Poppy is our first and I am 27, I had the best pregnancy I could ever of hoped for and prepared for labour with copious reading and NCT classes...
She was due on 31/10 and on Tues 2nd Nov I started having contractions that never became regular but I never went more than an hour without one in the week leading up to her birth. By Thurs 4th they were pretty strong and I was totally unable to sit or lie down through them so no sleep commenced. I convinced midwife to give me a sweep on Sunday 7th and my waters broke that evening whilst sitting in bed. I was ecstatic because I had no comprehension how I was going to get through another week of on/off painful contractions and no sleep before the induction date i'd been given of 13th.
Because my waters had broken we visited the delivery suite on Monday morning to get a check over and they sent us away with tempreture checks to be done and some strong painkillers to help me sleep. It was amazing that I managed to get a couple of hours sleep that morning - in the week commencing I estimate I had maybe 10 hours in a week - I was so shattered and I wasn't even in established labour!
My contractions continued to be strong and built up but never settled into a pattern. So.. on Tuesday 9th we went back to delivery as time had run out and I needed to be induced. So at about 8am I was 2/3cm - I had an epidural and was put on the drip. I was able to sleep as I was in no pain and just chill out - much needed! Hubby went home for a rest and a midwife was sat by me literally all day monitoring me and writing notes - looked like a novel by the time she was finally here!
Progress on the drip can be very very slow but luckily I was 10cm by about 7pm. They then allow a further 2 hours for the baby to descend as far as possible before you start pushing. Its very strange to be knowing the time you'll start pushing and just waiting - although again I needed the sleep and was told that after the drip and epidural it would take at least an hour of pushing to get her out.
So we did start to push and after just two attempts her heartrate failed to come back up after the contraction. So... lots of midwives and the surgeon come in, I have to sign C Section form, the nurse tries to take off my nail polish on my pedicured toes (oops!), hubby gets gowned up and off we go to theatre. Was pretty scary to go from such a relaxed day in our room with nice music on to the bright lights of theatre all in about 7/8 mins.
I still cannot get over how many people there were in theatre!! To be honest the rest is all a bit of a blur - I definitely had an element of shock and I've had to use hubby to piece together events. One good thing was the midwife I saw all through my pregnancy suddenly came on shift so there was one familiar face. Anyway... they said that they were going to give one try to forceps before C Section and as it would have it forceps was successful. So i had an episiotomy and forcep delivery. My daughter, born at 21.49, was wide eyed from the first minute but didnt cry and had a lot of mucus on her chest so spent a good 20 mins on the table - we kind of knew she was okay because she was open eyed and moving but it was a little worrying & there was talk of going to scbu.
I was having my placenta delivered and being stitched and was so out of it - I kept saying I needed to sleep and was it okay to but no one was replying. My mum had a c section with my brother and nearly died so I was so scared and thought if I closed my eyes I wouldn't wake up. For me it felt very traumatic - I imagine to everyone there it was just another average delivery. in total we were in theatre for about 2 hours
We then went to recovery for another hour or two, again I can hardly remember this, I have some lovely photos of me breastfeeding for the first time here and I vaguely remember the first strong sucking feeling but thats about it. Then we were wheeled up to maternity. Unfortunatley I was pretty upset and emotional by this point as my hubby was going to have to go home, I really needed to replay what had just happened as i wasn't 100% sure about what happened in theatre and as I've said I was in shock I think. So lots of tears but then I did manage to doze a bit during the night and I was on the c section ward so the midwives helped me with the baby that first night.
All in all - a painfree delivery but an exhausting week of contractions ending in quite a traumatic delivery. Its so funny - you can play through every scenario in your mind but it will always turn out to be something different! Recovery from the epsiotomy has been slow and I had problems in the immediate days after with my bladder which had been traumatised by a blocked catheter but now 3 months on I'm pretty much back to normal I'd say with the addition of my beautiful daughter.
30 mins old
She was due on 31/10 and on Tues 2nd Nov I started having contractions that never became regular but I never went more than an hour without one in the week leading up to her birth. By Thurs 4th they were pretty strong and I was totally unable to sit or lie down through them so no sleep commenced. I convinced midwife to give me a sweep on Sunday 7th and my waters broke that evening whilst sitting in bed. I was ecstatic because I had no comprehension how I was going to get through another week of on/off painful contractions and no sleep before the induction date i'd been given of 13th.
Because my waters had broken we visited the delivery suite on Monday morning to get a check over and they sent us away with tempreture checks to be done and some strong painkillers to help me sleep. It was amazing that I managed to get a couple of hours sleep that morning - in the week commencing I estimate I had maybe 10 hours in a week - I was so shattered and I wasn't even in established labour!
My contractions continued to be strong and built up but never settled into a pattern. So.. on Tuesday 9th we went back to delivery as time had run out and I needed to be induced. So at about 8am I was 2/3cm - I had an epidural and was put on the drip. I was able to sleep as I was in no pain and just chill out - much needed! Hubby went home for a rest and a midwife was sat by me literally all day monitoring me and writing notes - looked like a novel by the time she was finally here!
Progress on the drip can be very very slow but luckily I was 10cm by about 7pm. They then allow a further 2 hours for the baby to descend as far as possible before you start pushing. Its very strange to be knowing the time you'll start pushing and just waiting - although again I needed the sleep and was told that after the drip and epidural it would take at least an hour of pushing to get her out.
So we did start to push and after just two attempts her heartrate failed to come back up after the contraction. So... lots of midwives and the surgeon come in, I have to sign C Section form, the nurse tries to take off my nail polish on my pedicured toes (oops!), hubby gets gowned up and off we go to theatre. Was pretty scary to go from such a relaxed day in our room with nice music on to the bright lights of theatre all in about 7/8 mins.
I still cannot get over how many people there were in theatre!! To be honest the rest is all a bit of a blur - I definitely had an element of shock and I've had to use hubby to piece together events. One good thing was the midwife I saw all through my pregnancy suddenly came on shift so there was one familiar face. Anyway... they said that they were going to give one try to forceps before C Section and as it would have it forceps was successful. So i had an episiotomy and forcep delivery. My daughter, born at 21.49, was wide eyed from the first minute but didnt cry and had a lot of mucus on her chest so spent a good 20 mins on the table - we kind of knew she was okay because she was open eyed and moving but it was a little worrying & there was talk of going to scbu.
I was having my placenta delivered and being stitched and was so out of it - I kept saying I needed to sleep and was it okay to but no one was replying. My mum had a c section with my brother and nearly died so I was so scared and thought if I closed my eyes I wouldn't wake up. For me it felt very traumatic - I imagine to everyone there it was just another average delivery. in total we were in theatre for about 2 hours
We then went to recovery for another hour or two, again I can hardly remember this, I have some lovely photos of me breastfeeding for the first time here and I vaguely remember the first strong sucking feeling but thats about it. Then we were wheeled up to maternity. Unfortunatley I was pretty upset and emotional by this point as my hubby was going to have to go home, I really needed to replay what had just happened as i wasn't 100% sure about what happened in theatre and as I've said I was in shock I think. So lots of tears but then I did manage to doze a bit during the night and I was on the c section ward so the midwives helped me with the baby that first night.
All in all - a painfree delivery but an exhausting week of contractions ending in quite a traumatic delivery. Its so funny - you can play through every scenario in your mind but it will always turn out to be something different! Recovery from the epsiotomy has been slow and I had problems in the immediate days after with my bladder which had been traumatised by a blocked catheter but now 3 months on I'm pretty much back to normal I'd say with the addition of my beautiful daughter.
30 mins old
