Forceps and retained placenta

Due date: 25th January 2020
Actual delivery date: 4th February 2020
Pain relief: gas and air 
Active labour: 4 hours, 30mins 
Pushing: unsure (felt like forever) 
Delivery: forceps 
Surgery after for retained placenta 
Surprise baby boy 
Weight: 9lb, 1oz 

The lead up: 

On Monday 3rd February at 6:30 pm my waters broke, it wasn’t like what you see in the movies, it was a tiny bit (so little in fact that I thought I had just had an accident), my husband was due to play football at 7pm so I told him to go as I expected if it was my waters that labour would take a while as it was my first baby. When my husband returned from football at 8:15pm I was waking around clutching at my stomach and the only way I could describe the pain was like really strong period pains. I called the birth centre and they told me to come in. 

Arriving at hospital: 

I arrived at the birth centre at 9:30pm to be told that I was already 6-7cm dilated, I got into the birthing pool at the first opportunity and that eased the pain for me, I was able to get into a relaxed state of mind using the hypnobirthing techniques I had been practising and used gas and air. 

The birth: 

At 2am I was fully dilated and pushing to no avail, at 3:30am the midwives changes shift and I didn’t gel with my new midwife at all, I didn’t like her approach and felt uncomfortable in her presence… my contractions stopped and everything slowed down. The new midwife had me in and out of the pool, asked me to go to the toilet, had me on all fours, on the yoga ball and nothing was working so sent me up to the delivery suite at 5am. The doctor told me that since I had been fully dilated for 3 hours that I had half an hour to push and if I couldn’t get the baby out they would have to intervene. I was determined to push my baby out and tried so hard but he just wasn’t coming. At 6am the surgeon told me they would be using forceps - I had only been using gas and air so hadn’t had any other form of pain relief, I believe they injected me with some kind of numbing agent before the forceps but I don’t think it worked. I had a surgeon, a junior doctor, 2 midwives, a baby doctor and someone else in the room at the bottom of my bed whilst my baby was delivered. Due to having forceps I had to have an episiotomy and then they could insert the forceps on the next contraction, the pain was absolutely excruciating, the thought of them pulling my baby out with metal forceps was something I hadn’t even thought about prior to this moment and I was so sad that my baby was born into the world this way, with a metal grip on his head and my screaming that I can only explain as demonic, I was heartbroken. 

Albie was born at 6:33am (almost exactly 12hours since my waters broke) and was placed on my chest for a few short minutes before he was taken away for examination.

Afterbirth: 

It didn’t stop there… my placenta retained, they waited for 30minutes but there was no sign of it so I was transferred to surgery. My husband was left with Albie and didn’t even realise where they had taken me, it was only when he asked a midwife that he was able to come in and join me. Albie was screaming and all I wanted to do was hold him. 

I was asked to climb onto the bed in surgery but I was exhausted, I could barely lift my arms so they moved me. I had to have a spinal block (which I was gutted about, as I didn’t want this in the first place and I had just delivered Albie without it) and then the junior doctor was taught how to scrape my placenta out by going up inside me. 

Finally at around 8am I was able to hold Albie and give him his first breastfeed, an amazing midwife held him to my breast and I fell asleep. 

I found the whole experience to be traumatising, for around 3-4weeks after the birth I couldn’t stop visualising all the doctors at the end of my bed and everytime I looked at Albie I associated him with the pain of my birth, it broke my heart. I continued to breastfeed Albie and that made our bond so strong, everyday my love for him would grow so much. He’s now 2 and we still breastfeed and my love for him is raw, unconditional and so very strong. 

I met with a midwife around 12months after Albie was born and attended a birth after thoughts meeting where we went over my notes from the birth and why things happened the way they did, this really helped with my healing journey and would strongly recommend this to anyone who has struggled after birth.