The Birth Story of Isla - Finding Power in the Unexpected

Aga shares the story of the birth of her daughter, Isla, perfectly showing the twists & turns of pregnancy & birth and how to find power in the unexpected.

I was absolutely set on having an unmedicated, natural vaginal birth — water, aromatherapy, dim lights, all of it. The full gentle birth centre dream. I was preparing myself mentally, physically and emotionally to bring my baby into the world this way.

At 31 weeks I was referred for a growth scan following an incorrect measurement of my bump. That’s when I found out that my baby was breech, despite my midwife saying the day before they were head-down. And even though I did everything possible to encourage baby to turn (inversion exercises, visualisations, Spinning Babies, moxibustion), baby stayed breech all the way to my second growth scan at 36 weeks. Looking back, I’m extremely thankful for these two scans — if the midwife hadn’t measured me incorrectly earlier, I might have gone into labour unaware and potentially faced serious complications.

I decided to try an External Cephalic Version (ECV) to manually turn my baby. I was terrified — hospitals and medical procedures trigger old medical trauma for me, but I used the tools from Emily’s (Empowering Birth's) relaxation classes: my birth comb, essential oils, earplugs and breathing techniques. They helped so much. Unfortunately, the ECV didn’t work, and we scheduled a C-section for when my baby would have been 39 weeks.

I was heartbroken. I cried so much. I grieved the birth I had envisioned for years. It felt like my dream had been taken from me, and I was angry. The thought of surgery and giving birth in a hospital setting made me extremely fearful. But slowly, through the visualisations in Emily’s classes and talking through my fear with my partner and other women, I began to imagine a beautiful caesarean birth. I began to reclaim it.

Then, at 38 weeks, my waters broke at 4am. At the hospital I was confirmed to be 3cm dilated and fully effaced with regular contractions. A scan confirmed baby was still breech. I was doing well, and a part of me wanted to keep going with labour. My dream still lingered in my head and knowing that my body was already doing it made me want to keep going. But I kept thinking about the risks associated with breech birth. Knowing I won’t be able to get that oxytocin flowing if I decided to keep going with labour, I made the empowered decision to go ahead with the C-section, which was now classed as a Category 2 emergency.

There were some intense moments. My cannula took two attempts to be fitted. My spinal anaesthetic was incredibly painful and had to be topped up because it didn’t numb me fully the first time. Even through all that pain, I walked myself to theatre, bleeding and leaking amniotic fluid, ready to meet my baby. Then, everything happened very fast. Baby’s heartbeat, as well as my own, slowed down dangerously, so everybody in the operating room had to move rapidly. There was no time to lower the curtain for me to see my baby being born. My partner didn’t get to cut the cord immediately after birth. I couldn’t do immediate skin to skin. In all this chaos, I was glad that our midwife managed to capture photographs of this incredible moment.

And just like that, Isla was born.

She didn’t cry at first. I was so out of it I didn’t even register her arrival. She wasn’t breathing for what seemed like eternity, but once she took that first breath, everybody relaxed and she was placed on my bare chest. I held her for the first few hours, just her and me in our little bubble. She was already latched on before they wheeled me out of theatre. Breastfeeding was tricky at first, but with incredible support of our wonderful midwife, we found our rhythm.

There were bumps in the hospital stay. It was way too hot on the postnatal ward and the night staff didn’t check if Isla was feeding well throughout the night. But the day staff made up for it, especially our lovely midwife who fiercely advocated for me and my daughter.

I was afraid of so many things: the catheter, the first pee, the pain, but most of it was so much easier and less scary than I imagined. The worst part? Honestly, the gas! I thought I was going to split along my scar from passing so much of it that first night. Nobody really talks about it, so I was utterly unprepared for that!

We came home the next day. It’s been raw, intense, emotional and completely life-changing, but I wouldn’t change a thing.