Welcome to Birth story Friday on the MamasteFit podcast. In this birth story, Annie will be sharing her story of how she found out her baby was breech, had a successful ECV, developed some complications towards the end of her pregnancy that required her to give birth at a hospital and then had a positive cesarean birth.
Annie is going to be sharing her birth story where she found out that her baby was breech towards the end of her pregnancy. Fortunately, in her area, there was a hospital that supported breech vaginal birth. They also would provide an ECV, and then she could have a scheduled C-section. So, she had a lot of options when it came to breech birth!
Her hospital did a pelvic exam on her with an MRI to assess the adequacy of her pelvis or if she had an adequate pelvis. Now, there is a lot of controversy about doing this type of assessment on somebody’s pelvis. And so, it’s important to note that our pelvis does have great movement capability, and assessing our pelvis diameters in a static position is not always fair because depending on your hip, movement can change the diameters of your pelvic level.
Different types of movements can open the top of your pelvis versus the middle versus the bottom. And so, doing a static assessment of your pelvis is not always a fair way to assess the adequacy of your pelvis. Now, if you’ve had any complications or injuries to your pelvis, like childhood illness or like a car accident or some sort of like complication to your actual pelvic structure, then there could be some issues with the pelvis being “big enough” for a vaginal birth.
And with any situation, she actually did have some complications with her pelvis that maybe affected the size of her pelvis in regards for a vaginal birth. But the thing that’s really wonderful about Annie’s first story is that she truly trusted her chosen medical teams. And so, she had a lot of trust with her midwifery team that she started her care with. She had a lot of trust with the hospital team that she had, and it really led to a positive experience, even with all of the changes during her birth. And so, she felt very informed throughout her entire experience and her care from her medical team really provided the space for her to have a positive experience, even with some pretty big changes.
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Gina: Thank you, Annie, for being here with us. And she’s going to be sharing her birth story where she found out that her baby was breech, had a successful ECV, and then had a cesarean birth. So, thank you so much for being here, Annie.
Annie: Thanks for having me.
Gina: And what’s really cool about Annie is she’s actually not from the United States, she’s from Switzerland. So, it’ll be really interesting to hear how birth and maternal care is in your country versus ours as well. So, Annie, can you tell us your story, how was your pregnancy?
Can you tell us what did you do when you found out that your baby was breech?
Annie: I’d love to. Well, it was spontaneous. We conceived spontaneously, which was great, and it was actually a really good pregnancy. Up to the third trimester, I had like no problems, no nausea, no nothing. It was great. I felt great the entire time. And then third trimester was a little bit more tiring. It got heavier as it goes, right?
I guess that’s normal. But it was mostly kind of okay. I have some other diagnosis, so I had to take medication until week 12. Yes, week 12. But I was reassured like it’s a metabolic syndrome, but I was reassured that was not going to have like an impact on the birth or anything. And it didn’t. It was great.
So, my original plan was to go to midwives birth unit. So it’s a facility where basically only midwives work. So, you can go there if you have like pregnancy without complications. It was looking good, but they don’t do breech births. So, I knew the baby had to be head down and at my exam at 30 weeks he was heads up.
He was breech and everybody was like, “Oh no, he’s going to be fine. He’s going to turn. Don’t worry about it. You’re only 30 weeks.” And I was like, “Oh, no, he’s not. He’s not going to turn.” And I talked to him a lot. I was like, “Look, this is how it goes.” I visualized him turning.
I did all the inversions and everything, and I just kind of knew he was not going to turn and he didn’t. The midwife unit, they were like, it’s not possible to have breech birth with them. So, we either have to turn him or go to a different facility. So, in Switzerland I think there are six hospitals that are specialized in breech births, which sounds like not a lot, but it’s actually not too bad considering that we’re not that large a country.
Birth Options: ECV, Vaginal Breech Birth, and C-section
So lucky me, one of those specialized was in like the very town that I lived in. We’d already gone there for the screening at 20 weeks because they just had like better equipment and everything. So, they already knew us. We went there, presented our problem, and they were like, “all right, so no problem. First of all, breech birth, no problem.”
We can do that. But for them to do it, they wanted to have an MRI. They wanted to do a pelvimetry to see if my pelvis was wide enough because while they explained it to me in a way that like when the cord is kind of like stuck here under the chin, the flow is restricted. It has to go like really fast.
