trumpetbum
2 girls..boy on the way.
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- Dec 16, 2009
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Apologies for the poor structure etc but I have a laptop that enjoys writing sentences in the middle of other random paragraphs while I'm not looking so writing this was a daunting task.
On Tuesday 05/10/10 I started having the kind of pains that I'd had when my last labour had started. Great, I thought..he's on his way. They appeared regular and so around midnight I phoned the maternity assessment unit and they sent a midwife out. My midwife was not on call but her colleague came out to the house and asked me if I would consent to a VE to check my progress. I did and was shocked to hear that I was not even 2cm dilated and therefore not in active labour.
I felt like a bit of a doughnut as I had done this twice before, so how could I get it so wrong? I put it down to third time pregnancy unpredictability and tried to block out the embarrassment of getting a m/w I didn't know out of bed for nothing.
All through Wednesday, Thursday night through to Friday I ' false laboured' and nothing happened. I was knackered and sore and disheartened despite knowing my due date wasn't for another six days because I couldn't understand why these regular pains weren't kicking things off.
Friday morning 8/9/10 I attended my midwife after another sleepless night and consented to a VE ( I say consented, I practically vaulted onto the examination table) to see if anything was happening. To my delight I was almost 4cm dilated and was just waiting on my cervix (2cm long) to shorten and the last wee bit to soften more and we'd be on our way. I'm an optimist.
My midwife asked me if I wanted her to give me a sweep or leave things to themselves and I requested that she have a good old rummage to get things going.
I went home and slept for a few hours just in case I needed it later and started to feel the occasional stronger surge that made me catch my breath. 'At bloody last' I thought.
I went to Tesco and bought myself half a dozen crappy magazines to pass the time, ordered dh to be on the ball in case things happened and true to form he fell asleep on the couch. I should really have been up walking around but I was bloody shattered so settled for bouncing on the birth ball.
Annoyingly after days of latent labour things went as painstakingly slow as possible, regular contractions that demanded my attention but refused to get closer together and despite knowing that the best thing to do was sleep at this point I just couldn't. DH had no such trouble and I resisted the urge to roll him off the couch onto the floor.
At 4am Saturday morning I ran the umpteenth lavender and Clary sage bath that week and relaxed in the water for the next few hours catching up on Wags, celebs and other useless non pregnancy related nonsense, topping up with hot water when I started to cool down.
When I couldn't fit any more hot water into the bath, I noticed my contractions had eased off and I resigned myself to the fact that this was probably just another false alarm.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the bath I had a massive surge and the memories of my last labour came flooding back. This surge was followed ten minutes later by another and it seemed that at last we might be cooking with gas.
I tried to wake DH who in taking longer than ten seconds to react incurred the wrath of 'the arse' (you know that feeling of total impatience and intolerance that signifies labour is imminent!) as he was ordered to get the kids out of bed, dressed and then to phone my mum to collect them. It wasn't time to phone anyone else but I knew I'd struggle to be around them for long. Sure enough as soon as the girls came in I felt less able to cope, DH had phoned my mum and I told him to phone her back and find out what was keeping her. She'd gone in for a shower first. The cheek.
With the girls gone, DH kept an eye on how far apart the cx were coming and it seemed they were around 4 minutes apart. I waited on one passing and phoned maternity assessment where I spoke to the same m/w as on Tuesday night. Apparently she'd been given stick for sending someone out when I wasn't in labour. I assured her this was at least the beginning of the real thing.
dh asked me if I wanted him to contact my birthing partners but I asked him to hold off until the m/w confirmed active labour. Sil texted to find out how I was and offered to pop by and see if we needed anything anyway.
I popped on my 'birth bikini', dh set up my laptop with my hypnobirthing cd and I went back into the bath. The warm water was bliss, I turned to lie belly down in the bath with a towel folded between the taps and tuned into the HB voice. I barely noticed sil arrive or the midwife.
