“We have 7 minutes maximum to get your daughter out of your womb”: letter to my midwife who saved our lives

I was lucky, I know: my pregnancy was very serene. No particular problems, no pathologies at risk, no fetal problems, nothing at all. A very normal pregnancy, which went off without a hitch.

I was followed to the maternity ward of the Trousseau hospital in Paris 12, which I had chosen because it was level 3, which meant that it had neonatal and pediatric resuscitation and neonatal services.

Although I have not had any particular pathologiesI had preferred to choose a maternity ward that offered these services because I was quite heavy, and I preferred to be sure that the maternity ward where I was giving birth had all the necessary means to deal with the possibility of a complication. .

So it was in this maternity ward that I met my midwife, the one who followed me throughout my pregnancy, month after month, appointment after appointment, and I say it: I was very lucky to meet her, no doubt.

My midwife never judged me

This may seem normal to some of you, but I consider myself lucky to meet a midwife who has never passed any judgment on my physique.

Like I said, I don’t have a weight that fits the norms. i have one high body mass indexbut luckily I don’t have any of the health problems that can often be associated with it.

However, I know all too well what it feels like to be judged overweight by the medical profession. I have undergone the reflections of doctors, carers, gynecologists and so on. But with my midwife I never thought about it at all.

It was quite the opposite, I must say. Around the sixth month of pregnancy I had lost, without explaining it, three kilos. For once I was losing weight, I was happy enough.

At the weigh-in, during my monthly appointment in the maternity ward, I expected a reflection from my midwife, having, as I said above, always been judged on my overweight. But the thought of her wasn’t what I expected: she worried. She told me, word for word:

“I know you must be happy you lost those pounds, but now is not the time for you or your baby. Your weight is not a problem, neither before pregnancy nor now is not the time to try to lose it. »

It did me a world of good to hear that, you can’t even imagine. It was the first time I hadn’t heard a judgment from the voice of a member of the medical profession, it was the first time I wasn’t told that my overweight was a problem, was the first time I was told not to lose weight or risk harm to myself or my baby. He really took a load off me, I have to say.

A complicated start to childbirth

As I told you, my pregnancy went normally. On the due date, my daughter obviously not having decided to leave the structure and the amniotic fluid starting to fail, the doctors decided that she was more cautious induce my birth.

[ndlr : Déclencher un accouchement, cela veut dire qu’il faut provoquer le début du travail, soit mécaniquement avec l’introduction d’un ballonnet au niveau du col de l’utérus, soit avec l’administration intravaginale de prostaglandines, ou une perfusion d’ocytocine artificielle associée à une rupture de la poche des eaux.]

So here I was on board not really understanding everything that was going on with me, with a balloon in my vagina to help my cervix open (spoiler: it didn’t work), an IV, horrible contractions, a manually broken water bag, in short, it no longer resembled what I had imagined as an ideal birth.

Nothing was done naturally, everything was medicalized and I felt it wasn’t going to end.

After 18 hours of forced labor which had almost no effect on the birth of my daughter, after seeing interns, gynecologists, anesthesiologists go by, after the double epidural laying in the middle of the night (the first n didn’t work, yes), I saw my midwife enter my room and I wanted to cry.

He had just finished his shift, it was 8 in the morning. I was exhausted, my cervix wouldn’t open, I was hungry, I was thirsty and wanted to go home. I didn’t want to give birth anymore, I wanted to be left alone, I was exhausted. And the fact of seeing her enter, of recognizing her face, I had the impression that finally everything would be fine.

Of course she was as happy as I was, she told me she had jumped on my file when she saw my name in the transfer meeting and she was delighted to be able to give birth to me, after all this time in consultation for months.

He wanted to go all the way with meand I had never felt so supported in what was to be the biggest marathon of my life.

From a complicated birth start to a life-threatening emergency

But unfortunately the presence of my midwife did not help speed up my delivery. My cervix was still slightly open, I was still exhausted, and even though I no longer felt contractions, I was exhausted.

And unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. My daughter was also getting tired and this was not reassuring at all. His heart rate was droppingtoo, my blood pressure was going downthere was something wrong.

It was there, in this key moment that will follow, that I was happy to have chosen this motherhood. It was at this very moment that I realized that things were going to get complicated, that even if I was lucky enough to have a problem-free pregnancy, the hardest part was playing. And I realized how lucky I am to have this midwife by my side.

She looked at the monitor, frowned, pressed a button on the delivery room wall, and got really close to my face. She said to me, in a very calm, reassuring but firm voice:

I don’t want you to worry, you are both in good hands. We have 7 minutes tops to get your daughter out of your tummy, I know this is not how you wanted it to happen, but we have no choice. She needs to get out, for both of us. I won’t let you go, trust me, I’m with you, I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving you.

And without a doubt, less than 7 minutes later, I was lying on a cold table, arms outstretched, my husband next to me in an operating room, fully anesthetized, a large blue sheet raised in front of my eyes so as not to see the inside of my bowels which were opening get my daughter out urgently.

And in the midst of silence comes the most beautiful sound in the world

And then we heard it. I had been afraid I wouldn’t hear him, but he was there, right in the middle of this cold, sanitized room, right in the middle of these paper caps and this hospital smell, right in the middle of all this worry that had kept growing. hour to hour: his first cry.

He has pierced the stale air, he has revived that cold and ugly room, he has warmed up the atmosphere. It was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. I looked at my husband, we didn’t say anything, we cried.

A little later, my midwife came to me with a small package in her arms, our daughter, and placed it on my chest so that I could see her.

What happened next, I remember very little. I remember telling my boyfriend not to take his eyes off our daughter, thanking my midwife and having like falling into a bottomless pit.

My husband went out with our daughter and my midwife for first aid, and I, I let go. I literally felt like I was leaving, I had the impression of sinking far, far away.

I heard the doctor say he should stitch me up I had a hemorrhage and everyone was excited.

I watched my midwife come back to my side and stroke my head, not stopping talking to me. She spoke to me about my daughter, she said reassuring words to me and then, suddenly, nothing. I was gone, and I don’t know what happened after.

From vital urgency to reassuring awakening

I woke up several hours later in a room with more beds and other mothers who had just given birth. I still couldn’t feel my body, my legs didn’t work and I was terribly thirsty.

And I finally saw them. My husband and daughter arrived, both pale and weary, one from her stormy birth, the other from the fear of having lost both.

I later learned that my boyfriend, while I was still in the operating room and after our daughter’s emergency room, had been alone with her, being told by the doctors that I was bleeding and that I was leaving.

A father only for a few minutes, he imagined himself a widower in the space of a few seconds. He was terrified. But fortunately for the three of us, all’s well that ends well. I got over it pretty fast. my daughter has not had hangovers since birthand psychologically, we’re not even traumatized.

And if not, I sincerely believe it is thanks to my midwife, this wonderful person, who, as he promised me, he did not let me go.

My midwife, this heroine

He knew how to make the right decisions emergencyhe knew how to reassure me, he knew how to take care of my daughter, he knew how to think about our family, so that everything went well, in truly special conditions.

I never saw her again after giving birth. I wrote him a letter when I left the maternity ward, which I gave to his colleagues to pass on.

A few days later, he texted me thanking me for my words and checking up on us. What a beautiful person, I still can’t believe it.

Neither this birth nor this pregnancy would have been the same without her, I know that. And if you ever pass by and you read to me: Sanni thanks again and again.