In this episode I’m joined by Claire, who shares a positive induction story from Scotland.
Claire also shares some of her fertility and loss story with us, and how her diagnosis of APS or primary anti-phospholipid syndrome meant she was able to stay pregnant in her fourth pregnancy.
So get as comfy you can and enjoy.
Here are some additional resources related to this episode:
The Positive Induction Course that Claire mentioned is available here: https://positiveinduction.com/course/
APS Support UK is a great place to get more information and support for those with APS: https://aps-support.org.uk/about-aps/what-are-the-symptoms/pregnancy
Transcript [Please note this is automatically created and may contain some errors]
In this episode, I’m joined by Claire who shares a positive induction story from Scotland clear, also shares some of her fertility and loss story with us and how her diagnosis of APS or primary antiphospholipid syndrome meant she was able to stay pregnant in her fourth pregnancy. So as comfy as you can and enjoy You’re listening to the positive induction podcast, a podcast for those who have chosen to have an induction of labor over those interested and how they can make induction a more positive experience.
I’m your host, Jade Gordon clinical hypnotherapist, happy by teacher and positive induction coach. As always. I want to remind you positive birth means different things to different people. For example, it may be feeling in control, being respected, being part of all those decisions. It does not mean perfect. My aim here is to bring you tips, inspiration and via life experience.
So let’s get started. So thanks for being here, Claire. Thanks for joining me today to talk about your breast OT. It’s really nice to have one of my hands here to talk about birth story as well, because I’m familiar with your story as a friend. And I know you’ve also shared with us for the positive induction web sabers chat in more detail about it.
How old is your wee one now? It’s been a few years. This is three, almost four, four in August. So yeah. So does it seem like a long time ago, your breath when you think back to it? It does. No, it does seem like a long time ago. Now when I look at him and just saying,
where has my baby gone? He’s just growing up too fast. Tell me then the big question, like, why did you decide to be induced? Well, we did not make the decision ourselves. We were on the red line being seen Aberdeen maternity regularly strike my pregnancy after I’d had previous losses. So we were advised because I was on blood thinners,
my son’s weight at 36 weeks, we had a scum on, he dropped from the 90th percentile to just over the 50th. So they said that was quite normal with APS babies. That growth would kind of plateau and stop. But shortly after that, my placenta would slow down and stop working. There were other complications. So at that point when the growth stopped,
so we, there’s no kind of magic timer to know how quickly those other things could happen. A Walters could produce instead, it was just time to get my, so that decision was made for us. The benefits of induction with the risks quite a lot. You mentioned APS. I know. And it’s funny when we become in these worlds, we get so familiar with these terms and acronyms,
they will tell us what is APS. So it’s primary antiphospholipid syndrome. It’s also known as Hughes syndrome and sticky blood. So your body decides to fight the good cells and can cause you to miscarry and your blood basically get sticky. We were five and a half weeks pregnant when we had an appointment with a miscarriage specialist and he’d already done one test from previous and said,
right, we know you’ve got this. We need to give you blood thinning injections and aspirin daily. So we were doing that all the way through the pregnancy and hence having a scan and sort of every couple of weeks just to make sure everything was okay. And did you find that reassuring to have that support? Yes, because although I was packed five to every Scott and I went to in previous ones,
you know, every time I’d gone to the toilet, I was just petrified for a bleed. Yeah. So having that sort of reassurance all the way along, that things were going well. And I did throw myself down the stairs at 19 weeks pregnant as well, which was not one of my best moves, but thankfully everything was okay. Just being able to have that extra support mentally throughout the pregnancy was good.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. In terms of your induction then, was there any other factors you had to have? So you were taking aspirin and Yeah. Adult blood than an injection. Did you have to stop those before? So my last one was the day before I was due to go in and be induced because obviously they didn’t want the blood to being thinned when I actually gave birth.
Cause I’m a whole other complications, things like that. So I stopped them on the Friday. I had my stand on the Tuesday and they said, you need to be induced. I was still at work. So I finished work on the Tuesday and I was booked in for my induction on the Saturday. I came home in a panic because you probably remember going,
oh my goodness, I don’t know anything about induction. So signed up to your positive induction course, which really helped me just mentally prepare for what was going to come because first baby didn’t know much about anything to do with birthing, let alone, you know, the process of induction. I did that over the three days that we had spare and then went in on the Saturday to be.