C. my midwife sat beside the bath and quietly asked me how I was, she introduced her student and let me know that they would come and go as I wanted, that if it was ok with me she'd like to do a VE at some point and listen into babies heartbeat but that I didn't need to move for that. I decided to go ahead and have the VE then so I could come back into the bath. I'd been in labour for three hours at this point but was coping between contractions, at each surge telling myself to relax, relax, that I was closer to holding my baby, that he was coming to me.
On examination I was 5cm dilated. Not the most positive sign given that I had been almost 4cm at my m/w appt the day before but I was getting there slowly. C confirmed that this baby was OP just like my last.
I decided to get out of the bath and eat, the surges were coming thick and fast and soon I wanted to get away from everyone again. I took myself away and straddled the toilet pan, interrupted only by the midwife or student to monitor baby. I shooed DH away as when he was near me I couldn't concentrate on my contractions. After a while I decided to get back in the bath. The cx were hard work and last time the urge to push had come when I was in the bath.
In the bath I lay front down again breathing and muttering through the cx, DH put my HB on again to help me and I lay relaxed in the water through each surge. In the background I heard DH chatting to the student and sil washing the dishes. Everyone was sitting around waiting on something to happen and there I was lying in the bath stagnating.
I think I may have been too relaxed as suddenly over four hours had passed since my last VE and C gently asked me if I'd allow her to check on my progress. My BP was fine, baby was fine but the bombshell that after nine hours of labour and four hours since my last check I was still only 5cm dilated hit me like a tonne of bricks.
HOW!!!
C explained that my cervix had softened and shortened so progress had been made, she advised that I get on my feet and moving to encourage my waters to break. After my waters broke she felt that I may make quick progress and we could discuss further options after I'd been up and about for half an hour. At that point I had a momentary lapse, a moment of weakness and told her I was losing the will to care where I had this baby. She was very understanding and encouraged me to try that extra half hour but I was disheartened to say the least. DH came in and gave me a little pep talk, told me how well I was doing and how I could move around for half an hour and things would get going and how happy I would be giving birth in my own space, being tucked up in bed with my own little baby. This gave me a little bit of optimism and I got up to pace the hall.
Sil took over as I didn't want dh for the moment. She walked with me, rubbing my lower back and telling me how well I was doing, and how my baby would be here soon. DH put on my labour play list so I had some rhythm to walk to.
The cx came closer and I got a little louder, chanting that my baby was closer, relax, relax, baby will be here soon and I'll hold him in my arms.
After around 20 minutes I decided to go to the loo, I sat straddling the pan rocking back and forward and as I got up I felt an intense pressure and groaned loudly and then relief, my waters had gone. I laughed out loud and shouted C.
C asked me where I wanted to give birth and I joked that I wasn't getting back in that bath again so we went to my bedroom while Sil cleaned up the bathroom floor.
As soon as we got to my bedroom I started to feel pushy, I had leaned against my bed and C placed a mat under my feet just as I started to kneel down instinctively getting into position for birth. Dh lay on the bed and took my hands as I panted through the first smaller pushing sensations. C opened a birth pack and phoned the second midwife.
I heard C behind me telling me to do what my body told me to do, if it wanted to push that was ok and if it wanted to rest that was ok too. For the first time in the labour I was ready to hold on to DH, the urges to push were more powerful than I remembered but between pushes I was able to breathe and concentrate on staying relaxed.
I must have sounded like a crazy hippy, chanting relax, relax, relax, he's coming, he's coming, he's coming now. To make me sound even more loopy, I burst out laughing when I heard an Elvis song in the background. My dad is a huge Elvis fan and would have been delighted to think his son was born to Elvis singing in the background. DH asked me what I was laughing about and I told him I was 'just laughing at Elvis.' I had to explain that one afterwards. ( He was actually born to Lisa Ono ' My boy' which is beautiful').
It seemed like forever before I felt the familiar feeling of fullness at my perineum. I don't think it's possible to describe the feeling of a head low in the birth canal before you push it out but when it happened I remember feeling a familiar rush of panic and had to breathe through it. C told me the head was at the perineum and we were almost there.
