Did you always see the same consultant?

Yes, I always saw the same consultant. Unless he happened to be on holiday which was only once, but I always saw the same consultant, and he was the consultant who made the final, well, the final discussion with, he gave me the final discussion as to the possibility that the baby I was carrying was big in proportion to my hip size and pelvic size and general wellbeing;

My sugar, blood sugar level started to rise very much towards the end of my pregnancy. It didn’t develop into pregnancy diabetes but it was beginning to rise. The baby was growing very rapidly and appeared to be engaged very early on. She was engaged probably a good seven weeks, eight weeks, before I was due, my due date was end of January. And he then started to talk to me about the size of my baby, which I became very concerned about and I was a bit concerned that it might be too much, get stuck and cause brain damage or anything like that, which has happened in our family, sadly. And he advised me to think about the possibilities of having a caesarean and the possibility also of trying natural labour, but in any event that there was any difficulty at all, a caesarean section would be given. But, at that stage, having had a scare, all I wanted was the safe arrival of the baby, and having gone through lots of discussions with my husband, very difficult decision, we did decide to go for an elective caesarean, 14 days before she was, sorry, 21 days before she was due, but I was actually given a caesarean section 14 days after that date;

So, my baby was born at 39 weeks, and that was fine, no problems at all. I could say to anyone, have no fear, it’s a happy time. The hospital were wonderful, you go in, it’s all done on the day, the baby arrives safely, very calm, very contented. I was absolutely fine.

By that time the epidural had worn off so they had to knock me out and it was all a bit distressing. And, obviously, I was knocked out so I don’t know this part but my Mum says that when she born, she was actually not breathing, they had to revive her. She had an Apgar score of 2 which, I think a normal Apgar score is 10 on a new-born baby when they score points for. So it was very, very close as to whether she made it. So, and because shed poohed inside, she spent 3 days in special care because shed, shed actually swallowed it and it had gone down on to her lungs. So she, so she was in special care for 3 days, which was also difficult because when you have the baby and they’re taken into special care, it’s almost like they’re not your baby because you’re allowed to come in and visit the baby and touch the baby but it’s the, the carers in that, on that ward that are actually looking after your new-born baby which, which was quite difficult. And I didn’t feel I was very well informed on what was going on with her and why they were doing everything they were doing. And I found it quite upsetting, so. And the second time round, the whole, the whole thought of going through that again, it was just too much for me so I persuaded them that elective caesarean would be best; they weren’t entirely happy about that, though.

What were the reasons that you were given for not having an elective caesarean?

They said they, they didn’t want to give me a second elective caesarean because, you know, obviously, obviously it’s healthier to give birth naturally. The recovery is better, theres less of a risk, it’s less expensive on the NHS, presumably, was, would be an issue. You know, and, and obviously, it’s the natural way and it’s major surgery, obviously, which they’d like to avoid. But weighing up the risks in my own mind, of going through what I went through before and of, of possibly losing my child like I nearly did the first time, I wasn’t prepared to risk that. I wouldn’t be able to cope with that so my midwife thought it was the best thing for me to have an elective caesarean but the consultants wanted me to go for a natural delivery. But I am glad I stuck to my guns because my second child, the birth was fantastic. I actually had an elective caesarean for – you know, I’ve known people that are really worried about it. It’s the most amazing experience. |It was, it was lovely and I can’t praise the people enough. It was such a good experience.

Tell me more about what happened and why it was so good?

