My Birth Story
| Birthdate: | Wednesday, 24 November 1999 (on this date in history...) |
| Time of birth: | 11:30 p.m. |
| Weeks gestation: | 37 (3 weeks before expected due date; early term) |
| Weight at birth: | 5 lbs., 10 oz. (2555 g.) |
| Apgar scores: | 4, 6 |
| Birth complications: | Breech (bottom first) |
| Place of birth: | Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne |
The story of my birth, as told by my mother, Bonni:
I was very much prepared for and expecting a natural birth with Zoë, and I spent a great deal of pre-birth time dealing with my personal issues, practicing relaxation and pain-management techniques, reading, and discussing my birth plans with my care givers and my husband. Unfortunately, the best laid plans, even birth plans, often go awry, particularly when the baby has definite ideas about presenting her bottom to the world instead of her head.
Zoë was born by a vaginal breech birth after about 21½ hours of labor. The labor was completely spontaneous, and she was born about two and a half weeks before her estimated due date, small but full term. The length of the labor, however, was a big surprise, and not something anyone anticipated.
The pregnancy, itself, was not easy for me. For the entire pregnancy I had trouble with my blood sugar (no gestational diabetes, though), and as a result I often found myself dizzy, nauseated, shaking, or breaking out in a cold sweat when my blood pressure would rise too quickly, such as after eating a big meal on a relatively empty stomach. I was also terribly short of breath much of the time. The littlest effort would just completely "wind" me.
About the middle of the pregnancy I developed a particularly painful joint disorder in my pelvis. The normal pregnancy hormones soften the joints to prepare for birth, but in some women this softening can be a full-fledged disorder. I was one of them. At times, I could barely walk. Turning over in bed was often painful enough to wake me. Some days the pain was tolerable, and some days it was literally excruciating. I spent a lot of time in bed with a hot compress on my pelvic joint, usually lying on my side with a pillow between my knees. I finally got some relief from physiotherapy and a special support belt that went around my hips to stabilize the pelvic joint, but it was still very painful (and remained periodically painful until the baby was several months old).
I will note, however, that despite my considerable physical discomfort during the pregnancy, I was genuinely happy to be pregnant, and I loved having a little person growing inside me. I felt a very strong early connection with the baby, something which I did, in fact, work toward, and which I continued to try to develop after her birth.
Tuesday night is discount movie night around most of Melbourne, so Andrew and I went out to see a movie. We had dinner at T.G.I. Friday's (yes, we have them in Australia, much to my American delight), but none of the movies showing appealed to us. Instead, we found ourselves in a Border's bookstore (again, this is an American chain and I was thrilled to find them here in Melbourne). We walked around the bookstore for a long time, and purchased a few books, one of them a baby record book.
On the way home, I experienced some very sharp, severe pains in my lower abdomen, pains which felt very like those I had when I had a severe gastrointestinal infection a few weeks prior to that night. By the time we got home around midnight, the pain was gone, and we went to bed. As usual, Andrew went right to sleep and I read for a while.
At around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, I started labor. I'd been having bouts of "practice" contractions for the previous couple of weeks, some of them pretty hard contractions which went on for a few hours. This time, though, I just sort of knew it was different. I just knew it was really early labor, but I can't explain "how" I knew; probably the same way I knew practically the moment I conceived. I was, to put it mildly, very excited to be in labor. I had been preparing and looking forward to giving birth for some months, and at last the event was at hand!
I labored quietly for a while as I read my book in bed, and then as the labor got harder, I got a little louder (vocalization really helped me cope). I woke Andrew around 3 a.m. or so to tell him I thought this was the real thing, but I also told him he didn't have to do anything yet, that I just wanted him to know. He mumbled something about letting him know if it continued or got worse but that he really wanted to sleep. He was very tired, and if the labor proved to be The Real Thing, he'd be needed later for more solid support and assistance. I was handling the early labor very well by myself, so I left him to sleep.
I took a shower, and then I sat up and rocked on the edge of the bed, moaning with the contractions (this, in fact, was keeping Andrew awake, but he didn't say anything at the time), and I put the final touches on my already-packed bag. My cat was going wild, because she always knows when something's not quite right with me, and she could tell something was going on. I labored all night and by 8 a.m. the contractions were fairly regular, about three minutes apart (more or less; they never did become genuinely and truly "regular"), and they were painful enough that I had to pause and concentrate when I got one. I woke Andrew up fully and he called the hospital to talk to them, and they recommended that I come in. Little did we suspect that it would be another fifteen hours of labor! Had I known, I'd have stayed home a lot longer!