The second midwife arrived and then I heard Sil say she could see his head. Somewhere in the blur that is birth I remember C had to unlock his shoulders, and in the middle of this manoeuvre I lost my calm persona and shouted 'Jesus Christ' and then 'FUUUUUUCK!!!' and I may even have tried to bite H (or so he claims) but I apologised afterwards. It's funny because I swear like a trooper irl and yet this was the only time I swore throughout the entire labour and birth.
Before I knew it he was out and the relief was overwhelming. I sat down and there on the mat was my beautiful, grey, lilac and pink son covered in vernix and just perfect. I lost it then, laughing and crying and saying ' Oh my baby' over and over as I lifted him into my arms.
I won't bore you with all the details of us getting to know each other but despite the whole stuck shoulder and pulling that C had to do, my perineum was intact and there were just two superficial grazes which to be fair couldn't be more than skidmarks as I didn't have any problems peeing afterwards.
C told me she'd had to help his shoulders out, she wasn't sure if I remembered but said it would come back to me later and she didn't want me to be upset about it. I assured her I remembered and understood. He was born facing the right way unlike his sunny side up sister, so we assume he turned on the way out.
I held him to my breast and he suckled a little but the placenta was a tad stubborn, instead of coming away straight away it stayed put until I decided to give L to his daddy and go sit on the toilet to evict it. This worked and we had our physiological third stage to finish of a perfect birth.
He weighed in at a comparatively tiny 7lbs 9oz considering his sister was 9lbs 3oz but he is perfectly proportioned and his apgar scores were 9/9/10. The official labour time was 10 hours. (You have to laugh.)
I can't advocate hypnobirthing enough. It made such a difference despite me being sceptical about whether it would work for me. I still can't believe we didn't even crack open the Gas and air.
HB was definitely instrumental in me coping with the whole process, especially the prolonged back labour.
The biggest difference was the clarity throughout, at no point did I feel out of it and the only bit that's a little blurry is the bit when C helped his shoulder out but that was the most intense part. It was an amazing last birth, and I can't big up my midwife or her part in facilitating it enough.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca3.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca2.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca1.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca4.jpg
On Tuesday 05/10/10 I started having the kind of pains that I'd had when my last labour had started. Great, I thought..he's on his way. They appeared regular and so around midnight I phoned the maternity assessment unit and they sent a midwife out. My midwife was not on call but her colleague came out to the house and asked me if I would consent to a VE to check my progress. I did and was shocked to hear that I was not even 2cm dilated and therefore not in active labour.
I felt like a bit of a doughnut as I had done this twice before, so how could I get it so wrong? I put it down to third time pregnancy unpredictability and tried to block out the embarrassment of getting a m/w I didn't know out of bed for nothing.
All through Wednesday, Thursday night through to Friday I ' false laboured' and nothing happened. I was knackered and sore and disheartened despite knowing my due date wasn't for another six days because I couldn't understand why these regular pains weren't kicking things off.
Friday morning 8/9/10 I attended my midwife after another sleepless night and consented to a VE ( I say consented, I practically vaulted onto the examination table) to see if anything was happening. To my delight I was almost 4cm dilated and was just waiting on my cervix (2cm long) to shorten and the last wee bit to soften more and we'd be on our way. I'm an optimist.
My midwife asked me if I wanted her to give me a sweep or leave things to themselves and I requested that she have a good old rummage to get things going.
I went home and slept for a few hours just in case I needed it later and started to feel the occasional stronger surge that made me catch my breath. 'At bloody last' I thought.
I went to Tesco and bought myself half a dozen crappy magazines to pass the time, ordered dh to be on the ball in case things happened and true to form he fell asleep on the couch. I should really have been up walking around but I was bloody shattered so settled for bouncing on the birth ball.
Annoyingly after days of latent labour things went as painstakingly slow as possible, regular contractions that demanded my attention but refused to get closer together and despite knowing that the best thing to do was sleep at this point I just couldn't. DH had no such trouble and I resisted the urge to roll him off the couch onto the floor.
At 4am Saturday morning I ran the umpteenth lavender and Clary sage bath that week and relaxed in the water for the next few hours catching up on Wags, celebs and other useless non pregnancy related nonsense, topping up with hot water when I started to cool down.
