Anastasia Brien has kept a diary of her first pregnancy for iVillage. She and her husband, Nick, are now anxiously awaiting the birth

Great expectations

I had so many of these for the birth of my first child - a calm environment with candles and aromatherapy, a water birth without drugs, a peaceful bonding with Nick, me and the baby afterwards, immediate and natural breastfeeding. It would be the most wonderful, memorable and momentous event in my life. Well, I got the memorable and momentous part, but that's about it.

Let's start with my birth plan

Not one of my expectations came true. I'd decided on a non-medicated water birth. Everything I read about birth seemed to agree on one thing: if you had pain relief you wouldn't be able to push very well, and if you couldn't push very well, they'd start to bring out baby-removal equipment, which consisted of sinister things like scissors and scalpels. In reality however, I ended up having every single intervention that the NHS had on offer.

At 40 weeks and 5 long days, I started

With strong pains in my lower back and immediately suspected my baby might be in the OP position, lying with its spine against my spine. I had already developed a fear of what they call 'back labour'. I read an account of one woman's birth in a baby magazine: back labour can be three times as long as normal labour and is much more painful. This is because the baby is pressing on the nerves in your spine and makes very slow progress as it's facing the wrong way. Anyway, at 5pm on a Saturday, I wrote in my journal, 'this is it! I'm having our baby today!'

My master plan was to stay at home as long as humanly possible

So Nick and I were up all night as my contractions came every ten minutes nearly to the second. They got progressively more painful as the night wore on, but they never got closer together. All I can say is, it really, really hurt. It had already been 12 hours and all I felt was the sensation of electric needles being stuck in my lower back.

At 8am my friend Sophie (my 'doula') came over. I asked her to be there for the birth because she had had really easy births with her two girls, and is a rock of calm and support. She and Nick coached me through the pain as it became stronger and finally faster. When my contractions were less than five minutes apart, we all set off for hospital.

Nick and Sophie unpacked my bulging suitcase and set the tone with our music, candles, aromatherapy, and even a mini-buffet of energy foods. It was agony having to sit still to be examined, but I was so confident that I'd be at least 5cm dilated, I kept telling myself that I'd be able to get in the birthing pool any minute. Kneading my swollen stomach, the midwife said, 'uh-oh, your baby is facing backwards, love', confirming my back labour fear. As she checked for dilation she frowned, 'You're not even one centimetre dilated. You're not even in labour. You'll have to leave this labour room and go to the ward.'

I was devastated

I'd now been in severe pain for 18 hours and I wasn't even in labour! The midwife brought up the subject of pethidine which was viewed as something akin to crack cocaine by my NCT teacher. I insisted that I wouldn't accept it. She took Nick and Sophie out of the room and explained to them that pethidine would act as a relaxant and would allowing my cervix to dilate so giving me a chance to sleep. She said that I could be in pre-labour for another 24 hours, with an OP baby, and without some help I would never have the stamina to make it through. They came back and convinced me to accept the jab. We gathered up all of our things out of the labour room and moved to a bed on the ward, which was so humiliating. Within ten minutes I began to vomit violently. 'Ah, yes, pethidine does make some women sick,' said the midwife. For the next three hours I felt like I had drunk 12 shots of tequila the night before. I experienced not one iota of pain relief, and I vomited and dry-heaved the whole time.

No progress

As the pethidine wore off I begged to be measured again and, with great reluctance, another midwife obliged. Half a centimetre dilated. I was in shock. Sophie suggested I get in a bath (you have to be 5cm dilated to get in the birthing pool). As I lay under the hot water, I experienced my first moments of relaxation since admission to hospital 6 hours before. After less than an hour in the bath I was 4cms dilated - officially in labour. I was allowed to move into a labour room and, suddenly, it all seemed manageable.

No chance for my water birth.

