Cactusgirl
Home birth hopeful
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Here is my birth story of Che Harry born 17th May 23:03. Very long!!!
I was in bed at 2am Friday 14th May when I was woken with a weird popping feeling in my bump - I moved my legs and felt a warm trickling and thought it was either blood or I was wetting myself.
I dashed to the loo and a load of pink waters gushed out. I called my doula Michelle who said it sounded like it was my waters and to try and get some rest in case things were about to start. I went back to bed but could not really sleep as was so excited that it could be the beginning. In the morning I called the mw who said she would be round later to check me over.
MW arrived about 11am did checks and agreed it did sound like waters (I was now wearing a pad as waters kept leaking). I was planning a home birth and she said that the protocol was now to give it 72 hours to get things going naturally or else were at risk of infection so I basically had until Monday morning.She did an internal and said that I was already 4cm dilated. At that point was still very postive would have a home birth as it seems a long time.
Nothing happened over Friday or Saturday. I went out of the house on Saturday and had another gush of fluid whilst out which soaked through the pad and it soaked my trousers but luckily I was wearing black trousers so noone else could see anything - anyway after that I hot footed it back home and swore would not leave the house again until the baby was born!!
Sunday morning started with slight period pains/tightenings which seemed to come and go in waves. MW came out and could feel the tightenings and said she hoped to hear from me that night.
By the evening the feelings completely died away.
Monday 17th awoke with nothing at all and was very aware that MW would suggest going into hospital. Doula suggested she come round and do some exercises to see if we could get things moving and we were working through these when the MW arrived about 11am. She said it was time to make a decision - I wanted to try and find out if it was my hind waters that had broken as if it was the risk of infection would be decreased and they would give a bit more time. MW tried calling the hospital to arrange a scan to see if we could verify this but they said they would not scan for that. MW then said without verification we had to presume it was the fore waters and protocol was to now go into hospital and be induced.
I was gutted as had been planning a home birth since week 12 - the pool was all up and ready. I got a bit upset and had a cry which I think I needed to do as was so disappointed. Then I pulled myself together and thought well if it has to be this way then so be it. Me and DH gathered up the rest of the bits we needed now we were going into hospital and we drove over to the labour ward with the doula.
13:30 - we were shown into the room I would be labouring in and it was HORRID!! It was small, dark, pokey and had a nasty smell. At this point my heart sank and I felt my spirits dropping again. I went to the loo and saw another room that looked really nice and wished I could have been in there. I had a student mw and a mw. The student mw went through some of the choices I might want to make and I showed her my birth plan. She said she would take it out to show the qualified mw. The QMW then came in and said she had read my birth and would like to suggest we moved to a different room with more room as she could see how important mobilising was to me etc and she realised how much I was hoping for the home birth. And we were moved into the room I had spotted!!! It was so much nicer much bigger, lighter, more comfortable etc. At this point I felt my positivity go right up and I really felt like the MW had taken notice of my feelings and wishes and taken action to accommodate this. It gave me faith in them in understanding me and I felt so much better about being in the hospital.
They were also able to get me a wireless monitoring unit so I could move around whilst being monitored.
I was told at this point that once the induction started I would not be able to eat or drink anything other that water which I was not aware of and I had bought in lots of nice snacks and drinks to keep my energy up. So DH rushed off to get everyone sandwiches etc. When I had finished the MW came in and attached the monitors etc.
15:30 - MW did an internal and said I was 4cm dilated but still thick (as the MW on Friday had said) but my forewaters were still intact so it was my hind waters that had gone. So she then broke my forewaters
16:00 - the Syntocin drip was started at 3ml and was told it would be increased every 30minutes. The MW said that they did not want to stay in the room watching me and they would be in every 30 minutes to increase the dose but if I needed them to call the buzzer. Also if the alarm was to go off on the monitor or the drip to buzz them. The equipment was a bit tempramental so ended up buzzing them a few times!
I had a tens machine which we attached and set off at the lowest setting that I could feel.
I then spent a couple of hours chatting to DH and doula, bouncing on my birth ball (which I had taken in). DH even got in a quick nap.
Quite quickly the contractions came on but very manageable at first and was able to chat through them.