We grabbed my bag and headed down to the parking lot. As we walked, I had to stop every time I had a contraction because they were so strong, but I was feeling pretty much in control and welcomed the contractions because it meant that the baby was finally on her way to my arms. The ride to the hospital -- this is a very short ride I should add -- drove me bonkers because every bump hurt and sitting up was painful. I much preferred standing at that point. The tenderness in my hips and pelvis from the joint disorder was made much worse by sitting down.
We got into the labor ward and got somewhat settled. I put on my favorite nightshirt, a long orange thing that I've had for years. The contractions promptly slowed down, but they picked up again once I was walking around the labor room, trying different positions, moving around, generally coping well. I knew I was still in early labor, but I was having some pretty strong contractions and definitely needed to move and concentrate to deal with them.
Doctor came and did an internal exam and pronounced me 1 to 2 cm. dialated. I was pleased to find it was real labor, even if I was disappointed that it was still so very early. I was kind of expecting that I'd labor for a few more hours and then have a very rapid dialation during transition or something of that sort (again, little did I know what was ahead).
A manual check of the baby's position was done and the midwife said she was "pretty sure" that was the baby's bottom up at the top of my belly (as previous examinations throughout the pregnancy had shown; everyone was always "pretty sure"). So, just as a precaution, they got an ultrasound to do a quick check of the baby's position.
Breech.
I was stunned.
The contractions slowed down noticibly. In fact, throughout the labor, the contractions slowed if I got at all upset or was "interfered with" too much, and only resumed when I'd calmed down. (On a side note, if I wasn't well-versed in relaxation techniques I might have stopped labor entirely).
The natural, low-intervention birth I'd planned and wanted went out the window at that moment. I knew from my research that a breech birth had the possibility of being perfectly normal and healthy, but that it was considered high risk for the baby, or at least "higher" risk. Some doctors automatically do a C-section for breech babies, and many breech babies need to be delivered with the aid of forceps. Many doctors insist on an epidural for a breech birth, as well. I knew all of this, which is why I knew the low-intervention birth was pretty much no longer an option.
I wouldn't say I was crushed or angry or upset. I was mostly just shocked. Earlier in the pregnancy we knew she was breech, but she had apparently turned and either she turned back or she hadn't really turned around at all.
The head doctor who was on call came to talk to me about breech birth. Basically, he told me that it's a higher-risk proposition, and could easily end up with a surgical delivery or with a forceps delivery, which I knew from my own research (I am so glad I had a clue about what was going on; being informed ahead of time really, really helped me to cope). The ultrasound showed the baby to be a "complete" breech, meaning that her bottom was down by the cervix and her knees were drawn up. This is not an ideal position (frank breech, with the feet up by the ears, is much safer), but since I'd given birth twice before and I was very strongly inclined to attempt a vaginal birth, the doctors agreed to go for a "trial of labor".
At any point, the baby could have gone from being a complete breech to being an incomplete breech (i.e., a footling breech, with one or both feet appearing first, a very dangerous position), thus requiring a surgical delivery. There's also a higher risk of fetal distress with a breech birth, so it was necessary to be monitored very closely pretty much continually as the labor progressed. Since there was the definite possibility that there would be the need for an emergency Caesarian or forceps assistance, the doctor wanted me to have an epidural, and to have it placed immediately, before the labor got too far along (so that they wouldn't have to put it in place when I was in hard labor).
I wasn't happy about this, to say the least. I asked if it was necessary, although I knew perfectly well why the doctor wanted the epidural in place. I briefly considered refusing, and I did actually make an attempt to talk my way out of it, but I felt that the doctor's concerns were valid and I absolutely did not want to give up on the possibility of a vaginal birth. After I thought about it a little while I asked if I could get a low dose one, so that I wouldn't be entirely numbed out or unable to move my legs, etc., and if I could possibly have the thing in place and not put the medication in until the labor had progressed more.
