LifeUpsideDown by Marine

Luca: April 01, 2024

They say birth is never what you expect. The birth of Luca was definitely that. 

My name is Marine, I am French and immigrated to Sydney in 2015. Back then, the idea of having a baby was a very distant thought. I was coming out of a very traumatic abusive relationship that had left me with deep emotional and trust issues (not to mention a good amount of PTSD). 

As a yoga teacher, I learned over the years the importance of the body and mind connection, the importance of feeling safe in your body to feel safe emotionally. Yet, I still very much bought into the idea that a medicalised birth, laying on your back surrounded by strangers and doctors, assisted by a bunch of drugs and interventions was the safest option.

But as I started researching everything about pregnancy and birth, my view of what birth was “supposed” to be changed. 

I was introduced to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, and it very quickly became evident that a homebirth aligned with my philosophy – everything I endeavoured to read and listen to about the importance of birthing undisturbed, following the natural physiological ebbs and flows of the birth process, surrounded by people I knew and trusted spoke to me. It just made sense with what I deep down knew to be true and the safest. 

Ryan wasn’t convinced though. Working in the medical field, he too initially had this idea that birth was a hospital matter. But the evidence was there: homebirth was in fact the safest option, not only physically but also emotionally as both are intrinsically linked.  

So we embarked on the journey, finding a great private midwife, Ursula, and a doula, Alice, that we felt aligned with. 

During the 9 months of my pregnancy, I also embarked on a quest to educate everyone I knew around me about why homebirth was such a great choice, why in fact it was the most natural way of welcoming a baby into the world. I became very vocal about how the medicalisation of birth was such a problem, I dove into hard conversations with people who saw it as dangerous, and for a lot of people something out of the “woo woo” realm. I was on a mission to convert everyone!

I wasn’t against hospitals though, and I wanted to make that clear.  

Everytime I would talk to people, I would emphasise how hospitals were absolutely necessary in some circumstances, and that I might end up needing to transfer if things “went wrong”. But I didn’t really think it would happen to me ; after all, I had been so adamant to convince everyone around me that homebirth was such a great thing that having to transfer to hospital for my own birth would be ironic if not a complete negation of all the arguments I was hammering people with.  

Little did I know that it was the beginning of a crazy 5 day marathon, full of twists and turns. 

I had a few contractions throughout the day, but no more water leaking which made me think that the morning’s event wasn’t really anything. But by the end of the day my mucus plug started to come out. Now, that was clearly a sign! Ursula confirmed that things were progressing in the right direction. 

As soon as the sun set on that Thursday evening, I started having very regular and more intense contractions. About 10 minutes apart, they quickly shifted to 5 minutes apart during the night and the pain slowly increased which meant it wasn’t possible to sleep. 

Will we maybe have a baby in our arms soon?! 

My excitement was quickly crushed when all contractions stopped as the sun rose on Friday morning. Bummer… 

I spent the Friday doing things around the house, going for a walk with Ryan, wondering if more contractions would come. 

There was an encouraging cue: more mucus was coming out. 

At the end of the day though I noticed a discharge that was a bit unusual, the mucus had turned pretty green. I sent a picture to Ursula who immediately responded saying that it might be meconium, meaning that baby had probably done a poo in the water. It also meant that this tiny leakage on Thursday morning might indeed have been a bit of my water breaking. We weren’t completely sure though, and the meconium situation at that stage of pregnancy was very common, but she again told me to keep track of things. 

For a second time, as soon as the sun set on that Friday evening I started having more contractions, in a similar pattern to the previous night, and a little bit more intense. For the second night in a row I couldn’t sleep so by Saturday morning I was already pretty exhausted. But the contractions stopped again as Saturday morning arrived. 

A second, more frustrating “bummer”! 

As Saturday went on, more mucus came out. I sent another picture, and this time there was little doubt left, it was meconium. 

Ursula came for a home visit, to check on baby and start laying out the potential risks of having meconium in the water (including what is called meconium aspiration syndrome). There wasn’t anything to worry about at this stage, baby’s heartbeat was fine, I was fine, but we now had this extra risk to be mindful of. 

She left, telling me that as things seemed to progress it would be a good idea for me to have some sleep as I hadn’t slept for two days by that stage, and I needed all my strength for when baby was ready to arrive (likely very soon). 

