Shannon Whitlock shares the fight she took on to have the birth she longed for
When I became pregnant with our fourth baby, I knew I would have a fight on my hands. While pregnancy was something I was familiar with, spontaneous labour and vaginal birth were not. They were things I felt I needed to experience. However, the way I was treated during that pregnancy was beyond what I could have prepared for.
To understand how I ended up on the path of a VBA3C (vaginal birth after three caesareans), we need to go back through the pregnancies and births of my first three children.
I was 18 when I discovered I was pregnant with my first child and six months into a new relationship with my now husband. I had planned and wanted this pregnancy, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked. The pregnancy was relatively easy, but the pressure came when I went past 40 weeks. I was booked in for an induction, simply on the grounds that I was ‘overdue’. A classic cascade of intervention followed, including a fetal scalp electrode, artificial breaking of my waters and an epidural.
I laboured throughout the night and finally reached 10cm at 10am. I was given a resting period of an hour and started pushing at 11am. It was decided after only half an hour that he wasn’t coming, so I was wheeled down to theatre. He was born at 12.27pm.
When our first was 18 months old, we decided to have another baby. I wanted an HBAC (home birth after caesarean), and I was signed off for this with ease. Unfortunately, with no family living nearby, I had a panic at 36 weeks and I booked in for a repeat caesarean.
Our baby also had other ideas about the home birth. At 38 weeks, I had to attend the labour ward for reduced movements, and it was discovered that he had a very erratic heart rate. Because of this, and because I’d already booked a section, they wanted him out the next day via a ‘semi-emergency section’.
Our third was my most difficult birth and the experience left me with a lot of birth trauma, something I think I’m still dealing with now. She was due in April 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. Again, I wanted an HBA2C, but they were reluctant to sign this off. My request was finally accepted at 37 weeks, so I began ordering things I thought I would need for a home birth. Despite the unknowns of the pandemic and lockdown, I felt so optimistic.
I made it to my due date and beyond. I’d been told that hospital policy was to induce or perform a section at 12 days overdue. At 11 days overdue, I had my second growth scan. At this point, I’d already had two sweeps, and while I’d had some niggles and pains, labour hadn’t begun. The consultant, who I’d seen before and who knew my strong desire to have an HBA2C, began scanning my tummy. While my baby looked fine, she told me that my placenta had calcified and was failing. Because of this, once again, they wanted me to have a section the next day.
There are two points that need to be made here. Firstly, placenta calcification is normal after around 37 weeks and is not an indication of a failing placenta. Secondly, it just so happened that this ‘urgent section’ was scheduled for when I was 12 days overdue. Right on cue to meet hospital policy.
I didn’t have time to use BRAIN (benefits, risks, alternatives, intuition or nothing) because I was alone due to Covid restrictions. I feel I was taken advantage of at a very vulnerable time in my pregnancy simply because I wasn’t birthing to their schedule.
After this experience, and a terrible time in hospital post birth, I lost all trust in the birthing system. I decided we weren’t going to have any more children. I couldn’t go through it again. So, I locked that trauma in a box, shut it away in the furthest reaches of my mind and I ignored it.
Until I felt broody again, and I knew I wasn’t done.
Becoming pregnant for a fourth time reignited my passion to experience spontaneous labour. I knew this was likely to be our last baby, so I resolved to fight with everything I had to achieve this.
At the same time, the pregnancy opened that box of birth trauma and I was forced to acknowledge everything that had gone wrong with my third birth. Coming to terms with it was very difficult, and I think it’s something that will affect me for ever.
If I’m brutally honest, the way I was treated in my fourth pregnancy added to that trauma. I lost count of the number of times I was told that:
- I was stupid for attempting a natural birth.
- My baby would die.
- I would die.
- The baby would get stuck (I have a history of large babies).
- I would haemorrhage and bleed out.
- I should put aside my birth trauma as it happened during Covid, which isn’t representative.
- I would traumatise the entire birthing team attending my birth.
- I would traumatise my husband.
I’d need to write another piece to fully explain every negative comment I received during my pregnancy. My midwife, the one who provided all my antenatal care, even said to me, “I can’t wait until you’ve had this baby. You’re making the entire midwifery team twitchy.”
I spent the entirety of that pregnancy reading, researching and compiling statistics of the risks and benefits to back up my decision to have a VBA3C. It became my focus. I wasn’t concentrating on my pregnancy; I wasn’t savouring my round belly or my baby’s kicks.
I felt ready to go into battle at any moment. My adrenaline was high every time I went to a midwife appointment and my defence mechanisms were in place, ready to fight off the fear-mongering I knew would be coming my way. Adrenaline is the enemy of oxytocin, which is needed to give birth. I was worried that my antenatal experience would impede my birth.
Luckily… it didn’t.
Two days before my due date, at 7.30am, I felt something. I wasn’t sure if it was a contraction, but I tuned in. They kept coming. There wasn’t a pattern to them, but they were there. It had happened: my body had gone into spontaneous labour.
By 3pm, my husband called the hospital to let them know to send the home birth team out. Once they heard my name, they told us that the home birth service wasn’t running that day, so we were left with no choice but to go into hospital.
I panicked, I thought that my birth was going to be affected. I had no trust in the team at the hospital.
However, I really didn’t need to worry. The midwives who attended my birth were considerate of my experience and they listened to my birth plan. I was left to labour, to go into that space and fully concentrate on my body and my baby. They were hands off, quiet and they just watched from the edge of the room, giving me and my husband that intimate space that I craved and wanted.
After riding the contractions, using only gas and air, something changed, I snapped out of that labour space, knowing that something was different. The student midwife who was in the room lifted the blanket and said, “Oh! There’s the head!”
In the end, a student midwife delivered my 9lb 13.5oz high-risk baby. The baby they told me I was putting at risk. The baby they told me would die.
That baby is now 11 months old, and her pregnancy and birth ignited a fire in me. I’m currently training to become a doula and hypnobirthing teacher. I want to be the support that women need when dealing with an over-medicalised maternity system.
It’s a heavy responsibility to take on a high-risk birth alone. But I’m glad I took it on, and I would 100% do it again.
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Shannon Whitlock lives in Cambridgeshire with her husband, their four home-educated children and a scruffy terrier. She’s passionate about birth and helping others to achieve the birth they want. She recently trained as a doula and hypnobirthing facilitator after seven years as a freelance writer. On Instagram @moonstonerosebirth
Photography by Hannah Bracher (births not Shannon's) @hannahbphotographyuk
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Published in issue 91. Accurate at the time this issue went to print.