So, if the head kind of passed through the pelvis, no good. So, I was like, oh yeah, that sounds reasonable. So, I believe that I did some research though, and in other facilities in Switzerland they didn’t require to pelvimetry, but because they already knew me and also because I had like problem if dysplasia, it’s a problem with my hip.
So, I had to have hip surgery five years ago. So, I already knew that my hip might be a problem. So, I was like, it sounds reasonable. Let’s do the let’s do the MRI. And they also offered to turn the baby. So, I was like, Yeah, sure, please turn the baby because I want to go to the midwife unit. If it doesn’t work, we can still stay here. We can still do the maternal breech birth there. So that was the plan. And they did the MRI and the MRI was like, eh, well, maybe your pelvis is a little bit too narrow, so it wouldn’t be a problem if baby was like head down because if the head goes first, it would help widen the pelvis because birth is amazing.
But if the head goes last, you really have that risk of the hip getting stuck. So they were like, all right, so we’re not going to do a vaginal breech birth, but we can still turn the baby. And they did that. They turned the baby, and it was not a particularly great experience. It hurt a lot. So there were five people there.
One of them was like just recording the baby. If the heart rate was okay, see if everything was fine. I didn’t go into labor or anything. And then the other four people were just like trying to turn that baby in my in my belly. And it was already I was week 37, so he had already descended quite a bit into my pelvis.
So you had to like first kind of like dug him out of my pelvis and then turned him, which there were like climbing on the bed around me. Thank God it was like a really big bed. So they were like all around me and they were like the midwife even turned like right in her face because she was like.
But they turned him. So he was head down after that, which was absolutely great. And after they turned him, I had to stay in for like another one and a half hour. They just wanted to see that he was okay. Nothing happened to the placenta that I wouldn’t go into labor or anything, and then I could go home.
Transferring Care to the Hospital
So I went home and then I went to the midwives, and I was like, okay, so now baby is head down. Can I come to you for like my birth? And they were looking at me and they were like, all right, so we see in your notes that you have like problems with itchy feet. And I did have some itchy feet.
And the problem is that this could be a problem with the liver. So I did check that out. I did not have a problem with my liver. It was just hormonal. It was just like, well, tough luck. I did not have a problem with my liver, but they didn’t want to take the risk because there were no doctors there.
And if something happened, they would have had to send for an ambulance. So they did not want to take the risk. So to hospital where they turned baby, they already know us. They actually have a great reputation also for non breech births. So let’s go there, which we did. We went there. So the actual birth was it was a really, really, really great experience.
So before I gave birth, I really, really, really want it to have like a natural birth. It was super important to me and I did a lot of research, but I knew going in that there might be a problem because of the pelvis, because it was kind of narrow. I already knew that.
But I also went in saying, Hey, look, I really, really, really want you to walk me through it. I don’t want you to tell me after I don’t know, 2 hours. Hey, look, it’s not going to work. Let’s do a C-section. I do not want that. I told them that. And they were they were great.
Annie's Birth Story
I actually started labor when my water broke, like in the movies. It was loud; I even thought I heard a sound. I could not have heard a sound, but it felt like I heard a sound and it was just like push. And I was able to run to the toilet so good. And that was it. So we went in for a checkup. They were just like, all right, so just come in. They’re going to check everything, see if baby’s okay, see if anything is there.
Because of course, you still have a risk of infections once your water ruptures before you really start. Right. But everything was great. So they sent us back home to just like labor at home for as long as we felt comfortable, which was not very long. So we came home at ten in the evening and we went back into the hospital at three in the morning and well then we stayed there for quite some time.
So it was my first baby. I did have quite a long phase with just like a latent phase not really going anywhere, which yeah. The thing is I was already, even though I was still in that latent phase, I was already having contractions every 4 minutes and they were like last for 2 minutes, which was kind of tiring after a while.
My water broke at 7:00 in the evening on Thursday. So on Friday around 4 p.m., I was like, alright, I’d like to know am I getting anywhere? So I requested like a vaginal exam. Up to that point I did not get any vaginal exams because they only do that on request. So, I requested a vaginal exam, and they told me that I, I was two centimeters dilated and I was like, oh my God, I’ve been at it for quite some time. This is getting long.