Well, I, going in for my caesarean that was, was elective, I knew, I knew the date to go in and I turned up and everyone was very casual. I had, at the time, actually, I have a very bad needle phobia, which is not good when you’re going to have a needle this long in your back. So I went in and they, they were very relaxing, they were so kind and they, once, once they’d, you know, once it was planned that I was going to have a caesarean, there was no more talk of, should I or shouldn’t I? It was just, “That’s what you’re going to do” and they were great about helping me overcome my fear. And you, and I went into the theatre and everyone was laughing and joking and talking about the baby and it took away from my fear completely. And they, they were just fantastic and you felt like you knew them really well because they were, they were just so lovely and you wouldn’t want a nicer bunch to be with you when your baby was born. And the experience of, of being there and seeing the baby lifted out, it was amazing because I was knocked out for my first pregnancy so it was the first time I’d seen one of my children being born and it was lovely. And I would, I don’t know, to anyone I would say, just, you know, it’s not something to worry about. It w

Were you disappointed at all not to be able to have a natural labour?

I was disappointed not to have a natural labour, but on the other hand, at the time, you’re only thinking of the safety of your baby. I had no idea of the consequences to my health of having a caesarean, and it’s a long recovery. It’s not a quick snip and, you know, you’re out and you’re about. It’s months of rehabilitation to build up your strength again and your stamina.

Tell me about that. What were you told before the caesarean about what it would be like for you getting over it?

Before I had the caesarean I was given very little information about my after care, my – sorry, what can I say? – recovery. I was given very little information about my recovery, what to expect, what it would be like. I was given every book under the sun, every bit of information about the baby, how it had happened, and the risks and the benefits. But what no-one tells you is, once you’re home, quite how difficult it is physically to cope, even though I had 100 per cent support from my family. For three weeks I had constant support, after those three weeks it was still very difficult physically lifting, bending down, putting the washing on, running up the stairs, and you think you can do something, you go to do it, and you just feel a little bit of, ow, no, that’s a bit early. In terms of looking after the baby theres no problem; the only difficulty was bathing. But theres very little information still, I believe, in this country, on how you as the mother heal, what happens internally. You have a check at six weeks after the midwives have checked at home, you have a check at six weeks by your local GP and that is it, after major surgery, no-one else has even looked at my scar, felt my internal muscles or anything.

What do you think people need to be told before they have caesareans?

Before women have caesareans they must be given more information. They must be given more information from people like myself and other mothers who can collate an information pack, what to expect when you get home, the benefits of having a caesarean, the downers of having a caesarean. And in the long run it’s fine, it really is no problem, but people need to be a little more prepared just how difficult it is for the body to knit. It’s a big operation, it is underestimated. Yes, you have a positive result at the end, but if anyone else was having a similar operation such as a hysterectomy, you wouldn’t be sent out to work two weeks later, two days later, or anything; you’d have time to heal and mend. I would like to see, myself, alternative therapy given on the NHS for people who’ve had such operations. I would like to see a choice of massage to tone the muscles again, therapy classes for post-caesarean women. There must be enough women to make a class to strengthen the abdomen and doing things like that, and just to really get people together who’ve had the same experience and to get your strength back far, far quicker than perhaps if you were unaware of quite how much work is needed.

And I think theres a lady doctor came in at some point, probably about half past nine, ten oclock, and she checked me, and she said, you know, I’m not progressing how I should and she was happy for me to go on for a couple more hours, but she said, ‘You really need to start thinking about having a C-section. And I kind of looked at my husband who looked like death warmed up, you know, because wed been at it so long, and I said, ‘I’m fine with that. Let’s, let’s just do it. So, and of course I already had the epidural in. It was just a case of wheeling me across and it was only sort of twenty minutes or something.

So you went straight ahead?

Straight into theatre, yeah. Straight into theatre.

So what was the experience of the actual section like?

It wasn’t too bad. Everybody seemed fairly calm, and I was, because we were tired, we were quite calm as well. I just remember there being lots of people in the operating theatre, which I wasn’t expecting. The porter wheeled me in, he stayed in, he was gowned up. My husband was gowned up, stood next to me. I had the anaesthetist behind me, and then there was about four other people. There was like the surgeon and maybe three nurses or something. There just seemed to be this whole crowd of people in this small operating theatre [laughs]. And they were very good, they all talked to me, what they were doing, and even when though they were busy setting up. And the anaesthetist was, you know, checking and checking again that I was, you know, that I couldn’t feel anything before the operation started.

