Birth stories - midwife's natural hospital birth

Birth stories - midwife's natural hospital birth ^Featured

Meagan le Coq, a midwife, had extensive knowledge on labour, birth and risks involved.

She thought she was prepared for everything – until she fell into a trance.

Soothing hubby’s nerves

Meagan says that she would’ve liked a homebirth, but her husband was uncomfortable with it. “He felt a hospital was safer in case something went wrong and we needed emergency intervention,” she explains their decision.

Going into labour

Around 22:45 on March 23rd, Meagan thought she was having Braxton hicks. After about 20 minutes without it stopping, she decided to time them and determine a pattern. “They were four to five minutes apart, but not painful at all,” she says. She decided to go sit on the birth ball and chat to anyone awake on Facebook. She had three to four loose stools and had lost the mucus plug. She considered that this might be the beginning of her labour. “Around 01:00 I began making up a bedroom for my mother, who would be arriving the next day. By now my lower-back was beginning to ache a bit with each contraction which were now three minutes apart and still tolerable.” When her husband woke up, he was very distressed to hear that she was in labour as their hospital was an hour away. After she took a shower and finished her hospital bag, they left at about 02:30. “The contractions became stronger while in the car with a deep pressure pain in my lower back and nothing in my uterus or lower abdomen. By the time we got to the hospital, about 03:45, I was using breathing techniques to get through the contractions and rubbing my lower back.”

Losing control

Meagan states that she was able to handle the pain until she dilated seven centimetres. “I was chatting and breathing well, pacing up and down the room to relieve the pain. I felt in control.” Then the pain got out of hand. “From seven to ten centimetres I went into a trance-like state and felt completely out of control. I felt like the contractions were taking over my body and I couldn’t respond the way I had hoped to,” she remembers. Meagan recalls screaming and crying and thinking that she was going to die of pain. “I felt like a truck was driving over my lower back slowly with each contraction. Between them I kept telling myself to breathe and stop screaming, but that didn’t work once the next one started.”

Pushing through the Pain

Meagan says that she was surprised at how she never once thought of pain relief. In the end, she was proud birth her baby without any pain medication. “I was able to give my baby a clean and fresh start to life without any negative effects of drugs in our systems,” she says. All the time, her husband rubbed her lower back as often as she asked him.

Exhausted

“I was so exhausted after the birth that I didn’t really have the energy to enjoy my baby afterwards. I gave him to my husband and went to sleep!” says Meagan. She says that she’ll be more open-minded to an epidural depending how far dilated she is, when she arrives at the hospital and depending of the time of her next labour. “I had a drug-free first birth, but next time my focus will be more on bonding with my baby straight after he or she is born.” She adds that she’ll also get a doula.

Something every woman has to go through

“Birth is difficult,” confirms Meagan. “It is also something intimate when one thinks about it yet at the time you couldn’t care if the world is watching. It’s something I was every woman had the chance to experience as it’s fulfilling, empowering and sentimental. Although it was painful, I’d gladly give birth a 100 times over. It’s just magical!” - Zanri Kotzé

Books read: None, but in the future she’ll read more on breastfeeding.

Baby’s Weight: 3.28 kg

Labour lasted: Eight hours

Birth stories - midwife's natural hospital birth Featured

Sign in to your account

Birth stories - midwife's natural hospital birth ^Featured