But we decided to I was still fine. So, we decided to continue for a little bit longer. So around seven in the evening, I was like, all right, so it’s been 24 hours. Can you please check if anything happened? No, nothing. So, at that point, I was like, I did want an unmedicated birth, but I’m nowhere. And I still got like the entire rest of the birth, even if it’s just if even if I’m like, lucky. And I have like a quick pushing phase or whatever, I still have everything in front of me and I’m tired after 24 hours, I still have like 4 minutes apart, 2 minutes contractions. So, I requested some medication, and they offered nothing strong, just something to give me, like a little bit of a break.
They gave me that and that worked for like 10 minutes. And then it got like then it just got exponentially worse. And I had, like, nearly unbearable contractions. I started shaking to the point where they had to give me, like, something to calm down. So we decided that this probably was not going to lead anywhere. Also, she did like a vaginal exam again at that point because she was like, this is not very normal that it gets bad so, so quickly with medication.
And she was like, okay, so baby is head down. But he’s a little bit off to the side. So labor is actually not particularly productive because he’s not pushing on the proper spot. Right. We need to kind of like put him in the right position so that he can like actually make proper, proper contractions. And I was like, I cannot do that.
I can’t do that. I mean, I was shaking. It was horrible. So, they gave me an epidural. And that was great because it gave me a break and we could start like moving the baby in a proper position so that he would like push on the right spot.
So, we did that and he moved a little bit. We got him like out of that position into the new position. It looked great for a while, so they were like they were doing vaginal exams regularly by then because on site I requested.
And then also I was on it for more than 24 hours already and they were like, okay, look. So the thing is because I started with my water breaking, they were a little bit concerned that there would be an infection. And usually after 24 hours they were like, okay, so now we would start inducing you if you weren’t already in labor, but we were already doing a lot.
So we give you another like 12, 24 hours. Let’s see how it goes. But they were starting to be concerned, but it looked good. So it looked like baby was coming down. But he never managed to get past like the narrowest point in my pelvis. At some point, the doctor was just like, Look, it’s not going to work. It’s not going to work. And we did everything we could. We worked through all the steps we worked through, shaking my hips and everything to get baby in proper position. We gave you time. We gave you time to really push and it’s not going to work.
So, we did cesarean section, which was super fast, like from the moment that they were like, yeah, we need to do this, and I was like, okay, let’s do it to baby being born was like 45 minutes, I think. So, I found that quite impressive, and super fast and it was super great. It was good for me because in surgery they would just like I would give birth him and then they would take him. They would wash him real quick, like one minute.
And then he was with me, and he stayed with me for the next 2 hours. So that was actually what I was hoping for, like get the benefits of the golden hour. And it felt like a lot like I still got that because they were super quick and then they left him with me even though we were in surgery and everything.
My husband was there the entire time. He even looked as baby was being born. He was like, Yeah, yeah, that was that was kind of awe. But it was great. It was great. And he was allowed to cut the cord. So it was also for him, it was a good experience. So yeah, that’s basically our story.
Gina: That’s amazing to hear. Like how much you had trust in your medical team, both the midwives and the hospital with, you know, like having them talk you through your different options and kind of the risk and benefits of each of them. And it sounds like you had really like informed care, which is like amazing. And I’m really glad that you had that.
What were some things that you found to be like really positive about your cesarean birth? So, it sounded like you got to have the golden hour, which was something that was super important to you. Your husband was really involved in the birth. Was there anything else that you were like? It made it a really good experience for me.
Annie: Generally, it was really just I wanted to know what was happening and people told me and when I had questions there was always somebody there that I could ask and they would be like, Yeah, I can tell you that. I can give you an answer to your question, and if I can’t, I will look it up somehow, somewhere, I will tell you later if I can’t look it up right now.
And that was really the key thing for me because really in the end, I mean, nothing happened as I wanted it to happen basically. Well, yeah, I had the golden hour. A lot happened as I wanted it to happen. But like I have the I had the C-section and I was like on it for like a really long time.
And it was exhausting. But I always knew what was happening. I was always involved in what was happening. It wasn’t just happening to me. So that was really the main thing.
Annie's Advice for Others
Gina: That’s amazing. What advice would you give if you can go back and tell yourself something or someone in this similar situation as you? What advice would you go back and tell yourself when you found out baby was breech and then what advice would you give yourself when you found out that you that your provider was recommending a cesarean birth? How would you help someone navigate those two scenarios?