And just so I had my last injection on Friday. It was, it explained to you the different options you had in terms of induction before It didn’t really get much explanation. They did say it would probably be the fully balloon that they would put in. But because I was on the high risk, I wasn’t allowed to go home. So they said that they would put that in and then I would just stay at the hospital for the duration.
So did you pack lots of their entertainment materials like slew, right? You, Yeah. I didn’t really have too much stuff with me because we had this really old Samsung tablet that had like limited memory. So I downloaded a couple of things onto that, but I wasn’t really too fast. So we, we went in on the Saturday morning or was it Saturday lunchtime.
We ended up in our friends who stayed just around the corner, we’re having a barbecue. So once I had the balloon put in, they said to me, I could walk. You know, it’s pretty much the same distance on the other end of the hospital as it was to their hives. So as long as I came back, every two hours to be checks and,
you know, measurements and stuff done, I was free to go to this barbecue. So once we, once they had the balloon, man, we did that, but I did have to comeback cause I felt upset with it. Initially I found it was very much like a heavy period cramp and they did explain that once the ceiling had come sort of to body temperature,
that the cramping would settle down. So I was a bit optimistic and going straight away. So we came back and then waited a little while. And then when I was feeling a bit better, went back to our friends and had some food and I was just walking around in circles, in the garden, trying to keep active while we cute. That’s nice.
It’s really nice to hear like a different, I think when people think of induction, they imagined just lying in the bed, waiting for all those hours, not popping across the face. Barbecue, you know? So like they stayed to the Nice weather. Yeah. So How many weeks, where are you then at that point? 36 weeks and six days when they started me off Then after you’d been to the barbecue,
did things start to happen? No. So we were kept in the bloomers cap 10 for 24 hours. She did actually say when she put the balloon in that I was already two centimeters dilated before she put it in. So she could have broken my waters without the balloon, but there was no space in the maternity ward. So in the labor ward,
sorry. So the maternity ward was shocked at the time when I was there. So everything was a bit backed up. So we had to wait and have the 24 hours. They took the, I, I think it was about five o’clock on the Sunday, 5:00 PM on the Sunday. Then they took me through to the labor ward. And so she told me that they were changing shifts and we’d would I like for the girl midwife to break my waters?
So I said, yeah, I would like her to do it because was a male midwife coming on shift after her. So I’d much prefer a woman’s hands breaking her water, them that a man’s hands. So they, they broke my waters. I think it was 10 to seven, maybe something like that. And then started me straight away on the synthetic oxytocin,
drip, Everything would feel quite manageable up to that Point. Yeah. There hadn’t been any issues at all until really they put me on, on the jet once they got me on the jet, everything happened so fast. I don’t know whether he cranked it up, you know, and, and gave me quite high dose, but the contractions were just coming one on top of the other.
And I just felt that, you know, I was, I can’t deal with this, had a bit of a, I’m really terrible with pain. Anyway, I am the biggest web and when I feel pain or like if I have bad crops and things, I tend to be sick. So then they gave me an anti sickness injection, which did help.
And I remember being on the bed going, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. My husband going, yes, you come, you know, it’s fine, you’ll be fine. But I did find the speed that everything progressed was quite at this point, I was just taking gas and air. I was on the, the continuous monitoring belt.
So I was quite limited to what I could do. I did have a birth in bowl in there that I was trying to sit on and tried to move Wrangler, but they kept losing my son’s heartbeat. Eventually they said, look, we’re going to have to put B fetal monitoring cliff on his head, which was one of the things that I really hated the same dog had put on my birth plan.
I didn’t want to happen. But at the end of the day, it was for, you know, his safety and he was the one that was at greater risk with my condition as well. So I was like, okay, fine. Just do it. So they did that and kind of kept going and labor had been in a couple of hours.
I think it must’ve been HEPA say nine o’clock. I was like, I need pain, pain meds. And I’d asked for more feed. And he said, okay, I’ll, I’ll go and get that range. Then he left the room and came back. But at the time he came back in with the morphine, I was, I needed an effigy reel.
I bought an effigy hero. I didn’t actually get the epidural. So they gave me the morphine and the midwife had gone to his room. So it was about 30 minutes after having the morphine. He was, I, I said to my husband, I need to, to push. He was like, oh right. Well, I don’t think you shoot.
