I want to introduce you to Claire, her baby girl, and her beautiful empowering birth story.

The back story is; I met Claire at the VBAC course earlier this year. She was unhappy with her first birth experience and wanted the tools to make sure this next birth would be more empowering. Her first birth was an essential planned Caesarean at 39 weeks for medical reasons. However, Claire describes her baby as showing signs of being premature at 39 weeks. Baby was covered in lots of vernix at birth and had difficulty initiating breathing at birth, requiring a week in the special care nursery. Fast forward to this pregnancy. More research and a discussion with her mother-in-law, who gave birth to all her babies at 42 to 43 weeks. Claire knew she wanted to educate herself and prepare mentally, physically and spiritually to welcome her next baby on her terms, Safely and as Educated as possible. Claire did our VBAC Master-Class and hired a TENS. I got an SMS from Claire at 42 weeks apologizing for not returning the TENS yet, offering to bring it back if needed, however she hadn’t gone into labour yet. Our SMS’s flew back and forth, to cut a long story short, Claire logged in to the Birthing Master-Class, session 3, “Call the Dr.” as medical intervention was being suggested. Here is her birth story, as she wrote it to the group.

I started having some regular cramps in the early hours of Thursday morning, but they slowed down at about 9am. At 10am, I went for my routine CTG, and I had a stretch and sweep. By the afternoon the surges became more regular, about every 10-15 minutes. I stayed at home and rested. The surges continued to become strong and closer together.

At 11pm my waters went with a pop. I called the birth suite. The midwife I spoke to advised to come in for monitoring, due to being a VBAC. As soon as my waters broke everything intensified and the surges were every 2-3 minutes.

On arrival at the hospital, I decided to try some gas and air. I really liked it. It didn't make me nauseous. Then I used the shower with the portable gas and air. The CTG monitoring in the shower wasn't able to get a good reading, so as my waters has already broken, I agreed to have a scalp clip so I could stay in the shower. This is where things went a bit fast and I had a bit of a bleed. Because I was a “VBAC” they monitored this. Baby was always happy and I had no pain between contractions. They think the bleed might have been due to quick dilation.

At this point my lovely husband fainted. He is not normally a fainter. He was taken out of the bathroom to recover.

I agreed to a repeat VE and then was told my cervix was 10cm so if I got the urge to push I could. This is where things stalled and baby's heartbeat was dipping a bit more than they would like, so they wanted to do the blood test from baby’s head to check for distress. Unfortunately, I found lying on the bed too painful, so after 2 failed attempts I asked them to stop. I agreed to try the epidural to see if we could then do the test again. They were unable to get the epidural in as my contractions were too close together for me to sit still enough.

By this point I was starting to get distressed and requested a c-section.

I wanted a VBAC but it was not going the way I wanted and I made the decision to get our baby out safely. It felt right. I managed to sit still long enough for them to get the spinal in and our little girl arrives shortly after. Although it didn't go to plan, I'm still so proud of myself for trying and sticking to my guns about going postdates. My baby arrived when my baby was ready at 42 weeks and 2 days. We had skin to skin in recovery and baby is well. Advocating for myself was so important and I felt I went in knowing my options and the risks

Our Group Zoom class at lesson 4 sending a wave to Claire, after her announcing to the group she had her baby a day after we met her.

Sorry I missed a bit...,I was told that I was at 10 but then an hour later had another VE to be told I was 8 with a cervical lip. They examined me in theatre once the spinal was in but I was still at 8 so c-section was how we would deliver