The doctor sent for the anesthesiologist, who turned out to be a pretty good guy. He listened thoughtfully to my concerns about exposing myself and the baby to more drugs than necessary. We discussed various findings on how epidurals may make labor longer, and discussed the nature of "walking" epidurals (he didn't do them, nor did the hospital allow them) and some other factors. He and I discussed the hospital's epidural rate (about 25% overall, but the rate for second or subsequent births was much lower, around 5%; you should note that this is not an "epidural-on-demand" or "epidural-for-convienience" attitude). I asked about having a low-dose epidural, and he agreed that would be fine, and that if it came to me requiring surgery or a forceps birth, we would increase the dosage at that time.
And so I got an epidural. I have to say, having the needle put into my spine wasn't as awful as I'd feared. In fact, the local anesthetic was pretty uncomfortable, and I had to hold still during a contraction, which was very hard, but it wasn't as bad as I'd thought it might be, and this anesthesiologist was very good. In retrospect, I have to say that even though I didn't want an epidural, it was done well, and I appreciate that they listened to my concerns and tried to work with me.
Because of the epidural, I had to have an IV for fluids (simple fluid replacement, without glucose or any other drug or additive), and it was placed in my left wrist in such a way that when I moved my hand the needle got pushed around. I had bruises on that wrist for a couple of weeks after the birth, and the entire time the thing was in place it hurt (so much for an epidural supposedly giving a "pain free" birth; if not for the epidural, I wouldn't have had to get the IV!).
The first part of the epidural was just a "test dose" using Xylocaine to check the placement of the needle, since I didn't want to have the full epidural until it seemed more like a necessity. It worked on half of my body, and I could feel the contractions and my bladder and such still. I labored that way for a couple of hours, although I had to stay in the bed to do so. My favorite position was raising the back of the birthing bed up and leaning over it, hanging on to the hand holds on the back of the headboard, and moaning as I rocked my hips back and forth. The pressure on my pelvic joint was better in this position, and the rocking helped with that, as well.
Eventually, because there was some numbing in my legs and therefore concern that I shouldn't be getting out of bed or walking around, I had to get a catheter put in to drain my bladder. This, in my estimation, was the worst part of the entire process! I've got a long history of bladder infections and have even had surgery on my bladder, and having a catheter inserted was traumatic, to say the least, since I wasn't so numb that I couldn't feel the tube being inserted. I also happen to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I ended up having a really unpleasant panic attack, complete with uncontrollable tears and rather severe trembling.
The good part is that I got control of the panic pretty quickly according to my husband and to the student who was on hand (she was actually a student emergency medical technician, doing her unit on childbirth, but she was really wonderful as a support person and companion). I'm proud that even in a situation where I felt totally vulnerable and decidedly unhappy about the situation, where I was literally crying and shaking, I was in control enough to get a grip and calm down. The bad part is that a panic attack that severe tends to take a heavy emotional and physical toll on a person, and this one was no exception.
Once I managed to calm down, the catheter didn't hurt, especially, but it did keep being pulled out (it had to be re-inserted about four times before they finally decided to blow up the balloon part that would keep it in place). The tube was also taped to my leg, and that was pretty uncomfortable, as well.
Until then, the fetal heart monitoring had been periodic, just a few minutes every hour, rather than continual. By this time, though, the labor was progressing and they were getting to where they wanted to monitor pretty much continually, particularly given the risk factors involved. So there I was, with a full time fetal heart monitor that required that I stay mostly in a semi-reclining position (the position I most wanted to avoid for labor because it's the most unproductive!), a catheter in my bladder and taped to my leg, a painful IV in my wrist, and an epidural in my spine. I was also sitting right on my tailbone or hip (when I turned), and with the inflamed pelvic joints this was becoming intensely painful.
The Xylocaine test-dose was wearing off when the doctor came in and asked, point blank, "When are we going to top up that epidural?" I said I didn't know. He told me quite frankly that I had it in place anyway, so I may as well use it, although it was my decision to make as to whether to do it now or later. I did understand that I was delaying the inevitable, and I did understand why they wanted the epidural, but I was still stalling because I really didn't want one at all.
Andrew and I talked about it when we were alone. I was pretty tired by this time, not from the labor but because I'd been awake for such a long time, having been awake for about 24 hours straight at that point. Too, the panic attack took a lot of my inner reserves. Most labor coping techniques involve being able to move around, and I was pretty much forced to be immobile, and I realized that since I couldn't move around and it was extremely painful to labor sitting on my tailbone (it was so much better when I could be upright!), I really probably wasn't going to be able to cope with the longer, harder contractions effectively, and by the time we got to the pushing stage, I might well be unable to push, thus requiring surgery or forceps. Labor was progressing very slowly, I was in a position where I couldn't do anything other than just grit my teeth and breathe and try to use relaxation techniques, and with the added factor of my growing exhaustion, I made the decision to get the epidural topped up then, with the understanding that it would be a low-dose one.