So then midwife came back and he said, oh, she said she needs to poop shed. And he was like, oh no, it’s far too soon. If It has any examinations to see a daily to Where no, none at that point. So when he, when he was told that I needed to push yourself, just do an examination. And then it was like full steam panic.
Oh, okay. You are fully dilated. You’re ready to go. It was pretty much the hours after my Walters had been broken. What’s fast, especially for like 36 almost. You were basically 37 that day, right? Yeah. I was kind of like, I prepared myself for the Ted. Every was a centimeter every hour, hour and a half or something.
So I was thinking all I’m in for a long slog. So I wasn’t expecting it to be that quick. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. Is that chart like our brains are more complicated than that. They just love you into this thing. So he disappeared off. Then started pushing. We were pushing for, for hours, felt like, and they were getting a bit concerned that I had been patient for by two hours on he wasn’t coming.
So it went from one midwife to midwife the senior midwife to the midwife, the senior midwife and a Cine midwife and the room. So all of a sudden, you know, everyone was there and they were like, no, you have to go up on the bed. I wanted to be sort of on all fours, but no, you thought it out on your back.
And that just the kind of Zen mess that I had, you know, with the dim lighting and everything, all of a sudden became like, okay, lights are on everyone’s aim. We need to get him out. And my fear at that point was, I’ve gone through all of this. Now they’re gonna push me away and give me a C-section.
But the, the senior midwife, she had my, my legs up in stirrups and she had said, right, okay, we’re going to try a change of position and see if we can get baby out. At that point, she took one leg day out of the stirrup. He was like, oh, here’s the head. And then all of a sudden he just arrived,
but he came back to back. So that had been the reason that I had been pushing for so long and the reason they’d lost his heartbeat and all the other things, because when I initially went in and was examined, he was in the correct position, but had managed to turn himself. Yeah. During the process, a little cooler head, but he,
he was perfectly healthy. He was six pounds, six ounces, which is a good way for 37 weeks. So he made his arrival on the Monday morning at 10 to one in the morning, just over. So I think it was yeah, six, just over six hours, six hours from having my water’s broken to him arriving. And had you not been back to back?
I think he would’ve come a lot sooner. He ended up that we had to stay in a few days. He was jaundice, just ever so slightly, not a severe case, but given that, you know, he’d been early and everything else. So we had to have like therapy understand with him. I was really struggling to get him to feed off me.
I wanted to breastfeed and it got to the point where I think I was so exhausted that my body just wasn’t producing the milk for him. I’d put the pump on for, I think it was like 30 minutes and got nothing. I, the midwives basically told me, you just need to rest. Your body needs a chance to recover. So they took him away because I think it was about three o’clock before I got into the ward,
by the time, you know, I showered and everything. And I arrived on the ward. And the first thing I said before I got to the bed was I’m going to be sick. So I was sick again. You know, when I got, there was pretty much up all night with him. So the following night to come away for a little while and just gave me,
I think it was like three, four hours to sleep. And then the first thing I did when I woke up was give me the pump. I want to try again. And he was, he was cut feeding initially just to try and get him to take it. Then I had a really lovely student midwife who came and she told me about the rough people or feeding.
And that was the only kind of position that he would feed them initially. But he did drop quite a bit of weight. He dropped down to, I think it was five pounds, 12 ounces by the time that we got home, but he’s more than made up for that. So are you prepared, do they discuss a few about the potential of intensive care that the neonatal unit beforehand given that we’re starting next week?
No, they didn’t. They didn’t mention anything about the neonatal unit. They were kind of confident given I think his weight and that he had been on course to be a big boy that he would be okay. So thankfully there was no, no requirement to go into tell us. So we ended up being in from the Saturday until we got out on the Wednesday night,
night. So it was like the early hours of Thursday before we got home to our house. And then obviously didn’t get any the first day that we were home. It was all a bit just overwhelming. And yeah, apart from that, the jaundice, you know, everything was, was fine. And we were able to get home a couple of days later and we really did push to get home because I think we might have maybe kept us in a bit longer,
but we had, my husband’s family had flown up after he was born because they were to come before. I think it was like another, like four or five weeks time. And then they were like, well, we can’t wait that long because you know, he’ll, he’ll be big by then. So they arrived and they were staying at our house while we were still in hospital.
