Freddy’s Birth Story
Originally published @ Freddy McConnell
On Tuesday 4 January at 36 weeks, I went to hospital for yet another scan. Months earlier, a blood test had shown that I had low papp-a hormone, associated with low birth weight and a placenta that isn’t firing on all cylinders. Sure enough, from the start baby measured tiny, around the 2nd centile. They were otherwise healthy and very active, but I had extra scans and monitoring, just to make sure they stayed on their growth curve.
Maybe it’s strange but I was never worried. SJ had been so similar, on the 4th centile. My bump was small enough for people to remark on both times. With SJ, no one mentioned “SGA” (small for gestational age). This donor and I, I figured, we just make small babies.
My midwife this time said she was surprised SJ hadn’t been classified SGA. In hindsight, I was relieved. It would have likely meant not having the birth I’d wanted; labouring at home, going into the midwifery-led unit and birthing in the water, with minimal monitoring and no interventions.
My second pregnancy was technically higher risk – maybe the SGA parameters changed in the years between – but still uneventful. We made plans to go to Sweden. My midwife and the hospital supported this. Everything was fine until that Tuesday morning.
After the scan, mum and I sat in a quiet corridor between two waiting areas - away from curious looks. Rather than let us go, a midwife took us to a side room. She explained that baby had dropped off their growth curve and even off the centile chart. In other words, they’d stopped growing.
My mum immediately understood that we weren’t going to Sweden, a plan that had always stressed her out more than me. “You’re only worrying about the baby whereas I’m worrying about both of you,” she said.
Deeper down, I knew too. If it posed any risk to the baby, of course we couldn’t go. I let it wash over me: this baby won’t be registered either, until our case is heard by the European Court of Human Rights. Trip logistics will be unpicked or abandoned. I’ll let my doula in Sweden know. I don’t have one lined up here but in familiar surroundings, my mum is the only birth partner I want.
***
Small but growing? That’s fine, the midwife said. Small and not growing? That’s suddenly verging on an emergency. I was put on a CTG monitor. After that, we were in front of a consultant, being bombarded with information… Baby needs to be born in the next seven days… You should mentally prepare to spend some time in special care… The placenta is no longer providing what baby needs… We don’t know why… We only know that leaving them inside won’t help them grow… They will stay tiny and soon not be able to cope with labour or… cope at all.
The consultant said I could try induction, with c-section as a back-up at the first sign of baby being unhappy. Yes, please, I said. I could have the room on the labour ward that had a pool and a private bathroom. Yes, please. Monitoring would need to be continuous but could be wireless, so I could be in the water. Great, I said. But no, I couldn’t go to the midwifery-led unit this time. Damn.
The change of plans was a horrible shock but I looked for silver linings. At least I knew this hospital. SJ was born at the same hospital and they’ve noticeably worked on trans awareness in the intervening years. I knew I could walk up planned or unplanned and the staff wouldn’t look at me confused or shocked. They’d recognised my name when I called, instead of tentatively asking if I was calling for my partner. They’d admit me without changing my gender marker from M to F on notes or wristbands. They’d understand that a private room was necessary, not a luxury.
We returned on Friday for another CTG. I could have returned sooner but chose not to. Baby’s movements were strong and my intuitive sense was that, actually, they were just fine. I was told I could relax over the weekend and be induced that Monday. In reality, I spent those days manically unpacking and prepping an unprepped house. I cried. I received surprise care packages from beloved friends. And I cobbled together an early birthday celebration for SJ, in case I was in hospital on the day itself.
***
I was admitted on Monday and got the private room the consultant had promised. Within a couple of hours of induction starting, I felt mild tightenings.
After settling in, the relief of privacy wore off and reality hit. The room had a pool but it was clinical, weirdly laid out and cluttered with medical equipment. Worst of all: the light, streaming in through a thin blind. It was the opposite of the dark, calm “cave” human beings need if labour is to take its own course.
Regular (what felt like relentless) monitoring got in the way of being in the pool. Over three days of induction, I got a couple of hours in the water. With lights off and candles lit, it was a spell of calm on day two but nowhere near enough to help labour progress.
Wireless monitoring wasn’t practical. Baby being small yet active meant the midwives struggled to get a consistent CTG read out. The machine’s alarm kept going off as its sensors lost the heartbeat and they said the “problem” (i.e. with the technology not the baby) would only worsen with wireless.
On day three, I began to feel like a trapped animal tethered to machines and an artificial schedule. Breaking my waters that morning made a promising difference but then things slowed again. The midwives kept going off shift but thankfully each one was as friendly and caring as the last. Alongside my mum, they alone kept my spirits up.
Still it felt like my job – giving birth three weeks early – was being actively hindered by this room and the very well-meaning care and attention I was being given. It was keeping us safe but also keeping us stuck.
Exhausted and uncomfortable, I yearned to be left alone in the water for however long my body needed. Baby was active. I understood the need for monitoring but also resented it – emotional energy I couldn’t spare.
Maybe in a dark, calm, watery cocoon, I could have harnessed the induction drugs and seen labour through, like a mountaineer overcoming the odds in terrible weather to summit his highest ever peak. As it was, the process felt increasingly hopeless.