When I couldn't fit any more hot water into the bath, I noticed my contractions had eased off and I resigned myself to the fact that this was probably just another false alarm.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the bath I had a massive surge and the memories of my last labour came flooding back. This surge was followed ten minutes later by another and it seemed that at last we might be cooking with gas.
I tried to wake DH who in taking longer than ten seconds to react incurred the wrath of 'the arse' (you know that feeling of total impatience and intolerance that signifies labour is imminent!) as he was ordered to get the kids out of bed, dressed and then to phone my mum to collect them. It wasn't time to phone anyone else but I knew I'd struggle to be around them for long. Sure enough as soon as the girls came in I felt less able to cope, DH had phoned my mum and I told him to phone her back and find out what was keeping her. She'd gone in for a shower first. The cheek.
With the girls gone, DH kept an eye on how far apart the cx were coming and it seemed they were around 4 minutes apart. I waited on one passing and phoned maternity assessment where I spoke to the same m/w as on Tuesday night. Apparently she'd been given stick for sending someone out when I wasn't in labour. I assured her this was at least the beginning of the real thing.
dh asked me if I wanted him to contact my birthing partners but I asked him to hold off until the m/w confirmed active labour. Sil texted to find out how I was and offered to pop by and see if we needed anything anyway.
I popped on my 'birth bikini', dh set up my laptop with my hypnobirthing cd and I went back into the bath. The warm water was bliss, I turned to lie belly down in the bath with a towel folded between the taps and tuned into the HB voice. I barely noticed sil arrive or the midwife.
C. my midwife sat beside the bath and quietly asked me how I was, she introduced her student and let me know that they would come and go as I wanted, that if it was ok with me she'd like to do a VE at some point and listen into babies heartbeat but that I didn't need to move for that. I decided to go ahead and have the VE then so I could come back into the bath. I'd been in labour for three hours at this point but was coping between contractions, at each surge telling myself to relax, relax, that I was closer to holding my baby, that he was coming to me.
On examination I was 5cm dilated. Not the most positive sign given that I had been almost 4cm at my m/w appt the day before but I was getting there slowly. C confirmed that this baby was OP just like my last.
I decided to get out of the bath and eat, the surges were coming thick and fast and soon I wanted to get away from everyone again. I took myself away and straddled the toilet pan, interrupted only by the midwife or student to monitor baby. I shooed DH away as when he was near me I couldn't concentrate on my contractions. After a while I decided to get back in the bath. The cx were hard work and last time the urge to push had come when I was in the bath.
In the bath I lay front down again breathing and muttering through the cx, DH put my HB on again to help me and I lay relaxed in the water through each surge. In the background I heard DH chatting to the student and sil washing the dishes. Everyone was sitting around waiting on something to happen and there I was lying in the bath stagnating.
I think I may have been too relaxed as suddenly over four hours had passed since my last VE and C gently asked me if I'd allow her to check on my progress. My BP was fine, baby was fine but the bombshell that after nine hours of labour and four hours since my last check I was still only 5cm dilated hit me like a tonne of bricks.
HOW!!!
C explained that my cervix had softened and shortened so progress had been made, she advised that I get on my feet and moving to encourage my waters to break. After my waters broke she felt that I may make quick progress and we could discuss further options after I'd been up and about for half an hour. At that point I had a momentary lapse, a moment of weakness and told her I was losing the will to care where I had this baby. She was very understanding and encouraged me to try that extra half hour but I was disheartened to say the least. DH came in and gave me a little pep talk, told me how well I was doing and how I could move around for half an hour and things would get going and how happy I would be giving birth in my own space, being tucked up in bed with my own little baby. This gave me a little bit of optimism and I got up to pace the hall.
Sil took over as I didn't want dh for the moment. She walked with me, rubbing my lower back and telling me how well I was doing, and how my baby would be here soon. DH put on my labour play list so I had some rhythm to walk to.
