Life writes special stories for pregnant women and new mums and parents. They are about everyday moments and outstanding situations, about wishes, expectations and disappointments, about bonding and relationships, about abilities, developments, problems and changes - in other words, about insights into "normal" mum or dad days. Each of these stories is worth telling.
I receive many stories from parents. Via this blog and online in my Coursesmy opinion Workshops and also in my Midwife counselling .
The mums wanted to share their stories. All names are anonymised. If you would also like to tell your story, I would be delighted to receive your birth report.
Anne's birth report: I imagined the birth differently
Anne: "I will never forget the birth of my baby"
From the outside, the birth of my first child must have seemed terrible to everyone who was there. Except for me. And it happened like this:
Firstly, I was overjoyed to have become pregnant at all. After a fairly radical operation on my cervix, this was not at all a matter of course. Afterwards, my gynaecologist had regretfully informed me that I could carry a child to term, but that I would no longer be able to conceive "naturally".
After careful consideration, artificial insemination was out of the question for us. So, for better or worse, I had to resign myself to a life without children of my own. That took quite a while. In fact, several years, during which times of optimism alternated with moments of deep sadness. It just wasn't that easy to say goodbye to your life plan - and for me that included children! - to say goodbye.
By the age of 30, I was able to look to the future a little more calmly and better accept my place beyond being a mother. It also helped that my younger sister allowed me to be a good aunt. She allowed me to be as much a part of my little niece's life as possible and was happy that she liked me without any sense of competition and was happy to be looked after by me even on difficult days. My sister found this a great relief - and I found it a great comfort in my childlessness. I learnt from this that children other than your own can also make you happy!
Then, at the age of 34, I got pregnant after all, naturally. My gynaecologist called it a "miracle", which I could hardly believe. I still can't find the words to describe the happiness I felt back then! And it stayed that way throughout my pregnancy. Looking back, I can say that this was probably the best time of my life so far. I still remember going out very early to buy maternity clothes and couldn't wait for my belly to bulge.
I loved this child even when it was still nesting in my womb as a miniature dot. I spent hours on the sofa with this little dot, tenderly stroking my (still long) flat stomach and telling the little lump of cells the best children's stories. That was intimate togetherness before I could even be sure whether the pregnancy would last.
But I stayed pregnant! Blissfully, I shimmied my way through the first, second and third trimesters. At some point, I found out from the ultrasound that it was going to be a girl. I then bought myself countless name books in which I searched for the "right" name for our little one. And I knitted little jackets, hats and booties like crazy while my belly rounded out into a magnificent specimen.
On the day of the expected delivery date, however, nothing at all happened. I wasn't sad about it, even though I was now carrying around an extra 25 kilograms. I could easily put up with a few more days. I was ready for the birth, but I wasn't in a hurry.
The check-ups with the gynaecologist became more frequent. On the eighth day after my due date, he put a prostaglandin on my cervix in the morning to make it soften. A little later, I went to see the midwife at the maternity clinic. A rather unpleasant pulling in my lower abdomen seemed to herald the start of labour, but after the examination the midwife simply said: "It's probably not going to happen today, you can go home again." While I was getting up from the couch, my waters broke. So I was told to go back, send my husband home to fetch my bag - and otherwise wait and see.
After a while, the pulling in my tummy became less intense and finally stopped completely. So I was able to relax and follow the midwife's advice and get a good night's sleep before "it" started. "It" started at around 4pm with a strong contraction that woke me up. A little later, we were all happy that the labour had started on its own after all. In hindsight, I have to say that the natural contractions were painful - but this pain didn't feel as unpleasant as the artificially induced contractions in the morning.
The midwife, my husband and I were actually a good team, so I was able to manage the subsequent labour phase quite well. My cervix opened as it should. However, at around eight centimetres, I was no longer in the mood for the pain, which I also said out loud. I would have loved to grab my husband and my little suitcase at that moment, wave the magic wand to put an abrupt end to the labour and head home. But the midwife smiled knowingly at this and said it was a good sign that the labour phase would soon begin. I gained new courage - and a little later I was allowed to push for the first time. What a relief!
I didn't really realise that something was wrong with the progress of the birth, I was far too much in the throes of the contractions. "Push! Carefully, just a little! Pant, pant, pant, don't push, pant away the contraction!" And so it went on and on and I worked and just followed the instructions.
During this time, our child was not well. The Labour recorder showed considerable signs of stress in the baby, from which it recovered more and more slowly after each labour. In the end, nothing progressed, the little one was stuck in the birth canal. Her head had not adjusted properly and simply could not pass through.
The others in the delivery room probably realised all this, but I didn't. I just did what I was told and didn't even realise that another midwife and a second doctor had joined me. Even my consent to the use of a suction cup, the subsequent episiotomy and the positioning of the suction cup barely registered. Nor did I notice the highly unpleasant and controversial crisping by the midwife parallel to each peak of labour.
Under these measures and my husband's anxious gaze, our daughter was finally born around midnight. With not exactly famous Apgar scores at first. Weeks later, my husband confessed to me that he was still convinced for a long time that our child had a disability because it couldn't be any different after this birth. Only gradually was he able to gain confidence that our daughter was completely healthy. The only thing she has left from her birth is a discreet impairment of the facial nerve, which is still sometimes visible today, but only to "insiders": for example, when our child is tired - then the left side of her face "hangs" slightly lower than the right.
After the birth, the three of us spent a few hours together, were finally able to cuddle with our "miracle" and could hardly believe our luck. The first breastfeeding also went well, although the little one was really exhausted and totally limp from all the effort. I, on the other hand, barely noticed my episiotomy.
The very next day, there was a clear swelling and haematoma on my child's head from the suction cup. As a result, our daughter developed a pronounced neonatal haematoma. Because her little body needed support to break down the haematoma, my baby was transferred naked to a kind of incubator with UV light. I was only allowed to take her out to breastfeed.
I admit that I had imagined Leonie's first days of life differently. Namely with lots of cuddles. But I sat in the hospital for hours in front of the incubator, looking at my little one, who I couldn't hold in my arms - and cried, especially on the third day after her birth.
Today, none of this has been forgotten, but it belongs to the past. Leonie has grown into a beautiful, loving and above all funny girl. The two of us are still very close, even though she will soon be 10. And despite this intimacy between us, I was always able to give her plenty of room to explore the world and make mistakes. From my point of view, our daughter's childhood is a picture book story. I will perhaps find out later when Leonie is grown up whether she herself will judge it that way in retrospect.
1 The Kristeller manoeuvre is an obstetric method that exerts intense pressure on the fundus uteri, i.e. the highest point of the uterus. This is intended to push the baby towards the pelvic outlet and accelerate the passage of the head. Women giving birth often perceive this "support" as forceful. It also harbours risks for the child's health. Leading medical associations such as the "German Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology" in its guideline on vaginal birth. The WHO also advised back in 2018 that the method should no longer be used in obstetrics. Nevertheless, it is still used, for example for vacuum or forceps births. The cristobalisation method also requires the prior consent of the woman giving birth.
