Ashley’s Birth Story - A positive Induction
This is the beautiful positive post dates induction story of Ashley who attended the July 2022 Positive Birth Program. Ashley and her partner Gene did so much preparation and planning for their positive birth, I could tell just from watching them in class what a wonderful team they would be. Here is her story.
“We went to the hospital at 7am. My obstetrician broke my waters at 7.30am and left me to see if that brought on labour. No contractions unfortunately! She left me going for an hour and a half without monitoring. At 9.30am they started the Syntocinon drip at 6ml/hr. I was moving around the room a bit and setting it up. We closed the curtains, put up some birth affirmation cards, set up the diffuser and I got some tolls ready for when I needed them. I had my birth comb, my “calm spray”, my “push spray” and my TENS machine.
At 10.30amI put on the TENS machine. I wasn’t having any painful contractions but I wanted to have a play with the machine and get it working before I needed it. I sat on the exercise ball and used the TENS machine while Gene did gentle touch massage. Contractions were beginning to become regular and more intense, I stopped talking during contractions and started focusing on relaxing and breathing. My midwife suggested that I try different positions. She suggested going on the bed on my knees and leaning over the top of the bed. I asked them to get the gas out and set it up as oxygen only, to help me breathe. I tried the ‘gas’ but I wasn’t liking it as I was so used to breathing through my nose.
At 11.30am my contractions were regular and more intense. I utilised the birth comb and asked for the gas to be turned up. I held on to the birth comb and the gas while Gene turned on the TENS machine. Between contractions he sprayed the “calm spray” and offered me water. At 12.30pm I got off the bed and tried standing and leaning over the bed. I was starting to have the urge to push! Baby’s heart rate was dropping during contractions and not coming back up enough between the contractions. The midwives asked me to get on the bed to put the fetal scalp clip onto his head for a more accurate reading of his heart rate. It was very difficult for me to get on the bed for the examination and to put the clip on!
They asked me if I wanted to know how dilated I was. I said yes. I was 8cm! This was encouraging for me as I felt like I had very quickly dilated to 8cm and I felt like I was close (especially with the urge to push!). I then got off the bed to stand again leaning over the bed. The midwife asked me to breathe through contractions so I knew I wasn’t ready to push yet. However baby’s heart rate was still low and they were getting concerned it had been low for quite a while. They asked to do another examination - I couldn’t think of anything worse at this point! I got on the bed, she checked and said its time to push! I think I was in shock it happened so quickly!
The midwife asked me to push even if it wasn’t a contraction, she asked me to hold my breath. I knew this wasn’t how I wanted to push my baby out but there was a sense of urgency to get him out if the were asking me to push like that. Gene asked for me if I could push in a different position like all 4’s and they said yes but I didn’t want to move so I pushed on my back. My obstetrician arrived and I continued to push. After 8 minutes of pushing he was here on my chest! We had beautiful skin to skin and first breast feed. It was such a positive experience!”