Special Delivery Winter 2014-2015 | Page 26

Pregnancy & Birth

Every time I think about the birth plans I made during my two pregnancies I have to laugh. Babies show up in their own good time, my two boys being no exception, and despite our best efforts to make arrangements they can almost always surprise you with some aspect of your labour and delivery. Don’t get me wrong; having a birth plan is a really useful tool in preparing for your new arrival and for assisting others in their role as your support team. However, it may be worth thinking of your plan as something more along the lines of a labour and delivery “wish list” or team “mission statement”.

My eldest son, Christopher, arrived past his due date, failed to progress, put me (and my husband) through more than 30 hours of labour and arrived as a bundle of joy through emergency caesarean section; none of which made following my birth plan terribly easy. Although not logical, it felt at times that Christopher was trying to teach me a very early parenting lesson; while making plans and setting goals is a good idea, we also need to be prepared to adapt to do what is best for everyone.

Once through the first trimester of my second pregnancy, I started to formulate a pretty concise set of wishes, or labour and delivery principles. I hoped that this would allow me to maintain some sense of control while leaving myself room for flexibility. As it turned out William didn’t waste any time in meddling with my “birth plan”; in fact he didn’t even wait for labour to start.

VBAC Please!

Because I had delivered Christopher by emergency caesarean, I was approaching my second delivery as a vaginal birth after caesarean or VBAC. This was without a doubt the approach preferred, and promoted, by the midwives and doctors that were attending to my antenatal care. In my case a VBAC wasn’t a terribly hard sell. I had certainly not planned or desired a caesarean birth for my first delivery and was of a like mind on my second. Although I had made these wishes known to my midwife team, I was scheduled for what they termed a VBAC workshop. This was a new, not optional, workshop implemented by the hospital.

The workshop consisted of one evening during my second trimester in which a group of expectant mums and dads were gathered at the hospital antenatal clinic to be informed of the research behind the hospitals support of the VBAC approach. The head of their VBAC team provided us with the general health benefits of a VBAC birth, some risk factors involved, how we would be treated by hospital staff due to our previous birth experiences and then allowed us to ask general questions. The idea was to give us the facts to consider so that we would then be prepared for a one-on-one discussion with our assigned midwife in the following weeks. I was glad of the positive and very supportive approach my antenatal care team was taking.

Which way is up?

Because of a pre-existing chronic illness I was being monitored on a slightly more frequent basis and in particular I was having a few extra scans beyond the standard two or three. Despite my sheer volume of scans it was very late in the game when a senior midwife, who stepped in for my usual midwife, thought that something might not be as they had earlier suspected. They popped me across the hall and did a quick scan. I was doing great and so was baby, but what they originally thought felt like a little head was actually a little bum… I was 6 weeks from my due date and this breach presentation really caught me off guard.

My breach baby

Sarah, mum to Chris (3 years old) and William (11 months) shares the challenges she faced when trying to stay in charge of her birth plan.