I was on board. By that stage it had been two sleepless nights with quite a lot of painful contractions so my body and mind were in much need of a break. 

Unfortunately, things kicked up a gear again and I spent the whole Saturday night on the floor of my bedroom, seated, crunched over my pilates ball in a lot of pain with contractions that were getting closer – at one stage reaching 3min apart – and more intense. 

Sunday morning came, and this time contractions didn’t stop. Yay! 

I was sure that baby would come pretty soon, maybe by the next morning? 

We had created our little cocoon: nice music, dark room, comfy clothes. 

As the Sunday morning progressed I slowly started to struggle with the intensity of the contractions, but I felt so surrounded by my support team that I was able to go within and stay relatively calm and relaxed, almost in a blissful state. I was handed drinks, snacks, was given massages, and the ambiance amongst all four of us was very joyous. 

Around midday, contractions became a lot more painful, it started to be difficult to talk and I started needing to stay silent and stay within my own bubble in between surges. 

We pulled out the TENS machine. It felt like a godsend at that stage as I was having a lot of back pain in addition to the contractions. 

After a few hours, I already felt like I needed a break from contractions, the pain was starting to get to me and I was so exhausted from not having slept for three nights by now that I felt I needed to shift the way I was experiencing my labour. 

I decided to take a hot shower, which was amazing at relieving my back pain. I started to relax, the pain started to ease, and the contractions…stopped. 

I knew that it was completely normal for contractions to sometimes stop so I thought this would be a good time to take a break and sleep. I went back to the living room and took a nap. Ryan did the same, and we stayed there for an hour, in this very calm room, the music and white noise from the streets around soothing us. 

Because of the extra risk factor from the meconium situation, Ursula had told me that she now needed to come see me every day just to check that things were still OK. 

She arrived early in the afternoon, and did a quick check. I accepted a vaginal exam which confirmed that more meconium was leaking out, and also informed us that I was (only) 0.5cm dilated. 

“We need to start talking about our options”, she said. 

That comment threw me off a bit: “what do you mean “discuss options?!” 

Up until that point I didn’t think there were any “options’ that needed to be discussed. I knew that meconium carried out extra risks, and that my labour pattern was a bit unusual but I thought everything was going in the range of what was “normal”. 

She explained that it had now been three days that contractions were coming and going, kicking up a gear till they were 2 minutes apart and then stopping completely which was a bit unusual. There was also the meconium situation which meant we were now dealing with compound risk – even though the risk of meconium aspiration syndrome is low, the worst case scenario (which is really rare) requires immediate intervention on the baby. 

Ursula was happy for me to have the baby at home, and reassured us that she would support us no matter our decision, but she recommended we go to the hospital just to check that baby was fine. 

I was very reluctant to go. I knew that going to hospital was a possibility, but in my mind I thought it would only be required if something major happened – a haemorrhage, a surprise breach, or something along those lines. 

She explained that while every factor in itself wasn’t an issue, one risk on top of the other was making things more difficult from a risk management perspective. She shared all the research with us, layed out all the options so we could make an informed decision, without influencing us at all, which I really valued and appreciated. 

After a long conversation with Ryan, who on his side was a bit worried, we made the joint decision to go to hospital for a check-up with the idea of probably coming back home after. 

It was important for me that we would both make all decisions together ; he listened to my pros and cons, I listened to his, and going in for a check was the right thing to do at this time.

I took my hospital bag – the one I thought I would never use – and off we went. 

I’m not gonna lie, I was very disappointed and sad at that point. It felt like a mini failure, it broke the home bubble we had spent so much time creating and perfecting. As I left, I glanced at that birth pool one last time and my heart broke a bit at the thought that I might never step foot in it… 

We arrived at the hospital, the check-in process was very smooth as Ursula had organised everything for us beforehand, and we were put in a room where I would be monitored with a CTG device. 

I had made it very clear in my birth plan that I wanted to stay active during labour and didn’t want to be stuck laying in a bed. I was hooked up to a mobile CTG machine which meant I could still walk around the room, go to the bathroom and so on. 

By now my contractions had completely stopped again, which wasn’t surprising considering all the changes in my environment – the news that we needed to go to hospital for a check, having to get my hospital bag, hopping into the car, setting up in a new room, etc.