We wanted the chance to actually get him home. And for them to meet him before they flew home on the Friday, In terms of your birth with what was abated, the mix it a positive experience. Although none of it went, you know, how I had envisaged it. I was able to make the decisions throughout he arrived healthy. So for me,
knowing what was coming, because as I said, I didn’t get a lot of information from the hospital. It was just very much okay. You need to be in Joost having that couple of days to watch the content on your videos, on your course and find out, you know, what the balloon is, how it works, all the different options that I had originally when I was pregnant,
I envisaged having, you know, a water birth and, you know, all these lovely things. But when it comes to the choice of, you know, the health of not just my baby, but myself, it really was a no brainer, but I felt that I was prepared mentally when I went in. And although things didn’t go how I planned them to go,
but the outcome was what I wanted. You know, it was a lot faster than I had expected and dreaded, you know, and yeah, just the fact that we got him safely, You mentioned your, your husband is your best partner. Like what else did he do that was helpful to you? We had taken in as well as, you know,
the surf reassurance that I could do when I was ready to give up. And I was like, I just want to go home, not really an option. So he was, you know, remaining positive. I remember shag too, at one point for checking, what I thought was the cricket scores, but you give that it was probably 11 o’clock at night.
There was no cricket on, I mean, family on go away. And it was very, very, very hot in the wards where we were, it was summer in Scotland, push. Normally wouldn’t be in it being warm, but we did have a particularly warm summer that year. I had brought along the Kool-Aid miss sprays that you get for going on holiday.
I find that great and just kept kind of shouting at him, taking, you know, spray me down, wet my face. He had a very sore hand by the end of it. It’s funny. This is the stereotype, isn’t it? Sometimes it happens. Yeah. Yeah. He, he was kind of holding on and like, ah, okay.
I don’t know whether that was to do with my nails as well. Possibly. He put me in that position to have a bit of suffering for it as well, but he did help and he stayed in the hospital for as long as he could, after he was born. And then I sent him home for a couple of hours just to get a little bit of sleep.
And then he came back in the morning with all the things and our room and the hospital. It’s a little bit like laundry because he was a lot smaller than I was expecting him to be. So all the stuff that we had taken in didn’t fit, we had one tiny baby baby co, which we’d won in a raffle. Mothercare licked how that new baby’s ever going to fit mat.
And that was the only thing that sort of fitted him. So I had to form my brother and my mom and they brought him new tiny baby baby clothes for us and Bess. And my mom had to basically wash them all, but they were all wet. They were all hanging right over there, head over the end of the bed to dry. It was,
it was good. So he was, he was there and he did a lot of skin to skin. Once we were back on the ward itself with him, just to kind of regulate his temperature because of the jaundice and other things that was going on. We did a lot of skin to skin once we were in the ward. And you mentioned you had a meal midwife for quite a bit of your labor,
and I think that’s still fairly unusual. I know we have a few up here in Aberdeen, but yeah, like for many people it’s a bit of a shock. Cause I think we often presume that all midwives are women. So yeah, I was, I was that It was a shock. I wasn’t expecting that, but at this point, you know,
I was thinking, well, I’m not gonna say no, cause he’s just because he’s mine, can’t do his job. I’d eat less than a woman can. But, and I, I also, I think having beans do the, the fertility journey that we had to beat on you leave your dignity at the door, almost the might have scans and investigations and examinations and everything that I had been streamed like for the previous three,
four years. I think it was before my son came along. I was kind of okay, I wasn’t okay with it. But at the same time, I was like, well, I’m sure you’ve seen it all before. So let’s just, just go for it. And he was, you know, very helpful and encouraging. And so I just did catch him unawares,
but then I came along and said, right, I’m ready to push. I don’t think he was expecting things to progress that quickly either. But he, he was a nice, nice young man. And mark decided that he wasn’t going to name the name, our son after the midwife, it was Miguel. He was like, no, we’re not calling her son middle name Miguel.