So I got the epidural, mostly because it was the most sensible option I had at that time. Because I had done a lot of pre-birth research, I already knew my options, and although the conditions of the birth removed some of them, I was able to make an intelligent, informed decision based on the situation at hand. To anyone reading, I just want to stress: birth preparation is always important! It helped me tremendously throughout the entire experience, which was intended to be as low-intervention as possible and ended up -- through no fault of my own -- being very high-intervention, indeed.
Getting back to the story, when the epidural kicked in I was bored senseless. If I concentrated, I could still feel the contractions, but only barely. Mostly I sat and twiddled my thumbs and chatted with the very pleasant Irish midwife who had taken over on second shift (I had come in at the beginning of first shift, just for the record), and while I don't want to imply that talking to her wasn't nice (in fact, she was charming company), I really wanted to have more of an active hand in giving birth than I got to have. Andrew, too, was bored. He said that if he'd known I was going to have an epidural, he would have brought a deck of cards so we could pass the time. The whole epidural experience felt totally and completely unnatural, especially considering the other interventions (IV, catheter, fetal heart monitor, etc.), all of which I had hoped to avoid.
At the next internal exam I was only five centimeters dialated. I was terribly tired (although I couldn't sleep because I was sitting uncomfortably and too excited to fall asleep, anyway), and it was decided (with my full consent) that they'd break my amniotic membrane to get the contractions going. Again, this was a calculated risk; it's possible for artificial rupture of membranes to cause a prolapsed cord, which is life-threatening for the baby; this is especially true of a breech or small baby, and I'm glad I knew this before I agreed to it, even though it turned out to be perfectly fine. It was then that we discovered that I had a huge amount of fluid, and I mean lots of it. This is probably part of why the dialation was so slow (although a breech birth is often a much longer labor since a baby's little bottom isn't nearly as effective as a head for dialating the cervix). The membranes were so strong and so full that there wasn't a lot of good, hard pressure on the cervix. This may also explain why the baby never turned head down, or why she flipped back and forth as she did (then again, maybe she was just stubborn).
The contractions did pick up after that, and in time I got to where I could feel them, even through the epidural. The placement of the anesthetic was "imperfect", because I could feel the pressure in my pelvic area, although only on one side, so I could tell how the labor was progressing. This was not light pressure after a while. It hurt. I was glad I could feel it (although I want to note that I am not a martyr and I don't like pain; I just wanted to feel my baby's birth and take an active role in it, and this allowed me to do that to some degree).
At my next internal exam, the doctor asked if we knew what we were having. We told him we didn't, and he grinned and said he did. He asked if we wanted to know and I said yes, and once he was sure we really wanted to know he said, "Feels like a girl." I was so thrilled to hear that. I had thought it was a girl for pretty much the entire pregnancy and told people as much, and to have confirmation was wonderful, even if I couldn't see it yet. I said we'd find out in the delivery room, and so we did, although in a rather unusual way.
Basically, I felt pretty much all of the pushing stage, although I never really had any sort of urge to push. I should also note that it was a lot harder pushing out that little breech baby than I ever expected, particularly with half of my pelvic floor numb!
We tried a variety of positions to get things moving, including a supported squat (which would have been impossible with a "full" epidural; I'm glad I only had a low-dose one!). What finally worked was pulling up the foot supports on the end of the bed and pulling up the hand grips. I grabbed hold of the grips and pushed my feet against the supports and leaned forward into it sort of like a jockey, and in time, Zoë's little bottom appeared. Normally when a baby's head appears and stays visible, it's called "crowning". Andrew and I decided that for a breech baby, it was probably actually "mooning", a joke that I still find amusing. I reached down as she "mooned" and touched her, feeling her little bottom as it was appearing. What a thrill to touch her as she was just emerging from my body!
Pushing out her bottom and legs was an effort, but not too bad. I felt really stretched and said I thought I might tear, and one of the midwives present said not to worry, that I was fine. Still, I didn't want to push too hard. I just instinctively thought I shouldn't, and the delivery team (yes, it was a whole team, partly because they wanted to see a breech birth and partly because it really was medically indicated) said to me as the baby was slowing coming out, "Whatever you're doing, it's perfect, keep it up." I answered that I wasn't doing anything, that I was just letting her come without pushing and one of the midwives said, "Brilliant! Keep it up!"