The cx came closer and I got a little louder, chanting that my baby was closer, relax, relax, baby will be here soon and I'll hold him in my arms.
After around 20 minutes I decided to go to the loo, I sat straddling the pan rocking back and forward and as I got up I felt an intense pressure and groaned loudly and then relief, my waters had gone. I laughed out loud and shouted C.
C asked me where I wanted to give birth and I joked that I wasn't getting back in that bath again so we went to my bedroom while Sil cleaned up the bathroom floor.
As soon as we got to my bedroom I started to feel pushy, I had leaned against my bed and C placed a mat under my feet just as I started to kneel down instinctively getting into position for birth. Dh lay on the bed and took my hands as I panted through the first smaller pushing sensations. C opened a birth pack and phoned the second midwife.
I heard C behind me telling me to do what my body told me to do, if it wanted to push that was ok and if it wanted to rest that was ok too. For the first time in the labour I was ready to hold on to DH, the urges to push were more powerful than I remembered but between pushes I was able to breathe and concentrate on staying relaxed.
I must have sounded like a crazy hippy, chanting relax, relax, relax, he's coming, he's coming, he's coming now. To make me sound even more loopy, I burst out laughing when I heard an Elvis song in the background. My dad is a huge Elvis fan and would have been delighted to think his son was born to Elvis singing in the background. DH asked me what I was laughing about and I told him I was 'just laughing at Elvis.' I had to explain that one afterwards. ( He was actually born to Lisa Ono ' My boy' which is beautiful').
It seemed like forever before I felt the familiar feeling of fullness at my perineum. I don't think it's possible to describe the feeling of a head low in the birth canal before you push it out but when it happened I remember feeling a familiar rush of panic and had to breathe through it. C told me the head was at the perineum and we were almost there.
The second midwife arrived and then I heard Sil say she could see his head. Somewhere in the blur that is birth I remember C had to unlock his shoulders, and in the middle of this manoeuvre I lost my calm persona and shouted 'Jesus Christ' and then 'FUUUUUUCK!!!' and I may even have tried to bite H (or so he claims) but I apologised afterwards. It's funny because I swear like a trooper irl and yet this was the only time I swore throughout the entire labour and birth.
Before I knew it he was out and the relief was overwhelming. I sat down and there on the mat was my beautiful, grey, lilac and pink son covered in vernix and just perfect. I lost it then, laughing and crying and saying ' Oh my baby' over and over as I lifted him into my arms.
I won't bore you with all the details of us getting to know each other but despite the whole stuck shoulder and pulling that C had to do, my perineum was intact and there were just two superficial grazes which to be fair couldn't be more than skidmarks as I didn't have any problems peeing afterwards.
C told me she'd had to help his shoulders out, she wasn't sure if I remembered but said it would come back to me later and she didn't want me to be upset about it. I assured her I remembered and understood. He was born facing the right way unlike his sunny side up sister, so we assume he turned on the way out.
I held him to my breast and he suckled a little but the placenta was a tad stubborn, instead of coming away straight away it stayed put until I decided to give L to his daddy and go sit on the toilet to evict it. This worked and we had our physiological third stage to finish of a perfect birth.
He weighed in at a comparatively tiny 7lbs 9oz considering his sister was 9lbs 3oz but he is perfectly proportioned and his apgar scores were 9/9/10. The official labour time was 10 hours. (You have to laugh.)
I can't advocate hypnobirthing enough. It made such a difference despite me being sceptical about whether it would work for me. I still can't believe we didn't even crack open the Gas and air.
HB was definitely instrumental in me coping with the whole process, especially the prolonged back labour.
The biggest difference was the clarity throughout, at no point did I feel out of it and the only bit that's a little blurry is the bit when C helped his shoulder out but that was the most intense part. It was an amazing last birth, and I can't big up my midwife or her part in facilitating it enough.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca3.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca2.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca1.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/mazzamom/luca4.jpg
What a wonderful, inspiring birth story. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. I'm actually slightly teary-eyed here, it sounds so beautiful 
in a nice way lol damn hormones. Your home birth sounds amazing, has defo made me think about it xx
