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Natural Birth
AmyRI
member
Natural breech birth story (very long)
AmyRI
member
Background info: I hate needles. The thought of an epidural needle in my spine makes me want to pass out. I can?t think about the details of a c-section without wanting to throw up. I had a natural hospital birth with my first - a labor that lasted just under 8 hours from first contraction to delivery. It was with an OB, but their office was awful during this pregnancy and I ended up switching to a midwifery duo at 34 weeks.
I was due 12/31/12. I was 2-3 cm dilated, 60% effaced at my appointment with one of the midwives at 40w2d and baby was head down (and had been since 34 weeks after I had seen a chiro for the Webster technique as baby had been transverse.
First sign of labor was my water breaking at 2:30 am on Sunday, 1/6/13 (40w6d). Contractions hadn?t started yet, but knowing how quickly labor progressed with DS, we finished packing our bags and loaded him into the car. We dropped him off at a friend?s house and headed straight to the hospital. Contractions began on the way there and were 5 minutes apart but not yet intense.
We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 am and went right up to labor and delivery. I was checked and only 3 cm dilated, but since my water was broken (although GBS negative), contractions had started, and my first labor was fast, they admitted me. Things picked up quickly and by 5am, one of the MW was on her way in.
I was allowed out of bed after the initial 20 minutes of monitoring and I was comfortable kneeling, pacing, and leaning over the bed or tray table just like my first labor. When the MW arrived, they monitored baby again for a bit as she went over my records and we chatted about what felt good, what didn?t, and what to try next. I got in the shower to let the warm water help with the pain. I didn?t really like being wet, but the hand held shower nozzle let me focus the water on my belly or back wherever the contraction was worst and I didn?t have to get totally soaked. DH pressed on my lower back during contractions to provide counter pressure. It was sometime around 6:30 when I started grunting through contractions instead of moaning and the MW asked that I get out of the shower and be checked.
Much to our surprise, when she checked me, she said I was around 8 cm but that she did not feel a head. She immediately got an ultrasound machine to confirm and found that baby was indeed frank breech. I panicked, knowing that this was almost certainly going to end in c-section performed by whoever was the hospital?s on-call OB that night. The MW admitted that she had never attended a breech birth, so she had to defer to the OB no matter what. She did give me a glimpse of hope that she knew the on-call OB had done breech deliveries before. She said the doc would be in to discuss options with us soon. After checking me again now that the shock of finding a butt had worn off, she said I was really only a 7. She gathered up my chart and got ready to hand everything off to the OB.
A few minutes later, she came back in the room with a big grin on her face, announcing that shifts changed and the new on-call OB was the best the hospital had at breech births. It felt like an eternity waiting for him to arrive as I hit transition. The MW was amazing at calming me down and answering some questions I had. She said it was still best to go without an epidural so I was in control of my body fully if we did attempt a delivery, so I didn?t need to resign myself to meds just yet.
The OB showed up around 7:30. He looked over everything and sat down to talk to us about the options. He explained that the risk of delivery to the baby is slightly higher with a breech birth, and the risk to the mother is higher for a c-section, but that the risks in both cases are quite low. He talked about what makes a good candidate for an attempt at breech birth: baby is butt first with chin tucked down and the mother has had previous births with similar size babies and low pushing times. They estimated this baby between 8 and 8.5 pounds, with head tucked and frank breech (butt first, feet up). I had delivered my first with 15 minutes of pushing in an 8-hour-total labor, and he was 8 pounds. I had no additional ?risk? factors besides the unknown. He was careful not to press one way or the other, but he made it clear that he thought I would be fine if I did decide to try and he could tell already that I wanted to avoid a section if at all possible. I let DH decide since he was more impartial than I was, and after talking with the doc he quickly agreed that attempting a breech delivery was the right option for us. So we did. There was a brief discussion of delivering in the OR, but the OB said it wasn?t necessary, which gave us a little more confidence in our decision. At this point, they started an IV of fluids (I had a hep lock already placed) to hydrate me in case I needed anesthesia for a c/s.
The next hour was spent with 2 teams assembling for delivery - one team in my room (my nurse, nurse for baby, midwife, OB, pediatrician, and us) and one team in the OR (multiple nurses for me and baby, another OB, anesthesiologist, and pediatrician) in case things didn?t go as planned. I was struggling through transition with super intense contractions and an urge to push that I had to fight. Successful delivery depended on me not pushing before I was fully dilated so baby?s head had less chance of getting stuck.