18:00 - the contractions were getting much stronger and I was having to concentrate and breathe through them. About 3 every 10mins. I wanted a wee - so DH took me to the loo attached to the drip. When in there I said I felt like I wanted a poo and he panicked as had been told that was what the pushing phase felt like. He rushed and asked the mw who said it would be fine. I asked DH to leave the loo as did not want to poo in front of him and the doula came in to make sure I was ok. All of a sudden it all got very intense and the contractions became extremely strong and I was still on the loo. I heard the MW say I needed to get back into the room as the baby's heart rate appeared to be dropping and she was not sure if it was or if the monitor had come loose. I could feel myself spiralling out of control a bit at this stage and started freaking out. I wanted to leave the toilet but did not want to make the journey back to the room even though it was only a matter of yards. I stood up and said that I felt sick and then promptly puked in the sink and then into a bowl they gave me.
When back in the room MW did an internal and said I was now 7cm but my heart rate was irratic and they were concerned that maybe I had an infection due to the waters breaking early so they administered some IV antibiotics.
I had to REALLY concentrate at this point to pull myself back together. I was very conscious that this was a turning point and if I did not pull myself together now then things would be taken out of my control. I tried to remember everything I had learnt about the fear-tension-pain theory and the hypnobirthing. I kneeled on the bed resting against the head rest with some pillows on. I started to feel like I was not going to cope with the pain as it became so intense and was worried that would need to be given diamorphone or an epidural if it got much worse but then everyone remembered that I was still only using the tens at that point and could go onto gas and air if I wanted to!!! So I started on the gas and air. I LOVED the gas and air. It really helped me to focus my breathing which I had been doing for hypnobirthing CD. I breathed in deeply and then imagined as I blew out that I was blowing bubbles long and slowly like when I was a child and it was great. I really got into some kind of zone of doing this and concentrating on my music that was playing. I could not concentrate on doing that and doing the boost on the tens so between them my DH or doula pressed the boost when I started to use the gas and air as that indicated the start of the contraction - and it all became manageable again. With the G&A I loved the fact when you stopped inhaling it you felt normal again within a few breathes. Apparently I was in this position for 2.5hours but it felt like about 30mins.
At one point I asked for someone to put my hairband on as my hair was getting on my nerves - my DH went to get it and put it on my head John MacEnroe stylee and apparently I was like 'no NOT like that - do it again' so he tried to do it again and I was like 'no let Michelle do it you don't know you are a boy'. Luckily got it right or else would have looked like an extra on the 118 adverts!!
21:15 - I think I went through transition and felt completely exhausted and started to say that I could not do it any more I was too tired etc
21:30 - started to feel the urge to push, MW checked and said I was 10cm. They asked if I wanted to use the birthing stool so transferred onto that. leaning back against my DH. MW then had to change shift so had new MW in charge I pushed for 60mins and thought I was nearly there as MW kept saying how well I was doing etc. But after 60mins MW said that protocol meant she had to refer to a doctor as to whether I needed intervention or could push for longer. I said I wanted longer to try. (apparently at that point the MW said to my doula she thought I would end up with intervention as the pushing did not seem to be going anywhere). She came back and said the dr had agreed to a bit longer. I knew then I needed to get the LO out on my own asap. With the first push of a contraction I gave what I felt was 100% but then with the 2nd and 3rd push I gave it even more even though it did not feel possible to push any harder. With each harder push I could feel the difference of something opening and the MW and doula were getting excited with the harder pushes saying 'that's it, that's the one'. I was saying that the pain in my back was soooo bad but it turned out that afterwards DH realised the tens on the lower back had come off so was not feeling any of the boosts there!
I ended up pushing for 90mins - when the head was crowning - OMG the burning!! Unbelieveable!! Even though I had read about it it was nothing like I was prepared for!! I touched the LO's head whilst it was crowning and it felt all squishy. MW told me to pant for a while and then when to start pushing again. I touched the LO head when I was out and went 'ewww!' it just felt so weird having a head coming out of me!! Pretty soon Che Harry was born at 23:03 - first thing they said was he was a big one! They put him on my chest and said they needed to cut the cord - I said I wanted the cord to pulsate but they said the cord was around his neck and needed to be cut. It was cut and he was taken to have some oxygen and started crying after about 30seconds. I had wanted a physiological 3rd stage but ended up having the injection and the placenta came out within a few minutes.
As soon as the MW was happy LO was breathing they put him back on my chest for skin to skin which was wonderful. We were left on our own for ages which was great as I was worried once we went up to the maternity ward DH would be asked to leave. Che started rooting and looking for the boob. He took ages to latch on he kept nudging. licking and kissing it but not latching on. Finally after about an hour he latched and had a feed. I then gave Che to DH whilst I went for a shower.
