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On motherhood and...Instinct


I didn’t get on particularly well with my midwife. When I first met her I really warmed to her – she was pink-haired and very Brighton, and extremely positive about the fact I was about to spend two weeks of early pregnancy in India (a school trip which I had no intention of dropping out of,  but some anxiety about actually doing). However, I am generally very bad at first impresssions, and this was no exception.
My main issue was that she was very pro-home birth from the get go. I knew immediately that I didn’t want one but I am not good at disagreeing with medical professionals, so I allowed this conversation to span a few appointments and kept saying placatory things like “I’ll think about it”, knowing the idea filled me with dread. At the very least home birth seemed to involve getting gore all over your own duvet, and even that was enough to put me off.
In one speculative conversation I told her of my friend H who had an unidentified breech and narrowly avoided giving birth at home to a baby who was intent on arriving foot first. She was very blasé about this, telling me we would spot a breech aeons before that stage of proceedings. Imagine my surprise when, 8 days overdue, 4 cm dilated and 20 hours into labour, I was told by the hospital triage nurse that the baby was indeed breech and that we were going to go for an emergency c section.
It’s hard to get too wound up about this now – the baby is here and safe, and that eclipses all other considerations. But the shit thing is that on some level I knew she was breech. I knew her head hadn’t descended into the pelvis, I knew my midwife constantly had issues identifying her position, I knew the baby seemed to have an unusually solid and round bottom wedged right under my ribs. I even asked if she was breech at the end of one appointment, and was told no, the heartbeat was in the wrong place. The midwife SWEPT MY CERVIX and didn’t realise she was touching not a head, but a bum. Yet she didn’t at any point suggest a scan, just to make sure, and I didn’t push for one.
Next time I am not brave enough to trust my gut feeling I am going to remember the 20 hours of pointless labour and I am going to be braver. I am learning to trust my instincts and, at the risk of sounding a bit Michael Gove, not be cowed by expertise into saying nothing. And I’m not going to be fooled by pink hair.

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