I remember kneeling over the bed stopped feeling good. Next I climbed up onto the bed and got on hands and knees facing the top of the bed for a while. That did help some, but it was a similar position. I didn't last long that way either before the MW encouraged me to lay on my side and she and/or DH would hold my right leg up so I could rest a bit. It wasn?t the most comfortable arrangement at first, but then DH figured out a good way to hold my hand and my leg at the same time and it was smooth sailing from there. I was checked a few times in this position as I was very close to 10 cm. Just before I started pushing, the baby pooped. A lot. Apparently the doc was scooping it away by the handful.
Finally they had everything and everyone ready and I started pushing. First contraction or two was a few pushes each. Last contraction, all of a sudden baby moved down quickly. It happened exactly as the OB had explained, only DH says it was faster than one body part with each push. Butt first, then a leg, then the other leg, body on the next push, head right after. 8:32 am, six hours after water breaking and 5 hours after contractions started. Total pushing time was 7 minutes, and baby came out very quickly right at the end of that.
As expected, the baby did not immediately cry and was suctioned 4 or 5 times before I heard a peep. As soon as the OB was done, the MW placed baby on my chest and DH announced that it was a girl! She required no immediate attention and stayed on my chest while the OB massaged my stomach, I delivered the placenta, and he stitched a minor tear that opened right along my scar line from having DS. She weighed 9 lbs even, was 19.5 inches, and we named her Clare Louise.
As a result of the breech position, her butt was bruised for the first few days but it faded quickly. We do have to take her for an ultrasound on her hips to check for dislocation when she?s 6 weeks old, but it is unlikely that she has a dislocated hip as she was head down until sometime in the last week. (I was checked and she was head down at 39w2d, and I?m sure she didn?t flip between the time I was admitted and when I hit 7 cm, so the first nurse missed her position. She wasn?t really paying attention when she checked me and didn?t palpate my belly at all to check positioning. This is also why they had trouble finding her on the fetal monitors.)
It was not at all the way I imagined it would be, but I am really happy with how things turned out despite how stressful it was at the time. I am also now very thankful that my former OB?s office was so awful - the midwife and on-call OB both agreed that she would have immediately ordered a c-section. The OB that delivered me was the other person I contemplated switching to (as he is my mother?s OB). It?s all so bizarre the way it worked out, but I am happy to say I had another low intervention, med-free birth and a healthy baby.
I was due 12/31/12. I was 2-3 cm dilated, 60% effaced at my appointment with one of the midwives at 40w2d and baby was head down (and had been since 34 weeks after I had seen a chiro for the Webster technique as baby had been transverse.
First sign of labor was my water breaking at 2:30 am on Sunday, 1/6/13 (40w6d). Contractions hadn?t started yet, but knowing how quickly labor progressed with DS, we finished packing our bags and loaded him into the car. We dropped him off at a friend?s house and headed straight to the hospital. Contractions began on the way there and were 5 minutes apart but not yet intense.
We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 am and went right up to labor and delivery. I was checked and only 3 cm dilated, but since my water was broken (although GBS negative), contractions had started, and my first labor was fast, they admitted me. Things picked up quickly and by 5am, one of the MW was on her way in.
I was allowed out of bed after the initial 20 minutes of monitoring and I was comfortable kneeling, pacing, and leaning over the bed or tray table just like my first labor. When the MW arrived, they monitored baby again for a bit as she went over my records and we chatted about what felt good, what didn?t, and what to try next. I got in the shower to let the warm water help with the pain. I didn?t really like being wet, but the hand held shower nozzle let me focus the water on my belly or back wherever the contraction was worst and I didn?t have to get totally soaked. DH pressed on my lower back during contractions to provide counter pressure. It was sometime around 6:30 when I started grunting through contractions instead of moaning and the MW asked that I get out of the shower and be checked.
Much to our surprise, when she checked me, she said I was around 8 cm but that she did not feel a head. She immediately got an ultrasound machine to confirm and found that baby was indeed frank breech. I panicked, knowing that this was almost certainly going to end in c-section performed by whoever was the hospital?s on-call OB that night. The MW admitted that she had never attended a breech birth, so she had to defer to the OB no matter what. She did give me a glimpse of hope that she knew the on-call OB had done breech deliveries before. She said the doc would be in to discuss options with us soon. After checking me again now that the shock of finding a butt had worn off, she said I was really only a 7. She gathered up my chart and got ready to hand everything off to the OB.
A few minutes later, she came back in the room with a big grin on her face, announcing that shifts changed and the new on-call OB was the best the hospital had at breech births. It felt like an eternity waiting for him to arrive as I hit transition. The MW was amazing at calming me down and answering some questions I had. She said it was still best to go without an epidural so I was in control of my body fully if we did attempt a delivery, so I didn?t need to resign myself to meds just yet.
