Hi, just thought Id put my 2nd birth down in writing and hopefully give some mums in waiting some hope of an easier 2nd labour.
With DS1 I had irregular contractions for days and finally it started properly and was in established labour from about 9pm and gave birth at 9am the next morning with gas and air and pethidine and an episotomy with quite a lot of stitches. This birth's positive's was that I had pethidine so everything was sort of a distant memory and I hardly reacted to the pain etc. But DS didnt breastfeed great and I had to stay in a night and he had formula for his first feed due to low sugar levels from not feeding. DS1 weighed 6 pounds 8 oz's and I found the contractions more painful and didnt manage them as well as 2nd time round.
2nd labour with DS2 was much shorter and the contractions were barely painful until the end. I started having a few contractions on teh Saturday morning, but didnt realise it was a contraction, by about 3pm they were about 8 minutes apart and enough to stop me napping but wern't very painful that I still didnt think it was real contractions. We went to the fireworks that evening at 7pm with contractions every 7 minutes, I could hold DS1 and rock through them but let my mum know just in case so she came over for 830pm just in case. Could still talk through them and bounced on the birthing ball. We went to bed but when OH came up at 11pm I decided I wanted to be checked out just to see what was happenning, I thought they would send me away at about 2cm dilated, but the contractions were about 4 minutes apart and turned out I was 5 to 6cm dilated. I could still walk through them and talk through them which I couldnt do in my first labour.
I decided to have some gas and air which really helped to concerntrate on something else, and got in the birthing pool - I was laughing and chatting normally in between contractions. It wasnt until about 2am that the contractions intensified that I really needed the gas and air and I started grunting as I blew out the gas and air and felt like I wanted to push but still wasnt sure as I was handling it all so well! I had the relaxing birthing music on too which was great, made me feel like it was very relaxed and a perfect way to labour.
The midwife wasnt going to check me till 4am but when I said maybe I needed to push she asked me to go on the bed and get checked. I got comfy and said to my OH I would not be moving from there again and I was right! I was dissapointed to only be 6 to 7cm but the midwife broke my waters and I instantly went to 10cm and just started pushing without being told to as my body was making me do it.
They checked heartbeat and discovered it kept dropping to 50 and not recovering too well so they called in a dr with forceps but they did another small episotomy and DS2 came flying out after 7 minutes of pushing
I have to say I hate the pushing stage and always panic in it and say no more kids lol, even though I wasnt pushing for long lol. It turns out DS had a short cord so as I pushed it pulled on the cord or something.
I only needed 4 stitches this time and cant believe how quick it all was and how well I coped and how different the contractions were, they were much much milder. Although the after pains were much more intense so I made the most of the painkillers this time.
I did say afterwards Id have an epidural next time, but within a day I was back to saying Id do it again - DS2 was much calmer than DS1 and I wonder if that was due to not having the pethidine and having a calmer labour, but then I did feel more panicy in the pushing stage without the pethidine so Im still 50/50 on that one. I also felt the stitches 2nd time round where as I didnt feel any with DS1.
Jack Lucas is such a cutie, very content and has slotted in nicely with our family and is just perfect. Im glad Ive experienced 2 different births with different pain relief options. I think next time I would def. labour in a home from home suite and use a birthing pool and try to birth in there too, but I would also ask for more regular heart rate checks of the baby as it was only checked a few times and towards the end when I wanted to push and only discovered then that it was dipping, so that worries me about the next birth - in a few years time mind you
With DS1 I had irregular contractions for days and finally it started properly and was in established labour from about 9pm and gave birth at 9am the next morning with gas and air and pethidine and an episotomy with quite a lot of stitches. This birth's positive's was that I had pethidine so everything was sort of a distant memory and I hardly reacted to the pain etc. But DS didnt breastfeed great and I had to stay in a night and he had formula for his first feed due to low sugar levels from not feeding. DS1 weighed 6 pounds 8 oz's and I found the contractions more painful and didnt manage them as well as 2nd time round.
2nd labour with DS2 was much shorter and the contractions were barely painful until the end. I started having a few contractions on teh Saturday morning, but didnt realise it was a contraction, by about 3pm they were about 8 minutes apart and enough to stop me napping but wern't very painful that I still didnt think it was real contractions. We went to the fireworks that evening at 7pm with contractions every 7 minutes, I could hold DS1 and rock through them but let my mum know just in case so she came over for 830pm just in case. Could still talk through them and bounced on the birthing ball. We went to bed but when OH came up at 11pm I decided I wanted to be checked out just to see what was happenning, I thought they would send me away at about 2cm dilated, but the contractions were about 4 minutes apart and turned out I was 5 to 6cm dilated. I could still walk through them and talk through them which I couldnt do in my first labour.
I decided to have some gas and air which really helped to concerntrate on something else, and got in the birthing pool - I was laughing and chatting normally in between contractions. It wasnt until about 2am that the contractions intensified that I really needed the gas and air and I started grunting as I blew out the gas and air and felt like I wanted to push but still wasnt sure as I was handling it all so well! I had the relaxing birthing music on too which was great, made me feel like it was very relaxed and a perfect way to labour.
The midwife wasnt going to check me till 4am but when I said maybe I needed to push she asked me to go on the bed and get checked. I got comfy and said to my OH I would not be moving from there again and I was right! I was dissapointed to only be 6 to 7cm but the midwife broke my waters and I instantly went to 10cm and just started pushing without being told to as my body was making me do it.
They checked heartbeat and discovered it kept dropping to 50 and not recovering too well so they called in a dr with forceps but they did another small episotomy and DS2 came flying out after 7 minutes of pushing
I have to say I hate the pushing stage and always panic in it and say no more kids lol, even though I wasnt pushing for long lol. It turns out DS had a short cord so as I pushed it pulled on the cord or something.I only needed 4 stitches this time and cant believe how quick it all was and how well I coped and how different the contractions were, they were much much milder. Although the after pains were much more intense so I made the most of the painkillers this time.
I did say afterwards Id have an epidural next time, but within a day I was back to saying Id do it again - DS2 was much calmer than DS1 and I wonder if that was due to not having the pethidine and having a calmer labour, but then I did feel more panicy in the pushing stage without the pethidine so Im still 50/50 on that one. I also felt the stitches 2nd time round where as I didnt feel any with DS1.
Jack Lucas is such a cutie, very content and has slotted in nicely with our family and is just perfect. Im glad Ive experienced 2 different births with different pain relief options. I think next time I would def. labour in a home from home suite and use a birthing pool and try to birth in there too, but I would also ask for more regular heart rate checks of the baby as it was only checked a few times and towards the end when I wanted to push and only discovered then that it was dipping, so that worries me about the next birth - in a few years time mind you
hope you're recovering well