It is challenging when you go through the IVF journey or fertility journey. Sorry, because actually it wasn’t, you know, I didn’t have a Nivea CFPB to cheat. No, I, that, that state, the ironic thing to two rounds of IVF, which ended in miscarriage followed by a natural pregnancy, ending a miscarriage, and then fourth time lucky,
natural again. And you can remember the story behind it. So yeah, we, it, it turned out that I think my issue hadn’t been that the getting pregnant, it was the staying pregnant due to the APS. So once they had done the tests following the third loss and they had the results to kind of give us a, normally they would take two tests,
12 weeks apart to confirm that that diagnosis is correct, but I was already pregnant again. So they couldn’t do the second test. But after we had, after my son was a year old, we did have the tests done to confirm the diagnosis. And since I’ve had the confirmation, I have lupus as well. So yeah, I’m just grateful that we did get that diagnosis and were given the treatment straight away,
Because obviously it makes a difference when you know, what’s going on. It makes effective. And I know you said late leaving your dignity at the door and it can definitely feel like that, especially through fertility treatment, but yeah, like you also should always have consent and you should always feel supported. And all of those things, hopefully you’re dead. Yeah.
Everyone was, I think I just lost that, you know, kind of Shyness, you know, almost like, oh, I don’t want anyone to say, because I had had so many examinations and you know, everything else that you just kind of like, yeah, that’s their job. You know, they do it every day. So why should I,
you know, have a hang on over it? Yeah. We were always, you know, checked. We were, like I said, just left to kind of labor until the point where I wanted to push. And he did that, the examination at that point. And because I had read a lot of stories about people, you know, being interrupted and them just wanting to be left alone.
So we, we did have that kind of issue. I had had been musical and I had some kind of plugin, battery candles and things. So we tried to, to make it as relaxing as we keep it till the point that we’ve been pushing for over two hours. And that’s normally the maximum point that they will take you to. But thankfully they gave me that extra sort of hour two to get em,
I was just, he was being cheeky. And for anyone listening, he’s going in for an induction tomorrow or the day after, what, what tips or suggestions would you give them or what knowledge do you wish to share? I would say it’s not as scary as you know, people say, I read some posts recently on Facebook, not on the possible reduction group,
but on a local group with someone saying it was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever been in my life. I think it may feel that way for some people. But for me being informed was the most important thing. I think if you can prepare yourself and know that life never goes to plan, it’s great to have your kind of ideal, but just make peace for the fact that it might not go that way.
Like I say, every, every turn of my birth plan, if I was to print, now I’m looking at it and say, well, that didn’t happen. And that didn’t happen. And that didn’t happen, but I’m okay with that because I was following what was best at the time. You know, I didn’t want to put myself or my son in any unnecessary danger.
I just followed what I had to do. So I think as long as you can educate yourself, I’m just know not just the scenario that you want, but also what else could happen. It just prepares you that little bit better. I did find it difficult, not having, I think the fact it was such a fast labor, not being able to rest.
Cause they always say, you know, the resting is important between contractions and the breathing. And I was trying my best to do the, you know, the golden breath and things like that. But they were literally one on top of the other. But for me, I think just prepare yourself and know what the potential options are and just make sure that you are making the decisions.
And I’ve never, I didn’t have anything forced upon me. I don’t regret having the induction. I would have much rather being induced, have him come safely, given the circumstances wait. And it was also nice to get, you know, three weeks. It was, it was the height of high of summer. Yeah. I was grateful to be able to get out.
The midwife did laugh. When I turned up in my skinny jeans to be introduced. She was like, you know, that’s against the law. That’s brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing with us, Claire. Thanks again, Claire, for sharing your story with us today. I really appreciate everyone who takes her time to share with us here. I want to end with three things that stood out for me in this conversation.
Firstly, I want to point out that from many of us, our road journey to missing baby starts before conception. Often we don’t share a lot of this with those around us, even those close to us. And it’s important to order the part that this has to play in our story. Secondly, I love that clear popped over to our friends for a barbecue during her induction is always nice to challenge our perception of what birth looks like faintly.
In reality, our bodies don’t follow a linear path. The same as a chart or a graph that’s drawn up of high. When he said to me just per hour or whatever else we respond differently because we are all individuals and it’s not possible to accurately predict how long things will take. As Claire says, all you can do is be as prepared as you can and know your options.
Thanks for listening. Head over to the show notes for this episode@positiveinduction.com for re slash episode name here, you’ll find links to additional resources. And of course the positive induction course, which clear mentions a hypnobirthing course, especially created for induction. Thanks again for being here with us to D and do get in touch. If you have any questions, you can reach me@jadeatpositiveinduction.com
and I hope you have a lovely week.