Then came the bad news…the rooms with birthing pools were all being used. I couldn't believe it. After another 4 hours in a labour room stuck on my back as they monitored the baby, I was still only 4cm dilated. My midwife, Laura, read my birth plan carefully and asked a lot of questions. She was very respectful of my desire to avoid any intervention and stood by with a worried look on her face as I writhed in pain. With each contraction the baby was butting up against my pelvis with his chin up instead of tucked down to his chest, the only way the head can navigate its way through the U-turn of the pelvis. Around midnight, Laura suggested an epidural and I knew I had to have it. This could go on for hours and the pain was just too much to bear.

The anaesthetist came in and promised nirvana by 1am

At quarter past one when the contractions were just as painful as before, Laura went to get the anaesthetist to see what had gone wrong. He came back and explained that sometimes they miss the mark. Apparently, I was one of the unlucky ones. He said he'd return in just a few minutes and do the whole procedure over again. A few minutes went by, and then a few hours went by and no anaesthetist. I was out of mind and body in pain. Laura told us that the hospital had been so overcrowded that the labour ward was closed - they were turning women away and telling them to go to another local hospital to give birth.

Sometime after 4am the anaesthetist finally returned and re-did the epidural. This time I experienced some pain relief but I was still all-too-aware of the contractions.

Meanwhile I continued to dilate

By 5am I was at 10cms but the baby still hadn't engaged into the pelvis. Laura couldn't allow me to push because the head was still facing the wrong way and pushing too soon can damage the cervix. She didn't like the look of the baby's heartbeat and explained that he was basically fighting to get out but unable to do so, all the while banging his now swollen head against my bones.

An hour later, Laura said I could try to push, although the baby's position hadn't changed at all. She knew how strongly I felt about having this baby without intervention and she told me that sometimes the baby will turn during the pushing stage. So I summoned all of the strength in me and pushed. I roared and screeched but there was no movement whatsoever. The baby was stuck. And his heartbeat was looking increasingly worrying.

That was when the consultant came in

He said he'd been watching my case over the last 24 hours and was very concerned. He told me I had done every single thing in my power to have this baby without help, but he couldn't wait any longer. I was so damn stubborn that I begged to be allowed to push for another hour. He told me that the baby was not even in position to push. They couldn't see his head and the only remaining option before Caesarean would be forceps. My birth plan said, in bold, that a Caesarean was an absolute LAST RESORT and only in a serious emergency. Respecting my wishes, he said he would use the forceps in the operating theatre as a last-ditch effort and if it didn't work he would be ready to perform the Caesarean.

It hit me all at once

After 39 hours of labour, my worst nightmare was coming true. The tears flowed as they wheeled me down the corridor and I saw Nick and Sophie's faces looking grave, haggard, and defeated. The 'top-up' of epidural in theatre had me vomiting again and I felt I was losing consciousness.

I was instructed to push at the next contraction, whilst my bum was dragged halfway down the operating table by the forceps. But the baby didn't budge. The heartbeat, which had hovered at around 150, plummeted to 50 and stayed there.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room changed completely and I knew something was very wrong

I saw an expression of horror on Nick's face as the blue screen they quickly constructed on my chest was splattered with blood. The next thing I heard was the doctor saying, 'the cord is twice around his neck.' This was how we discovered we had a boy. As Lucas was rushed to the warming table to be checked, I was screaming, 'Is he OK?' and no one answered for what seemed like hours. Laura finally appeared and told us he was fine, and Lucas was brought over to Nick and me. He looked angry, red and perfect in every way. All nine pounds three ounces of him.

Three weeks later I am still upset about how Lucas' birth differed from my expectations

I realise that had I not been so set on my birth plan, I would have had a Caesarean hours earlier and avoided a great deal of the stress and pain that both Lucas and I endured. The surgeon visited me in hospital the following day and told me that barring the OP position and the cord around his neck, he still didn't believe that my pelvis was wide enough to accommodate Lucas' 37cm head, and that a Caesarean would have been necessary anyway. Ah, hindsight.

One of the childbirth conspiracy theories is indeed true.

It is all worth it, without a shadow of a doubt. When I look down at the rosy cheeks of my gorgeous, chubby, greedy son, I marvel at his perfection and forget all about my painful ordeal. I'm glad I have it in print though. I'll have to re-read this story if I ever get broody again.

Read about Josa Young's birth story.

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