When Aleisha King was pregnant with her second child this spring, she says she loved hearing all kinds of different birth stories from other moms. But she never could have dreamt that hers would turn out to be one of the most dramatic ones she'd heard yet.
At 33 weeks, doctors had noticed reduced fetal movement, which put her on edge for the last month of her pregnancy. When it finally came time to deliver, doctors decided to induce, and the painful and long labor that followed led to a traumatic experience that was anything but what she envisioned.
"I felt very out of control with the pain of contractions and I hated the feeling," she says, looking back. "I ended up getting an epidural but I progressed from 4cm to 10cm in a few hours and as I got the epidural I was fully dilated. This meant that when it came time to push I couldn’t feel my contractions or the natural urge to push as the epidural had only just kicked in."
"I had been pushing for 40 minutes when they threatened to use the vacuum and give me an episiotomy. So then I pushed and he was born. His hand was over his head so I tore and the placenta didn’t deliver on its own. Unfortunately, the cord snapped and I hemorrhage and regardless of the OB trying to remove it manually, it wouldn’t budge. After one-and-a-half hours, they took me down to [operating] theatre, had to manually dilate my cervix as it had closed again and they finally got it out."
It wasn't long before she discovered hypnobirthing, a pain management technique that helps ease any fears or anxieties women may have about giving birth. The method "involves various relaxation and self-hypnosis techniques to help relax the body before and during labor and birth," according to Healthline. (In fact, it's become somewhat trendy in recent years, being used by countless celebrities from Jessica Alba to Kate Middleton.)
So when King and her husband drove to the hospital later that afternoon, she was surprised by how quickly things had progressed. In fact, they'd barely pulled up to the entrance when she was overcome by the intense need to push. "When we got the hospital, I started pushing outside and was on all fours," she remembers. Moments later, her water broke.
"I had the birth affirmations playing subconsciously in my head and I trusted myself, my body and my baby to deliver him safely," she tells CafeMom. "Whether that was with any health professionals present, or by myself on the pavement outside, it was so nice to feel in control and that I trusted the whole process."
However in control she may have felt, few could argue that King's birth story was a definite roller coaster. Outside the hospital, while down on her hands and knees, King screamed, "The baby's coming!"
Her husband instinctively pulled down her pants, to see whether the baby was out. Thankfully, the baby wasn't there just yet -- meaning the couple had more time.
But as it turned out, they didn't have much of it. Moments later, a midwife rushed out of the hospital with the wheelchair and told King not to push yet.
"I was trying to hold it in, I knelt on the wheelchair facing the back and she said I had to sit down which was tricky!" she told Australia Birth Stories. "The security guard pushed me and was running to the elevator."
Blix grabbed a face mask and the couple reached the birthing suite at 11:08 -- with just six minutes to spare before baby Jude finally arrived. King says she quite literally fell out of the wheelchair and onto the floor once they were in the room, and just minutes later, at 11:14, Blix caught Jude.
The moment was dramatic (to say the least), but by all accounts, Jude was perfectly healthy and safe. "He latched on perfectly about half an hour after birth and has been feeding and sleeping beautifully ever since," King recalls.
Despite the intensity of it all, King says she'd gladly do it "again and again and again," explaining, "It made me feel like Superwoman." Honestly, after hearing the play-by-play, she certainly sounds like Superwoman!