Then the doctors came round and, briefly, things got even worse…
***
Morning on day three of induction. Waters broken and they’re giving me a bit more time to “progress”. The senior doctor doesn’t seem thrilled about this but the midwives stand firm for me. It seems like every fifth word the docs say is “c-section”.
I’m 4cm already. Baby’s head was very low when they last checked.
Three doctors return, taking the number of staff in our small space to five. I think the photo below does an incredible job of capturing how I felt at that point: sidelined. I don’t think this is how anyone wanted me to feel. They were doing their best. It’s just what happened as the birth slowly became more medicalised.
The midwives tried to preserve the few shreds of calm that survived in the room. A newly-qualified midwife I’ll call B seemed especially attuned to keeping me feeling safe and heard. I’ll never forget that.
Baby’s heart rate was getting elevated. This could be a warning sign but I knew and the midwives knew too by then that late morning was LB’s party time. In about an hour, they’d wind down on their own. Still, the doctors ordered me onto IV fluids. Now, on top of everything else, a drip pump hung beside my head, whirring and clacking non stop.
At some point, another check. 6cm dilated but baby’s head had moved back up and I’d somehow developed a low-grade fever. Contractions were stronger – each one now followed by nausea – but not closer together. I was given an anti-sickness drug that barely kicked in.
On my back on a hard bed, trying not to vom, tied to a monitor and a drip, in bright light, with so many people bustling around… Every time a contraction built I worked hard to breathe myself into a calm headspace but… what for? By then, it seemed literally painfully clear that labour wouldn’t progress in that environment.
The doctors weren’t leaving. Next, I was on my back sucking gas and air for the first time. Wow. Faces loomed over me but I was suddenly floating above, watching it happen, briefly high enough to feel released from it all…
***
When the senior doc explained that she now firmly advised a c-section, I was relieved. Not relief tinged with anger or sadness. Just intense RELIEF. Thank you, for releasing the tension in my body and quieting the voice in my head asking “how??” with increasing panic. Thank you for providing a realistic path to this being over.
Once I’d agreed, everyone moved more calmly and decisively. I heard a distant alarm and amplified voice announcing theatre prep for a “tier 2 emergency section…” and only slowly realised it was referring to us.
Mum left momentarily to change into scrubs, so it was just me, B and two doctors in the room. The docs were going back and forth, making a plan. They kept saying “she… she…”. Again, I was slow to realise they were on autopilot, talking about the person they were about to perform a c-section on, i.e. me. It was the first time this happened throughout my entire pregnancy.
I usually turn inwards when misgendered, winded by dysphoria. And I hate confrontation. But I was so raw and uninhibited by then, I said aloud “WHO IS ‘SHE’?”
No one responded but I didn’t hear the wrong pronoun again. B leaned in, saying “I’m so sorry”. I knew it was hard for her too – hearing senior staff be so thoughtless. Her apology on their behalf meant a lot.
Before being wheeled down the corridor, I put on a surgical mask. Someone said I didn’t need to – thinking I was adhering to Covid precautious – but actually, I just wanted to hide.
Thankfully – surprisingly, maybe – once we were in theatre, LB’s birth became a different experience. It felt calm, humane, emotional and in the end, as profound as my “perfect” water birth had been four years earlier…
***
This story has a happy ending.
But first, a confession: prior to having one, I didn’t think people could feel fully, truly at peace with a c-section. Maybe I was a snob, maybe ignorant. Whatever, it’s hard to admit.
I betrayed this doubt when reacting to a friend’s unplanned c-section story a few months earlier. I did the thing people have since done to me. When my friend said what happened and how, actually, it was exactly what they’d wanted, I replied “ahhh, yeah”, my voice dipping slightly on “yeah” even as I meant the words to be affirming.
Maybe that mindset persists in how I’m couching this. Like all this context is because I still doubt I’ll be believed when I say: my c-section was perfect – as perfect as SJ’s “perfect” water birth. I recount it as LB’s actual, amazing birth story with equal enthusiasm.
Of course it felt positive though, right? Like a relief? It came after three days of induction hell!?
Sure, relief was the starting point. But a c-section can be distressing in different ways. I could absolutely have felt some level of sadness, grief or failure afterwards and yet I didn’t. Instead, I felt fully, truly at peace.
Why? Big things and small things…
Having my mum there as a birth partner, still involved and vital.
Hearing the same music that played when SJ was born and letting it trigger a very cathartic cry.
Feeling held, not sidelined, by everyone in the operating theatre.
The anaesthetist asking whether I wanted him to explain each step or just be quiet.
A calm and a confidence.
The “congratulations dad!”... “well done dad” while LB smushed their head into my neck and the surgeon discreetly worked her reparative magic.
The surprising sense of achievement.
In the end, LB was not as small as expected. They didn’t need any extra help. We hadn’t had an infection. The one clue to LB’s restricted growth lay in my placenta. It was tiny – not something an ultrasound could show. After everything, it was helpful to have a partial explanation, for the tiny bump, the early birth and the tiny yet healthy baba.
Follow Freddy on Instagram