The OB showed up around 7:30. He looked over everything and sat down to talk to us about the options. He explained that the risk of delivery to the baby is slightly higher with a breech birth, and the risk to the mother is higher for a c-section, but that the risks in both cases are quite low. He talked about what makes a good candidate for an attempt at breech birth: baby is butt first with chin tucked down and the mother has had previous births with similar size babies and low pushing times. They estimated this baby between 8 and 8.5 pounds, with head tucked and frank breech (butt first, feet up). I had delivered my first with 15 minutes of pushing in an 8-hour-total labor, and he was 8 pounds. I had no additional ?risk? factors besides the unknown. He was careful not to press one way or the other, but he made it clear that he thought I would be fine if I did decide to try and he could tell already that I wanted to avoid a section if at all possible. I let DH decide since he was more impartial than I was, and after talking with the doc he quickly agreed that attempting a breech delivery was the right option for us. So we did. There was a brief discussion of delivering in the OR, but the OB said it wasn?t necessary, which gave us a little more confidence in our decision. At this point, they started an IV of fluids (I had a hep lock already placed) to hydrate me in case I needed anesthesia for a c/s.
The next hour was spent with 2 teams assembling for delivery - one team in my room (my nurse, nurse for baby, midwife, OB, pediatrician, and us) and one team in the OR (multiple nurses for me and baby, another OB, anesthesiologist, and pediatrician) in case things didn?t go as planned. I was struggling through transition with super intense contractions and an urge to push that I had to fight. Successful delivery depended on me not pushing before I was fully dilated so baby?s head had less chance of getting stuck.
I remember kneeling over the bed stopped feeling good. Next I climbed up onto the bed and got on hands and knees facing the top of the bed for a while. That did help some, but it was a similar position. I didn't last long that way either before the MW encouraged me to lay on my side and she and/or DH would hold my right leg up so I could rest a bit. It wasn?t the most comfortable arrangement at first, but then DH figured out a good way to hold my hand and my leg at the same time and it was smooth sailing from there. I was checked a few times in this position as I was very close to 10 cm. Just before I started pushing, the baby pooped. A lot. Apparently the doc was scooping it away by the handful.
Finally they had everything and everyone ready and I started pushing. First contraction or two was a few pushes each. Last contraction, all of a sudden baby moved down quickly. It happened exactly as the OB had explained, only DH says it was faster than one body part with each push. Butt first, then a leg, then the other leg, body on the next push, head right after. 8:32 am, six hours after water breaking and 5 hours after contractions started. Total pushing time was 7 minutes, and baby came out very quickly right at the end of that.
As expected, the baby did not immediately cry and was suctioned 4 or 5 times before I heard a peep. As soon as the OB was done, the MW placed baby on my chest and DH announced that it was a girl! She required no immediate attention and stayed on my chest while the OB massaged my stomach, I delivered the placenta, and he stitched a minor tear that opened right along my scar line from having DS. She weighed 9 lbs even, was 19.5 inches, and we named her Clare Louise.
As a result of the breech position, her butt was bruised for the first few days but it faded quickly. We do have to take her for an ultrasound on her hips to check for dislocation when she?s 6 weeks old, but it is unlikely that she has a dislocated hip as she was head down until sometime in the last week. (I was checked and she was head down at 39w2d, and I?m sure she didn?t flip between the time I was admitted and when I hit 7 cm, so the first nurse missed her position. She wasn?t really paying attention when she checked me and didn?t palpate my belly at all to check positioning. This is also why they had trouble finding her on the fetal monitors.)
It was not at all the way I imagined it would be, but I am really happy with how things turned out despite how stressful it was at the time. I am also now very thankful that my former OB?s office was so awful - the midwife and on-call OB both agreed that she would have immediately ordered a c-section. The OB that delivered me was the other person I contemplated switching to (as he is my mother?s OB). It?s all so bizarre the way it worked out, but I am happy to say I had another low intervention, med-free birth and a healthy baby.
#3 Due April 2016
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Natural breech birth story (very long)
Congratulations! I recently learned that there are eight OB's in my city that do breech deliveries. It's wonderful to hear about vaginal breech births, as I really do think that breech can be a perfectly normal way to be born.
That's a great birth story.
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I'm so glad my story helped. I know it's really uncommon to find such a supportive OB, but things went so smoothly that I can't believe doctors really think a csection would have been better. I hope she either flips back for you, or you find an OB that will let you deliver breech!