Siobhan & Caitlins Positive Induction Birth Story with Gestational Diabetes

I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes (GDM) early on in my pregnancy. It was not severe and was something I could easily manage by testing my blood levels and being mindful of what I was eating and when. I found it pretty easy to manage with a few blood readings being a bit high, I couldn’t fully give up eating Chinese food! 

Due to having GDM I had to go to the hospital for regular growth scans and have appointments with the diabetes nurse and obstetricians. This was to check that my baby wasn’t getting too big (common for mothers with GDM) or was too small. I always had planned for a water birth and to naturally go into labour; however, with the GDM label attached to me I was told that a water birth was strongly not recommended and that I was booked in for an induction on my 40-week due date. I was unhappy with this information, especially since my baby was a perfect size and my GDM was being well managed. This spurred me to do a lot of research into the guidance on GDM and after speaking to my midwife and arranging a consultation at the hospital, I pushed the induction process, twice. I had to compromise and go to the hospital for several CTGs and to have a membrane sweep. However, my body was naturally contracting and preparing for labour and I was 2cm dilated when I had the sweep. 

On week 41, I went in for a CTG and spoke to the obstetrician again as I had hoped that by this point, I would have naturally gone into labour. I had time to research and mentally prepare for the induction process. My midwife was aware of my reservations with the induction process and offered to conduct an examination to understand how far along my body was in the early stage of labour. She realised that I was very far along, baby’s head was super low and that she could easily break my waters for me. She had to convince the obstetrician on the labour ward to allow for the other induction stages to be by-passed. I was confident that as soon as my waters were broken my body would kick into gear. After being given the go ahead, my midwife attempted to break my waters. The membrane was so tough that it took two midwives to completely pop the waters, it was also challenging as my baby’s head was so low it was pressing on the membrane. 

Sure enough, my body got straight to work. While the midwives filled up the birthing pool, I spent the time on all fours on the bed leaning against my husband’s chest while the surges passed. We dimmed the lights in the room and put on my birth playlist. During the whole process I kept my eyes closed and zoned out. I tried gas and air; however, I found it hard to breathe through the surges so decided not to bother with it. I was able to get through the stronger and stronger surges by taking huge deep breaths and slowly breathing out until the pain subsided (along with a little bit of grunting). Finally, I was able to get into the birthing pool. Annoyingly due to having the GDM label I was told I had to be monitored constantly whilst in the pool. This was fine, until it didn’t pick up baby’s heart rate during the contractions and also due to the baby continually moving lower and lower, ready to be birthed. This resulted in some strong discussions with the midwives to leave me to get on with birthing my daughter as after the contractions her heart rate came back and was at a perfectly fine level i.e., she was not distressed by the process. I continued to focus on my breathing and zoning out of the hospital environment and concentrated on delivering my baby. 

When I got to the point of the final push to get baby’s head out, I had completely run out of energy. I threw up before I got into the birthing pool and continued to throw up throughout my labour. This meant that I was unable to eat anything and my blood sugar levels dropped. Again, due to GDM, the midwives were concerned that baby was stuck and thus the reason why I was unable to push her out. They began to get flustered and wanted me to come out of the pool and to go onto the bed. I knew that I didn’t have the energy to continue in the pool and that I may need some additional help so I made the laborious journey out of the pool, terrified that my baby was going to be born on the steps. I made my way to the bed where I was given an episiotomy at which point my baby’s head came straight out, shortly followed by the rest of her sliding out on the next push and was placed straight onto my belly. My husband, Tom, told me that we had a baby girl whom we later called Caitlin.