0-10cms in 2 hrs, the amazing Dr. Elsa and City hospital - My birth story

lol so that was YOU screaming your head off in the room next to me! hahaha. I was in the shower and could hear you quite clearly ;) Congrats on the baby and delivery!!! LOLOLOLOL!!! Apologies if I scared u or your baby :)

Shaf Congratulations !! I'm so happy for you and your baby You seemed to have strongly shown, each time it was necessary, your determination It is giving me courage for my babies to come !! I wish you the best Regards lol!!! Funny how different women see it isnt it? My mom calls it being stubborn and u call it being determined! :) She cant believe I did it on my hands and knees! She wishes she knew abt that bit of info when she had us. :) Just remember, its your body and no one has a right to touch it unless u wish them to, and if anything is wrong, u will know. So dont listen to anyone but yourself, trust your body and your babies will walk out smiling :)

My verdict: Dr. Elsa: Women who are with her, rest assured you have the best doctor possible. She is gentle, encouraging, supportive, she trusts your body. She is not a drug crazed doctor, she doesn't interfere if u don't want her to. Midwives: Incompetent, unprofessional and not even humane! If you wont take the traditional path of lying on your back, be ready to tell them off. If I weren't a second time mum, I would have actually believed that cow and probably ended up with stitches and a long labor. City Hospital: Very understaffed. The nurses are nice, but they are not used to natural delivery, and they are too busy to actually give you care. To the point, the nurse was quite happy when I said I dint want my daughter to be bathed! One less headache for her! But they were very gentle with DD when she had to have her blood taken. They dint even have pillow cases when we asked. And no towels "because we have had so many deliveries today". No chairs also in the labor room, so don't take that shower till you reach your room! My advice to women: Read Ina May Gaskin's guide to child birth. I truly believe that book is the reason I delivered naturally and labor was so short. Open your mouths during your labor and especially during your contraptions. Deliver on your hands and knees - You cant poo lying on your back, how on earth should a baby with bones come out of you when you are in your back? Good luck lovely ladies! :)

I delivered a healthy full term baby girl on 15 Feb at City Hospital at 4:10am and delivery was everything I wanted for me and my baby :) Dr. Elsa - I have no words to describe my gratitude for her.. God truly blessed the day I decided to see her! :) Let me give you a short background of me. I have a 20month old DS who took 24 hours to deliver, and that too with an epidural at 18hrs, an episiotomy and tearing of such extreme that they dint even know how many stitches they put. I got 3 infections on and around my stitches making my postnatal experience one of the most painful times of my life. It took 3 courses of antibiotics to get rid of the infections, 3months for the pains to go away completely and almost 9months before I felt normal down there. Fast forward to this pregnancy, I met Dr. Elsa at 33weeks and she seemed very patient, did not hurry me and actually took the time to hear out my fears. My labor was extremely short (yea seriously 2 hrs!). It started about 2:00am. I called the hospital at 2:30am. At 3:20 I woke my mother to stay with my son, and we left home around 3:30am. I live near MCC and the ride from home till City hospital was the longest ever! Thanks to a hump at the entrance of CH, my waters broke in the car. When we reached the maternity ward the time was 3:45am. At the maternity ward, there were 2 nurses, and they were so relaxed to the point of uncaring. I jumped on to the bed on my hands and knees and one of the midwives said she could not check me. I was screaming for an epidural the whole time. She wanted me on my back. So I moved to my back for her to check and she said I was already 10cms open and she cant give me an epidural. And she was definitely not gentle. I flipped back to my hands and knees and was already beginning to push and begging for some kind of pain relief. And the stupid, incompetent, unprofessional midwife told me, at that point when I was the most vulnerable, that my baby was going to die and it wont be their fault if that happens! She said this twice at which point, I told her in very eloquent terms to shut up. Why? Because I refused to go the traditional way and deliver on my back. At this point apparently (the dr. told me later), she called up the doctor and told her that I was uncontrollable and she should come quick. Even google can tell you that at 10cms, I was in the transitional phase of labor when a woman does get a bit frantic. However as a trained midwife she was unable to cope with me for the 20minutes I was under her care! Thankfully Dr. Elsa came in by which time I had already started pushing. At 4:10 my beautiful baby girl was born. I had no stitches, no drugs, Dr. Elsa guided my birth so amazingly by telling me when to push, when to hold, she did not stop me from screaming when I pushed, instead she was calm and even called in my DH to watch the birth, she remembered that I wanted the cord to stop pulsing before it was cut, she remembered that I wanted my placenta to come out naturally and stopped the midwife from injecting me, she put the baby on me directly and just covered her with a towel instead of the usual rushing the baby away to be cleaned! She was so fantastic and gave me the best birth I could possibly want. Considering the amount of patients she meets in a day, it is simply amazing that she remembered everything I wanted at 4 in the morning and actually followed it. At 4:30am I took a shower and then had to wait till 5:45am before I could get a room, not because they had no rooms, but because they had paper work to do. Dont know why they couldnt do it when I was in bed. The labor bed was unclean, there was no seat to sit. Finally someone found me a stool to sit on and lean on the wall! As soon as I reached my room the nurse wanted to check my privates, which I refused and then she got all miffed and told me that I was her responsibility, that I shud cooperate, and blah blah! Of course, at every shift, every nurse wanted to check me and I refused all of them. There was absolutely no need considering that I had no stitches. But it was incomprehensible for them to it is actually possible to deliver without drugs or stitches. Funnily, when Dr. Elsa came in the next day, I offered to get myself inspected which she declined saying there was nothing to check! Instead she discharged me immediately. They are so short staffed there, that the nurses simply have no time to provide the care.