Pregnancy #2 – 34+6 weeks

I was doing a bit of reading up about the back-to-back position yesterday evening. It seems there are two reasons why babies fall into this posterior position:

1. The type and shape of pelvis that you have may make it more comfortable for baby to settle in the back-to-back position as their head is resting in the widest part of the pelvis.

2. Doing lots of sitting/leaning back rather than being upright/leaning forward makes it more likely for baby to swing round and lay against your spine.

There’s not a lot that can be done about reason one (although I suspect this might be the reason for me given my mum’s similar problems), but reason two can be worked on. Even though I make a conscious effort to sleep on my side overnight, I am guilty of slouching back on our sofa during the day and in the evening. It’s the sort of sofa where your bum sinks down, causing your knees to go above the pelvis; something that it is advised to avoid. 

So from now on I’m going to be much more aware of my posture and positioning. Some tips I picked up were: spend at least 10 minutes twice a day on all fours, sit on a hard chair the wrong way round so that your knees are below pelvis level and lean forward as much as possible. This is what’s known as optimal fetal positioning and helps encourage baby into an anterior position. Non of that sounds particularly comfortable, but it’s worth a try. The consensus from the web was that back-to-back labours are longer, more painful and more likely to result in an assisted birth, which is exactly my experience from last time. One which I definitely wish to avoid if at all possible. 

Apparently about 1 in 10 women go into labour back-to-back, so it’s not uncommon at all, but I will do my best to try not to be part of that 10% this time around!

Pregnancy #2 – 33+6 weeks

This morning I’ve had my 34 week midwife appointment. Once again Tabitha behaved beautifully. The midwife took quite a while to locate the baby’s heart beat, and when she did find it she said it’s because the baby is in the back to back position. Aaaagh! I have de ja vu as this is exactly what happened with Tabitha and lead to a pretty horrific birth experience. I really need this baby to move round; the midwife said the only thing I can really do is spend a lot of time sitting leaning forward (sounds comfortable!). Other than that it was all straightforward and my next appointment is in just two weeks time where I go through my birth plan and ask any questions. 

I’ve been thinking about some of the emotions that I’ll inevitably feel when this baby finally arrives. I want to be prepared for the rollercoaster of feelings that I know will take hold in the first few days as my hormones adjust. For instance I’ve no doubt that aswell as being happy and excited, I will feel extremely guilty for putting Tabitha through such a change, I will feel a pang of regret – be tearful even – for our family of three when life was simpler, I will feel frustrated that I can’t give Tabitha the attention she will of course want, and perhaps a bit of frustration towards her if she becomes particularly whingey or needy. I know the first weeks are going to be tiring and hard work, as it will take time for us all to adapt, but I need to remember that things will get better before I know it and not to wish away any moments. When I had Tabitha, her newborn days were taken up with moving home and plenty of guilt surrounding breastfeeding. The first few weeks were gone in the blink of an eye – before I had a chance to appreciate them – and I don’t want that to happen again this time.

The birth

It’s been a whole week already since my life changed forever and our little girl Tabitha Peach came into the world. It’s all been a bit of a blur ever since to be honest but it started last Saturday afternoon when I had a pessary inserted to kick start labour. Nothing much happened that day really – we watched a couple of films on the hospital’s pay TV and popped over to Carluccio’s for a ‘last supper’. Later in the evening the hospital monitor registered some regular, fairly strong contractions, but I couldn’t feel anything. I remember thinking I must be one of the lucky ones who can tolerate them – how wrong was I! After a noisy, sleepless night on the pre-labour ward, my contractions started properly in the early hours. They got progressively stronger throughout the morning and by the time it got to around midday, I was demanding gas and air. At this point I tried my TENS machine, but didn’t get on with it at all. The midwife waited until a full 24 hours was up before removing the pessary (at around 1.30pm) and said that we’d wait to see if my waters broke naturally. However, after throwing up everything that was inside me as a result of the gas and air, I was taken through to the labour ward, had my waters broken and got a shot of pethidine. I then went from 3cm dilated to fully dilated very quickly and started pushing. The pethidine had worn off by then, so I was surviving on gas and air alone, which I found rather unbearably painful and exhausting. After over an hour of pushing, the midwife called the doctors in to assess the baby’s position and they realised the baby was back-to-back and in distress. They made the decision to take me through to theatre and give me a spinal so they could get the baby out quickly using forceps. I was so close to having an emergency C-section, but thankfully it wasn’t needed. Tabitha was dragged (literally) into the world at 19:46 on Sunday 14th April weighing a healthy 7 lb 14 oz. I had to have an episiotomy and get stitched up, but at that point I was just happy to be pain free, and for it all to be over. We spent the next couple of hours in the post-theatre ward where I breast fed Tabitha for the first time, and by 3pm the following day, we were discharged and on the way home to start family life as a three. She was so placid that first day and I truly thought we’d been blessed with a calm baby, however on hindsight I think the reality is that little Tabitha had a bit of a pethidine-induced lull and has now most definitely found her voice. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sleep deprivation, feeding, nappy changes, visits from family, visits from the midwife, and just generally getting to grips with having a tiny new person to care for. On Friday when the midwife came to visit, she checked the stitches from my episiotomy and realised that the wound was gaping and had become infected. So off to the hospital we all went, and after waiting around for hours, I was prescribed a course of antibiotics. It’s hard to move around quickly and is painful when I sit down and stand up, but with a newborn to care for, you just have to get on with it. And to think I was hoping to feel a bit more body-normal after finally giving birth! To say this week’s been easy would be a lie, but we’re slowly getting more used to it and have been rewarded with such a perfect package that it makes the bad moments more bearable. And when she is having a placid moment her cuteness just breaks my heart!