About 3am (4hours after the birth) we moved up to the maternity ward, very kindly the MW had arranged a private room for us. We were told we would need to stay in for 24hours because of my waters breaking early so that meant 2 nights due to birth being 23:00. DH and doula left at about 3:30am. Got about 30mins sleep as in complete shock that had a baby, could not stop looking at him.
Next day things started going a bit pearshaped! I realised I had not had a wee - I kept feeling a desperate urge - rushing to the loo and then it being very painful but nothing coming out. Like a bad bad UTI. This was happening with more frequency and becoming more painful. By 3pm the grandparents arrived for visiting and I was in complete agony and could hardly talk. Once visiting time was over I asked DH to get the MW, I was sweating and the pain was worse than the labour! They ran me a hot bath to see if that relaxed me to wee which is didn't. They then did an in and out catheter and drained 2litres of urine immediately!! The relief was amazing! 5hours later still had not wee'd and the agony had returned so they decided to put in a permanent catheter for 24 hours to see if after that time I wee'd. Which would also mean a 3rd night in hospital. Soooo much urine drained from me in that 24hours - I think it was about 10-12litres and when I look at my body now I must have been retaining water soooo badly as it is almost unrecognisable from the end of pregnancy! They removed the cathether after 24 hours and STILL could not wee. So they recatheterised and said they would leave it for 7 days (I would be able to go home) and hopefully the swelling/trauma would have passed at this point and would be able to wee then.
By this time Che had a tinge of yellow and the MW said she wanted to test for jaundice. When the results came back they were just over the border of acceptable so they started on phototherapy. This was in 8hours rounds with a test in between which took about 3hours to get the results and then another 8hours therapy etc etc. This seems to go on and on until the Sunday when we were finally discharged to go home after 6 nights in hospital!! So for someone that did not want to even go to hospital ended up with 6night stay!!
But I tried to stay positive and use the time to get fully to grips with breast feeding whilst having support at the press of a buzzer and by the time we left we were pros!!
And despite not getting my planned home birth I still feel I had an extremely positive birth experience (not so much the days following!) and as soon as I had given birth I said I wanted to do it again. I am now almost jealous of people getting to go through the process as I want to experience it again!! Bearing in mind that last year I watched a programme on birth and had a mini panic attack that I would never be able to do anything like that it is a complete turnaround!!
Well done if you have read this far!!
Here are some photos of my little man at a day old.
I was in bed at 2am Friday 14th May when I was woken with a weird popping feeling in my bump - I moved my legs and felt a warm trickling and thought it was either blood or I was wetting myself.
I dashed to the loo and a load of pink waters gushed out. I called my doula Michelle who said it sounded like it was my waters and to try and get some rest in case things were about to start. I went back to bed but could not really sleep as was so excited that it could be the beginning. In the morning I called the mw who said she would be round later to check me over.
MW arrived about 11am did checks and agreed it did sound like waters (I was now wearing a pad as waters kept leaking). I was planning a home birth and she said that the protocol was now to give it 72 hours to get things going naturally or else were at risk of infection so I basically had until Monday morning.She did an internal and said that I was already 4cm dilated. At that point was still very postive would have a home birth as it seems a long time.
Nothing happened over Friday or Saturday. I went out of the house on Saturday and had another gush of fluid whilst out which soaked through the pad and it soaked my trousers but luckily I was wearing black trousers so noone else could see anything - anyway after that I hot footed it back home and swore would not leave the house again until the baby was born!!
Sunday morning started with slight period pains/tightenings which seemed to come and go in waves. MW came out and could feel the tightenings and said she hoped to hear from me that night.
By the evening the feelings completely died away.
Monday 17th awoke with nothing at all and was very aware that MW would suggest going into hospital. Doula suggested she come round and do some exercises to see if we could get things moving and we were working through these when the MW arrived about 11am. She said it was time to make a decision - I wanted to try and find out if it was my hind waters that had broken as if it was the risk of infection would be decreased and they would give a bit more time. MW tried calling the hospital to arrange a scan to see if we could verify this but they said they would not scan for that. MW then said without verification we had to presume it was the fore waters and protocol was to now go into hospital and be induced.
I was gutted as had been planning a home birth since week 12 - the pool was all up and ready. I got a bit upset and had a cry which I think I needed to do as was so disappointed. Then I pulled myself together and thought well if it has to be this way then so be it. Me and DH gathered up the rest of the bits we needed now we were going into hospital and we drove over to the labour ward with the doula.