Okay, so who first broached the idea of a caesarean? Was that you?

Yeah.

Because you were so shattered?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah and, you know, they said, Oh, you know, you don’t have to do that blah, blah, blah. The doctor was like quite happy to do it, the doctor who was on duty. He said, Well, you know, it seems like a sensible idea So I mean, so it’s difficult, really. I think, I think it was more me that sort of was happy to go with that option really. I mean, and I’m quite happy because, in a way because I sort of feel I was so exhausted, and the thing is you can go for like hours in your birth, but then you’ve got the next day to face. You, it’s not like you’ve got the next day of just, like, lying in bed and relaxing eating chocolates. You’ve got actually a baby there. So for me I can sort of see, Well, hes come out health, and yeah – but then I sort of think, Oh, maybe I should have gone through the whole birth thing But I don’t know if theres something in me that would have found that even worse [laughs] to go through or not, and so that’s the thing as well. And I think maybe again, maybe being in a hospital – maybe in, if I think about it in hindsight, it was not, probably not the most comfortable atmosphere for me to be in. Maybe being, as I say, being at home for longer, longer would have been better for me in the long run, rather than being in hospital. Even though they were very nice. Because I think I’d have just been more relaxed. As a person, I think I feel more relaxed in my own surroundings, and around strangers and stuff I don’t feel like so relaxed. I think maybe, again in a sort of subconscious way for me, that might have affected how I felt in my birth. That might have made it take longer. I don’t know if that can happen.

Hmm. Or if these things happen on the, you know what I mean? Does a birth take a long time or are there problems because that’s what’s going to happen anyway? Or is there stuff that might be sort of happening – subconsciously that might make things sort of a bit more complicated or whatever?

Well, I mean, my waters broke about 9 oclock on the Thursday evening, and then I was in hospital from that night, all day Friday and it was like, I went down to the labour suite probably about one in the morning on the Saturday morning, and then I was there all day [laughs]. I was there, I was there all day. So it was like, I mean, he wasn’t born until about five to six on the Saturday, and I had a caesarean section then. But I just dilated one centimetre. And I wasn’t sure, I think I felt a bit demoral-, I think I would have felt happier, because from my perspective I was like in labour from the minute my waters broke, but I don’t really, you’re not in labour until you’re three centimetres dilated, which they didn’t tell me till, like, you know, five in the morning on the Friday.

So – because I had all these contractions for like well over twenty-four hours – so I thought, Oh well, I’m in labour no, you know. And they said, You’re in labour no. And I think that demoralised me a little bit, because I sort of felt like, Oh my God, I’m only just now in labour. How much longer am I going to have to go on for? I’ve been in, having contractions for like, you know, thirty hours And then, you know, then I was in there for like another twelve hours, and they said, Oh, you’ve dilated by one centimetre – actually it might be slightly less than that and like, How much longer are you going to be here for you know. So I think, I mean I do feel now I should have carried on for longer, rather than having the caesarean. And they did say, Oh, have an epidural and go to slee and then things like that, and then sort of, I just thought, Well, what’s the point of having an epidural I mean, I don’t know. I just, I was so tired, I was sleeping through all the contractions and stuff like that. So a bit of me now feels maybe I should have, like, had the epidural and gone to sleep, and then woken up and seen if I was more progressed.

And I was worried about the risk of infection. They say after eighteen hours of your waters being broken you have a higher infection risk than if you, than if you have the baby sooner. So that worried me as well, like thinking, If I have an epidural what would happen there? Go on for another twenty-four hours? Surely this infection risk they keep telling me about, you know, is going to be worse and things like that. So I sort of was happy to have a caesarean section.