The monitoring was bearing great news though: baby was fine! 

Sigh of relief. 

“Can we go back home?” 

The hospital staff said they first needed me to have a consult with a doctor, and invited me to go into one of the birthing suites so I could be more comfortable as it could take a while for the doctor to come in. 

As the hospital midwife left, Ursula warned us about what was going to happen: the doctor will most likely recommend an induction right away, and going to a birthing suite meant it will get much harder to go back home as we will be pressured to stay at the hospital. 

The doctor came in, layed out all of the risks with having meconium in the waters, having lost my water four days prior, and having a very irregular pattern of contractions. They did recommend having an induction right away, or a C-section was another option we could consider. . 

While I knew this would happen, and despite me having a pretty strong personality when it comes to standing up for myself, I did find the whole situation quite intimidating – the way things were presented by the doctor did make me really scared, and immediately saying ‘yes’ to the interventions that were recommended by the doctor were very tempting for my fear-driven brain. 

But I reminded myself that neither myself or baby were in distress at that point, so nothing was urgent despite how the doctors made it sound. We asked the hospital staff to have more time to discuss what we wanted to do, and had to do that a few more times in the following hours until we were ready to make a decision.

Having our private midwife there, who we trusted deeply, made such a huge difference. 

Doctors only tell you about the risks and share their (strong) recommendations. What Ursula was able to bring to the table was more information: what does the research actually say, what are the stats, what happens if we do nothing, what are the other (multiple) options that doctors aren’t actually offering? 

We considered everything very closely and had long conversations with Ryan, weighing the pros and cons, navigating the risks of every scenario, all very calmly and in our own time (which again meant we had to strongly tell the medical staff to give us more time and come back later). 

We knew that Ursula would support us no matter what we decided. 

While I was dreaming of going back home, it did make sense for us to stay in hospital considering all the different, cumulative risk factors. I was very clear though: for now baby is fine, I am fine, so an induction or epidural are absolutely out of the question. 

I wanted to proceed with a natural, physiological birth. 

We were brought into a birthing suite, and to my surprise it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. The room was big, including a big bathtub, the lights were dimmed and we could make the place like a second home with fairy lights, music, as well as rearranging the room setting to our liking. 

I wasn’t happy to be there, but it did feel like another cocoon. Our doula joined us and we were together again, which felt incredible. My homebirth dream faded but a new one of having baby, still naturally, surrounded by my supported team emerged. 

The team of hospital midwives took time to read through our birth plan in detail, and made sure they followed everything as much as possible. The hospital policy was to keep me hooked to a CTG machine, but it was a mobile one again which meant I could move and even go into the bathtub if I wanted to. The staff knew my wishes based on my birth plan, so they told me they were OK for me to go off that machine from time to time as long as we could check baby’s heart every hour or so. 

My contractions picked up again, they grew stronger, and I re-settled into my own internal bubble, supported by Ryan, Ursula and Alice. 

From there time became a concept. 

I was fully absorbed into my own experience, and the contractions became more regular and stronger. They did stop from time to time, but always picked back up. 

By the middle of the night (I think) they became more intense, about two to one and a half minutes apart, but so did the pain in my back which didn’t give me any break. I also started having other types of contractions which triggered a very sharp, stabbing pain that would go from 0 to 100 in one instant and that I really struggled to “stay with”.  

Hospital midwives suspected baby was ‘spine on spine’ (posterior), a position that can make labour more difficult, more painful, and contractions less “effective”. 

Baby’s heart was still monitored, and he appeared to be distressed ; midwives suspected I was overheating a bit. I agreed it was probably the case as I was indeed feeling extremely hot and a bit dizzy, so I jumped out of the birth pool. 

Hours passed and contractions were not returning, except for the intense back pain that wasn’t leaving me and which by now wasn’t being relieved by the TENS machine. I was so exhausted, I hadn’t slept and had been in pain on and off since Thursday. 

Things weren’t progressing at all and I was getting a bit discouraged, and blaming myself for not being able to “bring on contractions”. I still thought I was the one controlling the situation and that if contractions weren’t coming it was my fault, that I was probably not “doing” the right thing. 

We decided I would try to express colostrum to help my body produce natural oxytocin. I didn’t feel like it, there was already so much going on, but I was determined to get those contractions back. 

