My daughter was born after fifty eight hours of early to active labour. She was in the posterior position, which is not considered to be optimal by some care providers and obstetric text books. It is not ideal because posterior babies take their time, time that some care providers would rather not waste when they could speed things up or end them all within the hour by opting for surgery that is not necessary.
Many posterior babies are not even given twenty-four hours to turn themselves and/or be born. Care providers are quick to deem labour too stressful for the babies and look for signs of foetal distress to scare parents into agreeing to interventions.
I'm tempted to say that my baby was lucky, but the truth is it did not come down to luck. It came down to her parents' preparedness. We chose to homebirth because we did not want to rage against hospital schedules and hands-on staff. Instead of a cascade of interventions, anxiety, fear and drama, we held each other. We rocked through contractions, her father whispered words of encouragement and I moaned on outward breaths. My two doulas and my partner took turns at being by my side as I allowed my baby to take as long as she needed.
During hour 58 (and that does not include the pre-labour I had experienced in the two days before I started counting) I felt her head suddenly turn around and within forty-five minutes my daughter was in my arms, perfectly healthy.
Hours later as we snuggled on the couch her father said to me "I'm SO glad we didn't try to do that anywhere else! NO WAY would you have been allowed to do that in a hospital". Sadly, ours is a rare posterior tale, one that will become even more rare this time next year when the Australian government outlaw homebirth. At this rate it's only a matter of time before all posterior positioned babies are booked in for unneceasareans before their due dates.
Many posterior babies are not even given twenty-four hours to turn themselves and/or be born. Care providers are quick to deem labour too stressful for the babies and look for signs of foetal distress to scare parents into agreeing to interventions.
I'm tempted to say that my baby was lucky, but the truth is it did not come down to luck. It came down to her parents' preparedness. We chose to homebirth because we did not want to rage against hospital schedules and hands-on staff. Instead of a cascade of interventions, anxiety, fear and drama, we held each other. We rocked through contractions, her father whispered words of encouragement and I moaned on outward breaths. My two doulas and my partner took turns at being by my side as I allowed my baby to take as long as she needed.
During hour 58 (and that does not include the pre-labour I had experienced in the two days before I started counting) I felt her head suddenly turn around and within forty-five minutes my daughter was in my arms, perfectly healthy.
Hours later as we snuggled on the couch her father said to me "I'm SO glad we didn't try to do that anywhere else! NO WAY would you have been allowed to do that in a hospital". Sadly, ours is a rare posterior tale, one that will become even more rare this time next year when the Australian government outlaw homebirth. At this rate it's only a matter of time before all posterior positioned babies are booked in for unneceasareans before their due dates.
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