Alright. I didn’t go into labour myself. I had to be induced at forty-two weeks because there was no sign of my daughter being born. And they ruptured my membranes but nothing much happened and then he put up the drip with the Syntocinon [oxytocin] which is to try and make the pregnancy, to try and make the labour become established and the uterus contract. And as soon as they did that my daughter’s heart beat started to go down and come up again and then go down again. So they were, the staff were rather anxious about that. And that happened several times and then it suddenly just dropped down and then stayed down for several minutes, so that time they said, ‘No, you know, the baby’s distressed. You need to have an emergency caesarean section,’ so that, that happened within about ten minutes.

Mmm. How did that, how did that feel to suddenly have your labour taken over by all these people?

It was, it was very strange having labour taken over by other people. It was a bit like something out of ER. Something, you know, you were lying in the room with just yourself and a midwife and then suddenly she pressed a button and I think they could read the tracing in the doctors’ office and about fifteen people rushed into the room. You know, several doctors and several midwives and then you were just being rushed on the trolley down to theatre. And it happened so incredibly quickly. I think, I knew it was a possibility because the – earlier on in the day they’d been watching the heart beat going down and I’d, I’d had, I’d had an epidural earlier on and the anaesthetist said, you know, “I might be seeing you later on” because, you know, hed seen the tracing as well. So there was some suggestion that it might have to happen, so it wasn’t completely a surprise. But it was, the speed at which it happened was, was quite a surprise really.

Did, were you disappointed to have a caesarean rather than a natural delivery?

Yes, I think I was slightly disappointed. I think I’d hoped to have a normal, natural delivery and – really because I hadn’t managed to get pregnant myself, and I hadn’t managed to go into labour myself, so I thought it would be quite nice to do something normally, but it wasn’t to be. And in the end it, it wasn’t a big issue, I don’t think, for me, because, you know, we had a healthy baby which, you know, at one stage we didn’t think we would have. And that was the main thing. And I think in the end, you know, several months later how I delivered wasn’t a feature at all. It was the end result was by far the most important thing for me.

Was your husband trying to sort of talk to them or get them to do anything?

Yeah, yeah, he was, he kept asking them, you know, what was going on, why was it taking so long, why was I so drugged up? Because I really was a lot of the time drugged up. But he just kept saying that he got no answers, he just really thought that I was going to die, because no-one ever actually explained to him. And it was only when, that, when I, obviously had had him and the paediatrician came out and said to my husband, Oh, you’ve got a boy And he said, Oh, that’s fine, but what about my wife You know, and she went, Oh, shell be fine But that was the first time he knew that I would be okay, after I’d had him, and so for a day and a half he actually didn’t know what was happening to me. So that was quite scary for him, it was, because, as I said to you, theres a lot I can’t remember so it, it doesn’t seem that scary to me. But obviously to him, it definitely was, because, as I say, 2 weeks later he went and booked himself in for the snip. And that was it, no more children.

I think there is a general feeling that a caesarean is such a bad thing that you only do it if it really is absolutely necessary. And, you know, I felt that they were trying to drive down their caesarean statistics and, and therefore I was part of that drive. And yes, probably if I’d have shouted louder earlier on, they may have agreed to do that.

When they when they said to you had to have a planned caesarean.

Yeah.

And, obviously, you were upset about this, did they explain to you what would happen, what the steps would be?

No, I weren’st explained nothing but I saw someone about three days before I had the caesarean and they just went through a consent form really quickly and then I signed that but I didn’st understand what I was signing and then they said, You have to take this tablet the day before. And I said, What’s that for? And they didn’st explain what the tablet was for or the caesarean procedure or anything so I was just clueless.

Yeah. So can you remember how you felt the day before you were about to give birth then.

Really frightened and I was really frightened on the day as well. I was like, I mean I was that frightened, I was shaking that much and the midwife said, Are you cold? And I went, No, I’m that scared, I’m shaking.

And what, did she try to reassure you at that point?

No, I didn’st have any reassurance or nothing I, I was just shaking all the way through the caesarean, you know. Before the caesarean and all the way through the caesarean I was just shaking really badly because I was that scared because I just didn’st know what was happening.