Around 4am on Monday morning I reached a point where I just couldn’t deal anymore. Contractions were sometimes coming, very strong with that sharp nervy pain and the constant back pain, but never staying for long. 

I agreed to a vaginal exam, to check if anything was going on that was preventing labour from progressing. I had only had one vaginal exam at home at that point and felt OK to have a second one. It would also give us an idea of how much I was dilated – it had been since Thursday night so I thought things would for sure have progressed a bit and some good news would give me a bit of encouragement to keep on going. 

The midwife on shift came and the verdict was in: I was 2 cm dilated. 

My world crumbled. 

I went into the bathroom with Ryan, sat on the toilet and cried uncontrollably. How could I only be only 2cm after all that time and all that pain? I just couldn’t believe it. I reached a breaking point. 

We came out of the bathroom after a while and my tears had subsided. I sat on the bed and the hospital midwife came in. She sat down and looked at me, I cried some more. I felt so disappointed and that I had let everyone down. Not just me but also Ryan, Ursula, Alice. They had been with me for two days straight, encouraging me, supporting me in having that natural physiological birth I wanted, and I was here unable to sustain contractions long enough and barely dilating. It was as if my body was failing me and I was angry at myself for not being able to go into proper active labour. 

At that point, the hospital midwife shared magic words that I needed to hear so bad. She explained how I did everything I could, that my body wasn’t failing me, that I had done such an amazing job all the way through and was completely exhausted. She said it would be a good idea for me to try and rest, and that they could give me some Endone to help me get a bit of sleep.

She was right, I needed a break, I couldn’t continue, I was truly at my breaking point. 

As soon as I said ‘yes’ to resting, I felt an almost immediate sense of relief. I took the Endone, and while I couldn’t go to sleep because I still had some contractions coming and going as well as that back pain, I was still able to relax and get some rest. 

It was 4am, and we had agreed with the hospital staff to re-discuss options two hours later. 

6am came. I was still exhausted but it was so nice to be able to take a rest. 

We had basically two options: keep going the way we were with increasing risk for me and for baby, particularly as I was getting increasingly exhausted and with excruciating back pain with barely no dilation, or I could decide to be induced, and if I wanted to have an epidural. 

At that stage, the induction felt like something I was ready to do. I needed things to shift. But I also knew that an induction meant contractions would get immediately very strong and would stay like that for 8 to 10 hours before I was ready to give birth. I didn’t feel like my body could do that. The thought of more pain and exhaustion wasn’t something I could bear, it created so much anxiety for me that I thought having an epidural was the best option so I could have an experience that would let me stay relaxed and focused. 

Those decisions were against what I had imagined for my birth. Yet, it was the right choice for me then. I wouldn’t have been ready to say yes to those earlier, it wasn’t the time, I still wanted to push through, but the time had come and by then it was an easy ‘yes’. 

The decision was made, and I instantly went back to a state of calm and relaxation.

Every now and then I would wake up for a second, open my eyes and see Ryan, Ursula, Alice and the hospital midwife sitting by my bed, just being there, waiting quietly for things to happen and respond to any of the needs I might have. The room was bathed in a nice natural light, sun shining in the background, the music was softly playing like a lullabye guiding me back to sleep. 

I had been told that it would likely take 8 to 10 hours for me to be fully dilated. After 5 hours, I agreed to another vaginal check and to the midwife’s surprise, I was fully dilated. 

What?! 

I had been in such a blissful state for the past few hours, sleeping and resting, that I had almost forgotten that baby will be here soon. 5 hours was definitely not in my realm of expectations! 

The hospital midfwife told me I still had a couple of hours ahead of me as they would let baby passively descend for the next two hours before it was “push time”. 

Phew! It meant I had a bit more time to sleep which was definitely much needed as 5 hours of sleep wasn’t enough to recuperate from over four days of no sleep. 

I went back to the dreamland I had left shortly before, only to be woken up again 30 minutes later. 

“Baby is in distress, you’ll have to start pushing now and we might need to call the obstetrician”, the hospital staff told me. 

The only thing I could think of at that moment was that I was tired and the first words out of my mouth were: “but, you told me I could rest for two hours!”. 

I wasn’t ready, but I actually was. 

In my mind things happened so quickly from then. 

