Flynn William Gibbs
1st November 2022
First Time Parents
Rainbow Baby
Born at 39 Weeks
8lbs 3oz
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
Induced Labour
Emergency Caesarean Birth
Informed Decisions
As many birth stories go ours didn’t exactly go to ‘plan’. On Monday 24th of October I had a growth scan appointment and was told baby boy was looking good and they weren’t worried about his growth etc. However as I’d been in quite a few times over the course of my pregnancy for reduced movement, they recommended that I be induced. They said they had availability in the next few days and would we like to go ahead. We were in a bit of shock and didn’t feel quite ready to be induced so we declined to do it that week as we felt it wasn’t urgent enough and we could wait. We weighed up the options using what we’d learned from the Brilliant Birth Club and felt in a good position to wait another week.
Maternal Anxiety
We did make a plan to be induced on the Monday but if it got to Monday and everything felt ok we could just wait. However, on the Thursday of that week I had another period of reduced movement and because I was so close to my due date I had to be monitored over night at Aberdeen maternity unit. They were happy with his heart rate etc but his movements weren’t quite back to what they had been. The consultant came round in the morning and said she thought it was a good idea to move my induction appointment to the Sunday. We agreed as I was becoming really anxious about the reduced movements as it was getting so close to having him here.
Induction
So Sunday arrived, we were feeling excited and nervous. We organised for Cooper to be looked after by Andrew’s parents. We went to Inverurie midwife Unit for a cook balloon induction and they warned us it might not work as they didn’t think his head was engaged. And true enough it didn’t so they organised for me to go to Aberdeen as they had more experience. Off we went and the balloon was close to working however he moved his head at the last minute so our last option was the hormone pessary. I agreed as I was getting tired of all the back and forth and just wanted to get the show on the road. I was told it would be in for 24 hours and Andrew would have to go home at 8pm if I wasn’t in active labour.
Brilliant Birth Partner
Fast forward about 20 minutes and I was in excruciating pain. Andrew suggested I take the morphine that was offered but we were told a little while later that I was only allowed two doses during the whole of labour and this wasn’t ideal as I wasn’t even in active labour yet. Andrew was amazing and said there’s no point suffering in pain if I could take something to help. I managed to get some rest but no sleep. At 5am I was transferred to labour ward and was prepped for having my waters broken. I called Andrew and he arrived about half an hour later. They examined me and said I’d only dilated 1cm in 24 hours with the pessary. I was devastated as all that pain of the pessary had barely done anything.
Emergency
Fast forward to them trying to break my waters. Unfortunately my midwife couldn’t do it so they got a senior midwife in to do it. She managed whilst I was on a lot of gas and air. However when she was examining me she thought she could feel his hand so she called a consultant in who arrived within minutes. She examined me and immediately stopped and said it was his hand but also his cord that he’d pulled on top of his head which is called a cord prolapse. At that point everything immediately stopped and I was told I wasn’t allowed to move and to stay lying down and they would have to do an emergency c section. It was quite scary but my midwife was amazing at talking me through everything as they went through risks and paper work. Within about 10 mins I was in theatre being prepped. They really struggled to get the spinal block in as I wasn’t allowed to sit up. That’s when my hypnobirthing breathing really kicked in as everything was going so fast around me and I felt myself starting to panic. I thought the only thing I can control is my breathing and I focused on that. Andrew was away getting gowned up and I asked for him to be brought back asap as I really needed him.
Keeping Calm
When they eventually started the procedure Flynn arrived within minutes. We’ll never forget his first cry, it was so so loud. We were so relieved. They checked him over as quickly as they could and I got skin to skin. However I was shaking quite badly so luckily Andrew got loads of skin to skin with him.
After all the urgency of the surgery, I actually felt it went really well as all the staff seemed so relaxed but professional. This totally put me at ease and I liked the fact that they realised to keep me calm they needed to talk me through everything.
In recovery I got the famous tea and toast and got to breastfeed Flynn a little. Our night in hospital was pretty peaceful as he was very sleepy and I managed to get some rest.
Home
We got home the day after and the first couple of nights were really hard and when he was 6 days old, I unfortunately had to go back into hospital. It turned out that I had a womb infection after thinking it was just normal post partum pains and sweats. Flynn and I had to stay in for 2 nights which was really hard being away from Andrew.
Reflections
We are now settling into life as a 4 and finally feel like we can breathe a little.
Although our birth was nothing like we imagined, I don’t think we would change anything as without all the decisions we made along the way, we might not have our beautiful little boy here with us. If we hadn’t attended hypnobirthing we wouldn’t have been nearly as informed as we were and my anxiety before my section in that little time I had, could have been crippling.
We want to say a big thank you to you Lara - Jo, as your message of birth being brilliant has really stuck with us. It has taken me a while to think about Flynn’s birth and although I’m not at the brilliant stage just yet, I hope I get there soon.