When her body was almost all the way out, I reached down and touched again, and felt her back with my fingertips. Again, it was an amazing thrill, although she was completely coated with vernix (yuck!), blood, and meconium (not from fetal distress so much as from having her belly squished as she was born, very common in breech babies). I paused for a breath and a break and then when the next contraction came I said, "Okay, here comes her head," and pushed it out into the hands of the student doctor whose first breech delivery this was (she was closely supervised by an experienced doctor, for the record).
They put the baby on my stomach immediately and I touched her, despite the stuff all over her (she really was a mess). My first words, however, were, "Zoë, breathe!" She was very quiet and still, and it scared me that she wasn't crying or even making the attempt.
The cord was clamped and cut quickly and she was taken to a waiting resucitation station. She ended up being suctioned and having oxygen administered. Her father was standing right next to them as they worked on her and he told me that she did, in fact, cry fairly quickly, but it was muted by the fact that there was a tube in her throat (poor little girl!).
I delivered the placenta and watched them work on the baby, feeling very concerned and helpless. The feeling of helplessness was awful! Andrew was there and I kept saying, "Talk to her, Andrew, let her hear your voice. Touch her." He was doing his best, but I think he was a little overwhelmed, and I can't say I blame him.
Before they left, she was breathing on her own, although it was labored. They wrapped her up and let me hold her for just a moment or two, and she visibly calmed when she heard my voice and I held her. It was almost eerie how quickly she settled down, in fact. I didn't get to hold her long, of course, because she really did need to be taken to special care, but I'm so glad I did get to see her and touch her and give her a kiss and tell her I loved her before she went. I sent her father with her and told him to make sure she wasn't alone.
The most painful thing about the entire birth experience was when they took my baby out of my arms and took her away. I knew in my mind that she had to go, but my heart was breaking. I felt so alone without her. I wanted her with me, and my arms felt terribly, terribly empty. Partly it was flashbacks and old memories and other emotions being touched off. Partly it was exhaustion, because by the time she was born at 11:30 p.m. and I had been awake for about 36 hours. Partly it was just that a baby does belong with its own mother, and when emergency interferes with biology, there's a terrible clash.
No one could figure out why she wasn't breathing at birth. It's possible that her breech birth had a lot to do with it, and there was speculation that she aspirated blood or some other substance she shouldn't have. There was also evidence that we both had some sort of infection, since I was quite ill the next day (vomiting and rather severe stomach pain). Late in the second stage, her heart rates were indicating some signs of mild distress (long decelerations followed by a rapid acceleration in heart rate to "catch up" on oxygen), but they were monitoring her heart rates very closely and the "decels" were not severe enough to warrent intervention, although she may have been distressed by the time she was actually born. It's also possible that it was just "one of those things" that sometimes happens, even in "normal" and more natural births, and sometimes in surgical births, as well.
At any rate, she was in the special care nursery for a couple of days and then rooming in with me, and we got the breastfeeding relationship off to a good start despite the rough beginning. We were both discharged on the third day after her birth, both of us in good health. By the time she came home, she was bright-eyed and vigorous and a champion breast-feeder, and I was calm and very much in love with my daughter, and even more in love with my husband (how that's possible I'll never know). I was extremely tired, however, and it took a while to get "caught up" on my rest and adjust to having my sleep disrupted every few hours.
As for a summation of the experience, I have to stress again that even though things went pretty much entirely contrary to what I had planned and genuinely wanted, I'm satisfied that I was informed and more or less in control of myself the whole time. I feel positive about the situation, overall, although I've had to mull over and work through the whole experience at some length, and come to terms with my rather strong disappointment at having missed out on the experience I was hoping for.
Giving birth to a breech baby was considerably more difficult than I anticipated! A normally positioned baby can and does turn, twist, and move as they're born, helping with the birthing process (although a stationary, immobile mother hinders this; I've contemplated whether the epidural had an effect on the situation but I don't really know). A breech baby is pretty much just a compressed bundle, and not a very flexible one.
