayed sitting there! This time when I wiped it was a totally different story – a huge lump of mucus was on the tissue and I started to panic a little!

This was the point I turned to my Twitter followers for advice: “I think I just lost my mucus plug. No blood but quite a lot of it. Did this ever happen to you? If so, how soon after did you go into labour?”. A few of my followers came back with responses, but the general consensus was with no water, call the midwife in the morning.

At this point I also texted my best friend to see if she had experienced anything similar with her two young children. We texted back and forth and I then called her at 10:20pm. Five minutes into our conversation, I suddenly felt my waters go. I shouted to my husband to grab a towel and told my friend what was happening then promptly hung up and rushed to the bathroom! From the bathroom I directed my husband to my hospital notes for their phone number and called the labour ward. It was now 10:45. As I expected, they told me to pack an over night bag and head in.

It took the hubby and I an hour to pack a hospital bag. Some of the time I was helping him, other times I had to head back to the bathroom shouting directions to him from there as there was a constant trickle of water which sometimes got heavier. I got though about 7 maternity towels in that hour.

We got the hospital at around 11pm. I was strapped up to the monitor, and the second I heard Peanuts heartbeat I felt a huge sense of relief. I just knew everything would be ok. They had a feel of my tummy and said Peanut was head down. I was monitored until around 1am. I had no contractions in that time. So they decided to admit me for the night and said I would be sent down for a scan in the morning to see how much water I had left. I honestly thought at that point I would be sent home for bed rest until 37 weeks and then be induced.

Hubby was sent home and I had a horrendous nights sleep. I think I managed just 2 hours. I’d never spent a night in hospital before (apart from when I was born!). The lady in the next bed was snoring and I kept needing to get up for a wee. Also I felt like I was having period type pains. Only mild ones, and they may well have been in my head, but it didn’t help with trying to get some sleep thinking I might go into full labour any moment!

A midwife came by in the morning and had a feel of my tummy and couldn’t decide which way Peanut was laying, so she went and got a bedside scanning machine to check. I pointed out that I didn’t know the sex, so if she were to see I didn’t want to know. She reassured me that the machine was only very basic and it would be difficult for her to identify a head let alone genitals! Low and behold, she tried for 10 minutes to find Peanuts head but was having no luck, though she thought maybe it was laying transverse. This was the first time the dreaded word ‘ceasarean’ was first mentioned. She went to get a doctor to have a go with the scanning machine to see if she could find a head! Ten minutes later 2 doctors and 2 midwives arrived in my cubicle. Now I was really worried. The doctor scanned, and confirmed the midwife's suspicions that Peanut was laying transverse. I would be needing a caesarean and it would be happening that afternoon. I dissolved into tears.

It was 9am. An hour before hubby was allowed back in. I was alone and scared. This was a million miles from the natural hypnobirth homebirth I had planned. My baby was coming that afternoon 5 weeks early. I knew he/she had a fantastic chance of survival but I also knew there was a good chance baby would be whipped out and taken straight to special care. I asked if there was any other options. Could they not wait to see if baby turned, after all it had been head down the whole pregnancy and when admitted the night before, but I was told the risk of infection was too high to chance waiting. I then asked if they could try to turn the baby but I was told even with waters in tact it is very difficult, and with little to no water left turning the baby is almost impossible. The only hope I had was that I was being sent down for a proper scan at 11am to confirm the diagnosis given by the basic bedside scanner. If they found baby to be head down I would be allowed to try to deliver, but this was very unlikely.

So at 11am hubby and I walked down to the antenatal scanning waiting room. I sat there in my pink bikenstocks and red dressing gown (attractive!) amongst couples eagerly awaiting their 12 weeks scans – it was very surreal! The scan revealed that ‘Peanut’ was breech but was ‘doing the hurdles’ – i.e. one leg up and one leg down, so there was no way I would be able to deliver without her getting stuck. This scan also confirmed I had hardly any water left. So that sealed the deal. Peanut was coming out of the sunroof that afternoon!

The next few hours dragged. It was so strange knowing that the baby was coming! I had written a c-section birthplan just in case, so I went through that with the midwife. I also made sure my hubby was clear about my most important wish – that if Peanut is taken to special care, he were to go with him/her and not stay with me. I couldn’t stand the thought of this new little person being whipped out and not having its Mummy or Daddy with it at all times.

At 4pm we walked into the theatre. 30 minutes later, with Plan B, 'Prayin' playing in the background (the surgeons choice not ours, but I incidentally love the track) Jocelyn Leela was delivered weighing in at 4lb12oz. She was the most perfect little thing I had ever seen. And we were amazingly lucky that she didn’t need to go to special care.

So there you have it – the most crazy 20 hours of my life! Just 3 days later Joss and I were allowed home."

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