Bump

Each month, we’ll bring you one woman’s very special story of the day her baby was born.

This month, Elisabeth Sewell of Balgolwah NSW shares the story of her emergency Caesarean...

I developed pre-eclampsia during my pregnancy and so it was decided I would be induced at 37 weeks. On the day that I was due to be induced, my husband Alan and I went down to the beach and enjoyed our last hour or so before the fun began.
We got to the hospital at 2pm, one of the midwives put some gel in and we were told to wait. We watched the news and had some dinner together - it was great to have Alan there the whole time.
At 9pm, we had the next lot of checks and more gel inserted. They gave me two sleeping pills and Alan was allowed to go home. We were advised that in the morning my waters would be broken and then I would be placed on a drip to really speed up the labor process.

Sure enough at 11.30pm, I awoke to my waters breaking – it was an amazing sensation - no pain, just lots and lots of fluid. By this time, another midwife had started and due to her calming nature, I felt completely at ease. I asked her if I should call Alan and she said to hold off. But within five minutes, I’d had my first contraction and I thought I’d better call Alan as it seemed as though things were going to happen very quickly.

By the time Alan arrived, I was having contraction after contraction – NO BREAKS!! The gas was helping quite considerably and knowing that the anaesthetist had been called helped too as I knew the epidural was not far away.
After 1.5 hours of full-on labour, I was finally fitted with the epidural then I had no pain whatsoever – it was great! It completely relaxed me and we were both able to have a couple of hours’ sleep.

By 6am, I was 10cm (fully) dilated. The excitement was really starting to kick in. Mum phoned and I told her that I would be pushing my little surprise out very shortly.

But by 7:30am, we were informed that Baby was not coming through and they were going to have to conduct an emergency Caesarean.

As I was wheeled through the corridors at high pace, I felt like it was surreal. All I could think was ‘is my baby going to be OK and is this going to hurt?’

They gave me a spinal block and got to work – Alan was by my side the whole time. Then I felt someone push down on my tummy and not long after I heard a big cry. Our beautiful little girl Isobel Rose Sewell was born into the world at 9.30am. She was placed on my chest and I felt the most overwhelming love. Not only did I have the love of my life next to me but this amazing little girl that we had both created.

They quickly whisked her off and as per our birth plan, Alan went with her.

I could hear the doctors counting the swabs, making sure they hadn’t left anything inside me. There was all this pulling and tugging, then I heard my diaphragm was about to be put back inside me. I started to panic and threw up all over the anaesthetist’s assistant. When is this going to be finished????

After what felt like hours, I was finally wheeled into the recovery room where I stayed for another hour. All I could think about was seeing Alan and my little baby.

At last, I was wheeled back to my room but I was in so much pain that the day was a blur. Luckily I had my Super Hero Husband there and he did everything for our little girl. I would say that this was the main positive of having a Caesar - Alan got to spend the first hour with Isobel and have that special bonding time.

Things didn’t improve much the next day. When the doctor came in and told me how concerned he had been about me, it hit home how serious things had been. Apparently, I had a tear in my uterine wall and I also lost 1.5 litres of blood. For any future births I would have to have a Caesar – no wonder I had been feeling so rotten.

The amazing thing was that Isobel was still doing exceptionally well and seemed totally unaffected by what was happening to her mum and two days later, I was feeling much better. I recall sitting in the nursery at 4am with the other mums, feeling so excited that I was in there breastfeeding our little girl. If you had told me that I would be feeling that much better so soon, I would not have believed you.

Today, Isobel is 21 months old and I’m eight months pregnant with her little brother or sister. I still can’t get over the feeling of 100% love you feel for this little creature – all you can think about is protecting her no matter what!