Hi Georgie,
Just wanted to drop by and let you know we welcomed our surprise little boy on Sat 29th May at 8:09am. After having my daughter at 34+6 I managed to cook Arlo till 40+5! I am so incredibly proud of my body and so happy I listened to what it was telling me.
Arlo Keith Ross weighed 3.51kgs, 52cm long with a 35.5cm head circumference. I achieved my VBAC and am over the moon about it! The elation I felt holding my baby in my arms was indescribable and something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life!
Arlo refused to move from ROA position from about 36wks even though I did EVERYTHING I was meant to do to prevent a posterior positioned baby. I had to surrender and just accept that my baby was in the position it wanted to be and stop focusing on it. Even though I never stopped trying to encourage him around! I do suspect that my uterus is bigger on the right side, thus he didn’t actually fit on the left side once he’d grown big enough.
My early labour started 9:30pm Thursday night, surges were 5-10mins apart and irregular and I knew this was because of his positioning and that he wasn’t yet engaged. I slept between surges knowing I needed to rest at this early stage. Surges stopped once the sun came up and toddler duties started for the day (as I knew they would!) and then started again that afternoon once my husband finished work and my mum came up to look after my daughter. I did some spinning babies to try to encourage bub to engage. Bub finally engaged posterior around 9:30pm and suddenly my surges went from 10mins apart to 2.5mins apart! Things were finally kicking off. We went to hospital soon after and I was in active labour by this point.
Breathing and moving was really helping me up to this point. I honestly didn’t think my labour was going to be as long as it was but this path was what the universe had planned for us. I had agreed to wireless CTG (VBAC requirement 🤦🏼♀️) and somewhat regret not standing my ground on this one as I know the research shows it doesn’t improve fetal outcomes. The CTG wasn’t working properly so I cried and cried and agreed to the scalp clip. This absolutely shattered me as I wanted so much for my waters to break naturally and also didn’t want a screw in my babies head but the trauma of my last birth just came back and I needed to know my baby was ok, plus I knew agreeing would keep the OBs out of the room. And just to prove my point bub was perfectly fine. The decels were the CTG just picking up my pulse. On the plus side, from here I was completely left alone and also had the reassurance that bub was strong and coping so well through the long posterior labour.
From here though the intensity ramped up and I felt my whole labour in my bum! The pressure was incredibly intense and I struggled with my breathing as breathing in just increased the pressure. It definitely got to the point where I begged and begged for an epidural (I just wanted a rest as I was so worried I wouldn’t have the energy to push my baby out) but my amazing mgp midwife and husband refused to listen to me. And as I suspected, it was at this stage I was in transition. They convinced me to try the gas and this was a great tool to help me focus on my breathing.
10hrs of posterior labour and he turned right near the end, 1hr of pushing and I finally held my beautiful boy in my arms. It wasn’t the beautiful hypnobirth I’d imagined, but it was still beautiful, raw, powerful and empowering and I couldn’t have done it without my hypnobirthing techniques. I also credit my successful labour to the spinning babies tools! It was definitely the forward leaning inversion that helped push me into transition and help him rotate. Spinning babies and hypnobirthing should be mandatory birthing tools!
Unfortunately leading up to the birth I got sick with a horrible cold twice, was still sick in labour (and couldn’t breath through my nose), my daughter got croup and husband had man flu so I wasn’t 100% in the right headspace and adrenaline did creep in a little BUT this didn’t stop us. At the end of the day I am so elated!
If there ever is a next time I’d definitely consider a home birth and would 100% spend the money on a doula!
Sorry if this was a long read. But wanted to thankyou again for sharing your knowledge with us and giving us some amazing tools which no doubt played a huge role in helping me achieve my VBAC!
Courtney