B
BumpyButtons
Guest
I had a sweep one day after my due date and 12 hours later started having mild contractions every 5 minutes from 6pm(also had a show) til around 11pm when they stopped entirely, so went to bed but woke up an hour later having huge contractions which were 3 minutes apart.
After a few phone calls(mum, midwife, and best friend Lucy, our lift to hosp) we sorted out DS, bags and ourselves and jumped into Lucy's car, dropped off DS to nanny's and headed off to hospital with me throwing up in the back of the car and by this time contractions were mega intense so i was mooing through them quite loudly.
We got shown to a room where i could moo to my hearts content. contractions were very intense at this point so it was a relief to have the gas and air. i was checked and found to be 6cm dilated after just an hour and half which pleased me. so i carried on using gas and air and wiggling from side to side as sitting on the bed made the contractions 20 times more intense. Eventually however i had to sit back on the bed for another examination as the contractions were one on top of another. it took a while but eventually the midwife took a look and announced i was 8cm.
By this time the contractions were so intense i was practically delirious through them sucking hard on the gas and air and completely off my face on it
I was screaming through some of them and my partner and best mate were so encouraging all the way through., i know i couldnt have done it without that encouragement to keep me going.
Suddenly i felt an incredible urge to push!
The midwife said go ahead, so i pushed with all my might and omg it felt amazingly good(with DS i had an epidural so didnt feel that urge). I could have pushed all night it felt so nice.lol.weird i know
So after just 15 minutes of intense pushing and going purple and everyone telling me to breath.lol. and an episiotomy later, Chloe Louise Staples was born at 4.10am weighing 7lb 11oz. She hollered and we had skin to skin, ever so briefly before the hell began.
So Chloe was weighed and dressed. Then it was time to get the placenta out but no matter how much i pushed and the midwife pulled, it wasnt budging. so after an hour of this, she had to call in the surgeons. I had a canular drip set up in my arm(where i lost lots of blood due to it being a student putting it in), then was wheeled down to theatre for a spinal block and a manual removal of the placenta.
3 hours later i was back on the ward and my OH said i looked like a blueberry i was so blue. I was freezing i must admit.lol.so lunchtime, the catheter came out and i did my 3 wee's and by 6pm that night was discharged with my gorjus bundle.
So at home on Monday i felt rough with a huge headache which we put down to the drugs coming out my system. However Tuesday came and i couldnt sit up without being in agony. Wednesday came along with my midwife. I took one look at her and burst into tears. She knew instantly that it was a dural tap headache and i was readmitted although to different hospital as the other one was shut due to heavy snow fall.
The rest of wednesday was spent on pain relief and laying down to relieve the headache.Thursday morning the anaesathist came round to speak to me and explain what was going on. Basically when they performed my spinal block they had made the hole too big and therefore spinal fluid was leaking and going up to my brain which was causing the intense headache. The plan was to do a blood patch which involved taking blood from my arm and putting it in the hole to clot it and then lay flat for 4 hours for the clot to take hold. Lucky for me i was the 1st one in theatre that morning and probably there most happiest customer as by this time i was beginning to feel the rench of not being with my new born
So after 2 and half hours i began to throw up and they decided that i could sit up. To cut a long story short, it worked and i came home that evening thanks to Lucy who braved the snow to bring me back to my family. I cried my eyes out when i saw them.
So bravely i carried on over the next day or so with back pain and wasnt allowed to do anything other than rest not even lift my baby or do nightfeeds. By this time i felt completely and utterly useless as my partner was beginning to feel like death walking from doing all the nightfeeds. Also i started to notice that when i was going for a pee, not alot was coming out
So on saturday when my midwife came i mentioned this to her as by then i felt like my bladder was going to explode but i couldnt pee properly.
Hospitals were rung up and the one i went to where i had the blood patch was closed due to snow and the one i had chloe at was open but there was noone to get me there(we dont have a car) so the hospital decided the best thing was for the midwife to catheterize me at home(they dont ever do this and have never done this as its a district nurses job) Midwife said she wasnt happy about this but went and got all the bits n pieces and we went ahead with it. Well, i can honestly say i will never complain about pain ever again i dont think i knew what pain was til i had that bloody catheter in She put it in at 2.30pm and by 6.30pm was shaking uncontrollably and crying my eyes out. i knew i wouldnt be able to cope. so OH's father came and took me to hospital(was a tough decision to make as yet again i was being separated from my newborn)
So i was admitted back on the ward where i had been on the sunday previous with my newborn but this time i was without her and all i could here were newborn babies. The doctor put me on morphine and i cried myself to sleep To cut yet another long story short, i ended up having tests galore, mri scan and seeing a variety of different consultants. They explained that due to one reason or another my bladder had been over extended and when i came in had in it 2litres of fluid. So the plan was to leave the catheter in for a couple of days then take it out and hopefully i wouldnt retain fluid anymore and be able to go home.pppffffftt!!!! It didnt work, i retained almost everything i drunk. This was day 5 and by this time i was absolutly beside myself with grief over the fact i wasnt with my newborn. Even though OH bought her in to see me, i couldnt just smell her or hold her and everyone was getting worried about the "bond" that it wasnt going to happen including me So day 5 they came to me with the news that i was going to have to go home with a catheter in for a week and a half!!!!!!! I said there was no way i was going without meds to kill the pain which they agreed.