13:30 - we were shown into the room I would be labouring in and it was HORRID!! It was small, dark, pokey and had a nasty smell. At this point my heart sank and I felt my spirits dropping again. I went to the loo and saw another room that looked really nice and wished I could have been in there. I had a student mw and a mw. The student mw went through some of the choices I might want to make and I showed her my birth plan. She said she would take it out to show the qualified mw. The QMW then came in and said she had read my birth and would like to suggest we moved to a different room with more room as she could see how important mobilising was to me etc and she realised how much I was hoping for the home birth. And we were moved into the room I had spotted!!! It was so much nicer much bigger, lighter, more comfortable etc. At this point I felt my positivity go right up and I really felt like the MW had taken notice of my feelings and wishes and taken action to accommodate this. It gave me faith in them in understanding me and I felt so much better about being in the hospital.
They were also able to get me a wireless monitoring unit so I could move around whilst being monitored.
I was told at this point that once the induction started I would not be able to eat or drink anything other that water which I was not aware of and I had bought in lots of nice snacks and drinks to keep my energy up. So DH rushed off to get everyone sandwiches etc. When I had finished the MW came in and attached the monitors etc.
15:30 - MW did an internal and said I was 4cm dilated but still thick (as the MW on Friday had said) but my forewaters were still intact so it was my hind waters that had gone. So she then broke my forewaters
16:00 - the Syntocin drip was started at 3ml and was told it would be increased every 30minutes. The MW said that they did not want to stay in the room watching me and they would be in every 30 minutes to increase the dose but if I needed them to call the buzzer. Also if the alarm was to go off on the monitor or the drip to buzz them. The equipment was a bit tempramental so ended up buzzing them a few times!
I had a tens machine which we attached and set off at the lowest setting that I could feel.
I then spent a couple of hours chatting to DH and doula, bouncing on my birth ball (which I had taken in). DH even got in a quick nap.
Quite quickly the contractions came on but very manageable at first and was able to chat through them.
18:00 - the contractions were getting much stronger and I was having to concentrate and breathe through them. About 3 every 10mins. I wanted a wee - so DH took me to the loo attached to the drip. When in there I said I felt like I wanted a poo and he panicked as had been told that was what the pushing phase felt like. He rushed and asked the mw who said it would be fine. I asked DH to leave the loo as did not want to poo in front of him and the doula came in to make sure I was ok. All of a sudden it all got very intense and the contractions became extremely strong and I was still on the loo. I heard the MW say I needed to get back into the room as the baby's heart rate appeared to be dropping and she was not sure if it was or if the monitor had come loose. I could feel myself spiralling out of control a bit at this stage and started freaking out. I wanted to leave the toilet but did not want to make the journey back to the room even though it was only a matter of yards. I stood up and said that I felt sick and then promptly puked in the sink and then into a bowl they gave me.
When back in the room MW did an internal and said I was now 7cm but my heart rate was irratic and they were concerned that maybe I had an infection due to the waters breaking early so they administered some IV antibiotics.
I had to REALLY concentrate at this point to pull myself back together. I was very conscious that this was a turning point and if I did not pull myself together now then things would be taken out of my control. I tried to remember everything I had learnt about the fear-tension-pain theory and the hypnobirthing. I kneeled on the bed resting against the head rest with some pillows on. I started to feel like I was not going to cope with the pain as it became so intense and was worried that would need to be given diamorphone or an epidural if it got much worse but then everyone remembered that I was still only using the tens at that point and could go onto gas and air if I wanted to!!! So I started on the gas and air. I LOVED the gas and air. It really helped me to focus my breathing which I had been doing for hypnobirthing CD. I breathed in deeply and then imagined as I blew out that I was blowing bubbles long and slowly like when I was a child and it was great. I really got into some kind of zone of doing this and concentrating on my music that was playing. I could not concentrate on doing that and doing the boost on the tens so between them my DH or doula pressed the boost when I started to use the gas and air as that indicated the start of the contraction - and it all became manageable again. With the G&A I loved the fact when you stopped inhaling it you felt normal again within a few breathes. Apparently I was in this position for 2.5hours but it felt like about 30mins.
At one point I asked for someone to put my hairband on as my hair was getting on my nerves - my DH went to get it and put it on my head John MacEnroe stylee and apparently I was like 'no NOT like that - do it again' so he tried to do it again and I was like 'no let Michelle do it you don't know you are a boy'. Luckily got it right or else would have looked like an extra on the 118 adverts!!