Ursula stepped in, she helped me go on all fours and helped me tune in with the contractions as they were coming so I could try and gently push. Nothing was happening though. 

Time to go on my back, slightly reclined against the bed, knees by my rib cage. 

Both Ursula and the hospital midwife became my champions. They guided me and tried to get things moving so we wouldn’t have to call the doctor, they did all they could. But baby was getting more distressed, and the obgyn was called in. 

He told me that because of baby’s posterior position, I would have to go through some rounds of coach pushing and if I couldn’t get him out quickly forceps would have to be used. 

“No way in hell!” I thought to myself. 

The team re-organised itself, with Ursula on one side helping me to do big pushes as I was exhaling and giving me sips of water in between, and the hospital midwife on my other side. 

By that stage Ryan had come next to the doctor, and I had propped my heels against both his and the doctor’s legs. 

Because of the epidural I couldn’t feel myself pushing, I felt like I wasn’t doing anything. But Ryan and Ursula keep reassuring me that I was doing an amazing job, that I was doing it and I just needed to continue. 

A few more times the doctor “threatened” me with forceps (in a nice way), but each time told me that he would still give me a few pushes before he would use my most feared instruments. 

I lost track of time completely, I can’t remember if I did fifteen pushes or a hundred. Everything stood still for a moment as I kept on going and going. In my mind this period of time was very loud, I felt like the room was noisy, like people were speaking super loudly, all my senses were overwhelmed. But when I looked back at the video of the scene it was actually very quiet and calm. I was just in the zone, with all my senses on high alert. 

Finally, I heard Ryan exclaim: “the head is here, I can see the head, he’s coming, you are doing it!” 

Time stopped again, and for a second I dissociated a bit. I was floating over my body, as if I knew I was about to give birth to our baby boy and it would all be too overwhelming to take in and experience, so I had to leave myself for a second. 

A split second after, a sense of massive relief left my body: baby was out, the doctor stepped to the side to let Ryan catch him and bring him onto my chest. 

LUCA WAS HERE.

First words out of my mouth were: “You’re so warm!”. 

Then I got really hungry, I needed sugar! 

We had some jelly lollies around. 

Second words out of my mouth: “can someone give me some snakes, not the orange ones though they are disgusting!”. 

I hope one day these first wise words after birth make it to a movie scene. 

The placenta came out, I didn’t really feel it, partly because of the epidural I guess and partly because I was just too overwhelmed by what had just happened. 

Then a bit of agitation around, I had lost a fair bit of blood and had a haemorrhage that needed to be stopped. It wasn’t too bad, only a litre, but I had to be given some medication to stop it. 

I didn’t really care what was happening at that stage. I was just laying on this bed, baby in my arms, Ryan by my side. 

A few moments later Alice came in. We had called her saying that baby was “arriving soon”, before I was rushed to push earlier than expected. She missed the birth by 30 minutes! I was both disappointed she missed it but at the same time didn’t care cause what mattered was that she was here now, meeting Luca. 

A bit later Zoë came in. We FaceTimed our parents, and shortly after were brought into a room to rest and so both Luca and I could be monitored for 48 hours. 

The beautiful lesson in this birth is that even though nothing went according to plan, even though we had to make choices we thought we would never have to make, even though I said ‘yes’ to interventions I was on paper almost against, I am leaving this experience with a sense of gratitude and ease. 

I have no regrets. 

Yes, we did have to slightly fight against the medical system and stand our ground, asking for more time when we needed to, saying no to interventions when they didn’t feel like they were necessary at the time they were offered. But we were always given a choice, the hospital staff respected our choices while Ursula informed them and supported us.  

Because we felt supported, because we trusted our guts, because we were able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to things when we felt it was appropriate for us and not for anyone else, we ended up having a great birth experience. 

Having both Ursula and Alice by our side was instrumental in having such a good experience. I can only recommend for anyone going into pregnancy and birth to surround themselves with a support system they trust and know have their best interest at heart. 

I also want to acknowledge the amazing staff at RPA. 99% of the midwives and doctors we interacted with were extremely respectful of our choices and made sure we had the best experience possible considering the circumstances we were in, and that made a whole of a difference. 

We didn’t have our perfect homebirth, but we had a perfect birth. 

For more pics and videos, follow me on Instagram: @Marine_LifeUpsideDown