I can see the appeal of epidurals, although I found the experience to be incredibly boring, and it really did feel very unnatural to me and just sort of wrong, and after-effects were very nasty, indeed. I wouldn't choose an epidural again, despite the pain relief, which I admit is good. As far as I'm concerned, the risks still outweigh the benefits for a normal, uncomplicated birth. I had several side effects that were directly related to the epidural (nasty, annoying, almost-painful itching, for one thing, and a really awful backache from the needle insertion for a few days afterward, and then three weeks of continual headache which I believe was directly related to the epidural). In the later stages of the labor I developed a fever, and while I may actually have been sick (I was pretty ill the next day), the fever may have been a side effect of the epidural, and in any event it led to the baby having all sorts of invasive tests and a course of antibiotics to make sure that she didn't have any serious infections.
Frankly I'd have preferred the quick recovery that comes with a more natural birth, and I'd have much preferred to be mobile and active in labor than sitting around bored to death in a position which isn't the most conducive to the birth process (upright positions are physiologically the best for labor and birth). The needle from the IV was downright painful, the needle in my spine wasn't painful but was certainly strange, and the catheter in my bladder was uncomfortable. Removing all the tape from all of these devices was also pretty uncomfortable, and the backache and headache were awful. Having an epidural was not "pain free". Yes, a large part of the labor was painless, but I just traded one kind of pain (for which I was prepared and which I was handling well, anyway) for others (for which I wasn't prepared and which made me miserable for a lot longer than labor could have!).
The way my epidural worked, the end of the birth was fairly painful because I could feel some of my pelvic floor, and so I still got a pretty nice dose of endorphins and adrenaline, which was good. That boost of natural high got me through the couple of hours after the birth so I could see Zoë in special care before I went to recovery to sleep it off (in fact I didn't get much sleep until the next night, but that's another story entirely and has to do with a noisy hospital ward and worrying about my sick baby and being sick, myself). It was frustrating to me, though, that I had to wait quite a while for the epidural to wear off before I could even begin to prepare to go see her.
Mostly, I just want to keep emphasizing how incredibly important it is to be prepared. You never know what will happen, and if you're prepared and informed, you can handle anything, no matter how unexpected. I certainly didn't plan on or expect an epidural, and yet there I was with one, and I handled not only the decision, but also the other medical issues that came up were not scary mysteries or unknown quantities or things I'd never heard of that I suddenly had to make decisions about.
By the same token, epidurals not only have side effects and risks, they may not always work the way you expect. I was pleased that mine allowed me to have feeling for the first part of the labor (the period with the test dose of Xylocaine) and the last (the pushing stage). Many women who get epidurals would not be pleased, and would not have any way of coping with this pain and unexpected development. Preparation is important, no matter what sort of birth you plan and/or expect.
And to address something I sometimes encounter and find annoying, obviously the baby's well-being was my primary concern all the time. Of course I was most interested in her safety and health, rather than the "experience" of giving birth. However, these are two entirely different issues and my disappointment at missing out on the experience I was hoping for is perfectly valid and simply saying, "Well, the baby's fine, and that's all that matters," is wrong and it trivializes my feelings, as if it's wrong to feel them, acknowledge them, or deal with them in any way. The baby's health and my disappointment at the experience of the birth are entirely different issues.
I surprised myself by how well I handled the entire situation. The shock of having an unexpected high-risk birth, the trauma of a panic attack/flashback in the middle of it, the sense of disappointment that I was put in a position where I felt an epidural was the best option available to me, the incredible pain of having her taken away from me, the frustration of not being able to hold her, the drama and the joy, all of it has come together to make me feel like I really am a strong, capable, flexible woman who can and will handle any situation as necessary. That, I can assure you, goes a long way toward building my own self-esteem.
I've since learned more about vaginal breech births, and I have to say that the staff handled this one pretty well. Many doctors won't even attempt a vaginal breech, and many others would have declined the trial of labor since she wasn't in an ideal position. Having the epidural in place was a valid medical option, particularly with the baby's imperfect position and the distinct possibility of a forceps delivery. Furthermore, I've learned that having an epidural removes the problem of premature or uncontrolled pushing, which can be a very serious problem with a vaginal breech birth according to some studies. Overall, I did pretty well with the interventions, which were far less than I could have had. I had no episiotomy, no forceps, no drugs other than the epidural, and I avoided a c-section.
On a somewhat whimsical note, it's also kind of cool to be able to tell people I gave birth vaginally to a breech baby, which few women will ever experience. Zoë was just a stubborn girl who wanted to do things her way, and her way tends to be dramatic. I guess I can live with that. I don't suppose I have a choice...