21:15 - I think I went through transition and felt completely exhausted and started to say that I could not do it any more I was too tired etc
21:30 - started to feel the urge to push, MW checked and said I was 10cm. They asked if I wanted to use the birthing stool so transferred onto that. leaning back against my DH. MW then had to change shift so had new MW in charge I pushed for 60mins and thought I was nearly there as MW kept saying how well I was doing etc. But after 60mins MW said that protocol meant she had to refer to a doctor as to whether I needed intervention or could push for longer. I said I wanted longer to try. (apparently at that point the MW said to my doula she thought I would end up with intervention as the pushing did not seem to be going anywhere). She came back and said the dr had agreed to a bit longer. I knew then I needed to get the LO out on my own asap. With the first push of a contraction I gave what I felt was 100% but then with the 2nd and 3rd push I gave it even more even though it did not feel possible to push any harder. With each harder push I could feel the difference of something opening and the MW and doula were getting excited with the harder pushes saying 'that's it, that's the one'. I was saying that the pain in my back was soooo bad but it turned out that afterwards DH realised the tens on the lower back had come off so was not feeling any of the boosts there!
I ended up pushing for 90mins - when the head was crowning - OMG the burning!! Unbelieveable!! Even though I had read about it it was nothing like I was prepared for!! I touched the LO's head whilst it was crowning and it felt all squishy. MW told me to pant for a while and then when to start pushing again. I touched the LO head when I was out and went 'ewww!' it just felt so weird having a head coming out of me!! Pretty soon Che Harry was born at 23:03 - first thing they said was he was a big one! They put him on my chest and said they needed to cut the cord - I said I wanted the cord to pulsate but they said the cord was around his neck and needed to be cut. It was cut and he was taken to have some oxygen and started crying after about 30seconds. I had wanted a physiological 3rd stage but ended up having the injection and the placenta came out within a few minutes.
As soon as the MW was happy LO was breathing they put him back on my chest for skin to skin which was wonderful. We were left on our own for ages which was great as I was worried once we went up to the maternity ward DH would be asked to leave. Che started rooting and looking for the boob. He took ages to latch on he kept nudging. licking and kissing it but not latching on. Finally after about an hour he latched and had a feed. I then gave Che to DH whilst I went for a shower.
About 3am (4hours after the birth) we moved up to the maternity ward, very kindly the MW had arranged a private room for us. We were told we would need to stay in for 24hours because of my waters breaking early so that meant 2 nights due to birth being 23:00. DH and doula left at about 3:30am. Got about 30mins sleep as in complete shock that had a baby, could not stop looking at him.
Next day things started going a bit pearshaped! I realised I had not had a wee - I kept feeling a desperate urge - rushing to the loo and then it being very painful but nothing coming out. Like a bad bad UTI. This was happening with more frequency and becoming more painful. By 3pm the grandparents arrived for visiting and I was in complete agony and could hardly talk. Once visiting time was over I asked DH to get the MW, I was sweating and the pain was worse than the labour! They ran me a hot bath to see if that relaxed me to wee which is didn't. They then did an in and out catheter and drained 2litres of urine immediately!! The relief was amazing! 5hours later still had not wee'd and the agony had returned so they decided to put in a permanent catheter for 24 hours to see if after that time I wee'd. Which would also mean a 3rd night in hospital. Soooo much urine drained from me in that 24hours - I think it was about 10-12litres and when I look at my body now I must have been retaining water soooo badly as it is almost unrecognisable from the end of pregnancy! They removed the cathether after 24 hours and STILL could not wee. So they recatheterised and said they would leave it for 7 days (I would be able to go home) and hopefully the swelling/trauma would have passed at this point and would be able to wee then.
By this time Che had a tinge of yellow and the MW said she wanted to test for jaundice. When the results came back they were just over the border of acceptable so they started on phototherapy. This was in 8hours rounds with a test in between which took about 3hours to get the results and then another 8hours therapy etc etc. This seems to go on and on until the Sunday when we were finally discharged to go home after 6 nights in hospital!! So for someone that did not want to even go to hospital ended up with 6night stay!!
But I tried to stay positive and use the time to get fully to grips with breast feeding whilst having support at the press of a buzzer and by the time we left we were pros!!
And despite not getting my planned home birth I still feel I had an extremely positive birth experience (not so much the days following!) and as soon as I had given birth I said I wanted to do it again. I am now almost jealous of people getting to go through the process as I want to experience it again!! Bearing in mind that last year I watched a programme on birth and had a mini panic attack that I would never be able to do anything like that it is a complete turnaround!!
Well done if you have read this far!!
Here are some photos of my little man at a day old.
I remember trying to avoid going for that first wee after labour for as long as possible.
I'm glad you had a positive experience, CG, thanks for sharing.
he's gorgeous, and you did so well!