Annie: So having the baby breech at 36, really just or any time, if you’re worried that your baby is breech at a certain point, just decide for yourself what you want to do about it. And don’t do everything. Don’t put the pressure on yourself to do everything. Decide for yourself, and define what you need to do to feel comfortable with whatever results are going to be the result.
So if you turn baby, what would you do to turn baby and what would you do and still be okay if baby wasn’t going to be turned?
At the end for me, I really found that I did not do everything. I did not do like moxibustion. I mean, I’m sure it works, but it was just for me. I would have had to find a provider. I would have had to go there. I would have had to research who is best in my area.
And I just didn’t want to do that because the midwife was great. My midwife was helping me with a lot of things. The hospital was great. And for me, it was like, if it would have been moxibustion, well then tough luck.
So, that’s really what advice I would give. Really define for yourself what you need to do to feel comfortable either way.
And if your providers are recommending a cesarean section, well, I was there with my provider like I was at the same point with my provider. I was like, okay, I get where you’re coming from. I did the entire process with you. You told me 4 hours ago, this is the last thing we can try. We don’t have more options, so we try this for 4 hours, and if it doesn’t work, then we’ll have to do this. So I know where you’re coming from. I went the entire way with you.
And if you don’t have that feeling, or if you feel like you’re overrun by your provider, I would ask them why.
I would ask them to walk you through the process. I mean, even if you’re not going with them at the same pace and there are like suggesting it and you’re not there yet, I asked them why and let them explain it to you. Because really life-threatening situations where there is no time to explain it to you, that’s kind of rare.
So usually there is the time and they don’t want to do it. Sometimes they just don’t want to do it because they don’t have time. That’s not a good reason not to explain to you why they’re recommending something. So ask why. Let them walk you through it.
Gina: That’s really amazing advice. I really loved hearing your story and kind of how you navigated through it, and it was really wonderful to hear how much you trusted your medical team because ultimately that’s what we want. We want to be able to trust the people that are providing care for us. And so, I think it’s wonderful that you did have that trust with them and that they can help kind of navigate you through the end of your pregnancy, through your birth.
And so, you got to meet your baby and then really honor that time for you and your husband to be able to bond and connect with your baby regardless of how he came out of your body. I think that was really amazing and probably what really contributed towards a wonderful experience for you.
Any last pieces of advice for anyone that’s listening to this podcast?
Annie: Make sure you’re comfortable with whatever. Just make sure you’re comfortable.
Planning for Your Birth: Choosing Your Provider
So regardless of how your birth physically goes, we can still have a really positive experience and a lot of it comes down to how we are treated during our experience. If we felt heard, if we felt that we were the primary decision maker. So, it’s really important that when we are choosing our medical team, that we’re choosing a team that is going to support us no matter what happens during our birth, and that we can trust that the recommendations that our medical team is providing to us are in our best interest.
So, if you don’t trust your provider or if you feel like you can’t have conversations with them, or though they’re not willing to answer your questions, that may be a red flag and a reason to find a different provider. The provider that’s closest to you is not necessarily the best provider for you. And so being mindful of who you choose to support your birth is really important.
When we experience a change in our birth plan, like you may have been planning an unmedicated vaginal birth and now you’re having an unplanned cesarean birth, it’s important to remember the things that you wanted in each birth scenario. So, what were some things that were really important to you that you can still have regardless of the birth path?
And so, Annie’s story, it was really important that they had that bonding and that golden hour while they were in the O.R. and her provider and her medical team were able to facilitate that. So having those conversations ahead of time on the things that are really important to you can help your medical team and your birth team accommodate that for you so you can still have a wonderful experience.
And so, as you’re planning for birth, it can be helpful to think about how you want to feel during your birth and what can you do to help facilitate that. Regardless of the path that your birth takes, you can grab our free birth planning template so you can kind of explore the options that you want.
And then you could take that birth planning template, which includes a cesarean birth plan, and discuss it with your provider and with your birth team to see if the things that you’re wanting are available to you.
Or maybe there are other options that you didn’t realize were available to you. And now that we’ve had that conversation, everyone on your team has a clearer understanding of what it is that you’re wanting for your experience.
You can also join our childbirth education courses where we break down a lot of your birth options and the different paths that your birth can take and explore, like what to do when your birth does take an unplanned route.