So off i went with many catheter bags, ones that strapped to my leg and then an extra one to attach for nighttimes and a stand to put them both on. So for a week and a half, i mooched around the house, taking morphine and antiinflammatories and paracetamol and lactulose for bowels and antibiotics in case of infection and iron tablets as we found i was anaemic from a major haemorrage that happened when i pushed Chloe into the world(nice they miss little things like this when in recovery on maternirty wards) i was like a walking zombie except when the drugs wore off and then i was like a crazy lunatic jumping from the slightest pain. I enjoyed spending time with my little family but kept getting paranoid that my newborn hadnt bonded with me as she screamed everytime she was in my arms, but slowly that wore off and she loves her mumma now
Then Friday, i went back into hospital, had the catheter out, and spent all day being monitered, scanned for fluid amounts and praying that my bladder had had enough rest that the nerves were finally going to respond for me to need a wee. Well, lucky for me, it worked and i was discharged with no drugs and no catheter that evening
i cant begin to tell you how happy i am. After 3 weeks of hell i can honestly say i will never ever take for granted something as simple as having a wee I am so glad i was able to give birth to Chloe as natural as possible. but never expected all the complcations afterwards. They still have no idea what caused the retention of my bladder but secretly i think it had something to do with the fact the midwife didnt tell me to empty my bladder during labor. So if there is something to come out of this ladies, i implore you all to make sure to remember to pee whilst in labor. something so easy to do yet was forgotten about and to endure 2 weeks of shame and pain and anguish.
So for me its all about getting to know my newborn and appreciating every single minute with her as i've got to the point now where i'm paranoid something else is going to go wrong. I really hope i havent bored or scared anyone.
After a few phone calls(mum, midwife, and best friend Lucy, our lift to hosp) we sorted out DS, bags and ourselves and jumped into Lucy's car, dropped off DS to nanny's and headed off to hospital with me throwing up in the back of the car and by this time contractions were mega intense so i was mooing through them quite loudly.
We got shown to a room where i could moo to my hearts content. contractions were very intense at this point so it was a relief to have the gas and air. i was checked and found to be 6cm dilated after just an hour and half which pleased me. so i carried on using gas and air and wiggling from side to side as sitting on the bed made the contractions 20 times more intense. Eventually however i had to sit back on the bed for another examination as the contractions were one on top of another. it took a while but eventually the midwife took a look and announced i was 8cm.
By this time the contractions were so intense i was practically delirious through them sucking hard on the gas and air and completely off my face on it
I was screaming through some of them and my partner and best mate were so encouraging all the way through., i know i couldnt have done it without that encouragement to keep me going.Suddenly i felt an incredible urge to push!
The midwife said go ahead, so i pushed with all my might and omg it felt amazingly good(with DS i had an epidural so didnt feel that urge). I could have pushed all night it felt so nice.lol.weird i know
So after just 15 minutes of intense pushing and going purple and everyone telling me to breath.lol. and an episiotomy later, Chloe Louise Staples was born at 4.10am weighing 7lb 11oz. She hollered and we had skin to skin, ever so briefly before the hell began.So Chloe was weighed and dressed. Then it was time to get the placenta out but no matter how much i pushed and the midwife pulled, it wasnt budging. so after an hour of this, she had to call in the surgeons. I had a canular drip set up in my arm(where i lost lots of blood due to it being a student putting it in), then was wheeled down to theatre for a spinal block and a manual removal of the placenta.
3 hours later i was back on the ward and my OH said i looked like a blueberry i was so blue. I was freezing i must admit.lol.so lunchtime, the catheter came out and i did my 3 wee's and by 6pm that night was discharged with my gorjus bundle.
So at home on Monday i felt rough with a huge headache which we put down to the drugs coming out my system. However Tuesday came and i couldnt sit up without being in agony. Wednesday came along with my midwife. I took one look at her and burst into tears. She knew instantly that it was a dural tap headache and i was readmitted although to different hospital as the other one was shut due to heavy snow fall.
The rest of wednesday was spent on pain relief and laying down to relieve the headache.Thursday morning the anaesathist came round to speak to me and explain what was going on. Basically when they performed my spinal block they had made the hole too big and therefore spinal fluid was leaking and going up to my brain which was causing the intense headache. The plan was to do a blood patch which involved taking blood from my arm and putting it in the hole to clot it and then lay flat for 4 hours for the clot to take hold. Lucky for me i was the 1st one in theatre that morning and probably there most happiest customer as by this time i was beginning to feel the rench of not being with my new born
So after 2 and half hours i began to throw up and they decided that i could sit up. To cut a long story short, it worked and i came home that evening thanks to Lucy who braved the snow to bring me back to my family. I cried my eyes out when i saw them. So bravely i carried on over the next day or so with back pain and wasnt allowed to do anything other than rest not even lift my baby or do nightfeeds. By this time i felt completely and utterly useless as my partner was beginning to feel like death walking from doing all the nightfeeds. Also i started to notice that when i was going for a pee, not alot was coming out
So on saturday when my midwife came i mentioned this to her as by then i felt like my bladder was going to explode but i couldnt pee properly.Hospitals were rung up and the one i went to where i had the blood patch was closed due to snow and the one i had chloe at was open but there was noone to get me there(we dont have a car) so the hospital decided the best thing was for the midwife to catheterize me at home(they dont ever do this and have never done this as its a district nurses job) Midwife said she wasnt happy about this but went and got all the bits n pieces and we went ahead with it. Well, i can honestly say i will never complain about pain ever again
i dont think i knew what pain was til i had that bloody catheter in She put it in at 2.30pm and by 6.30pm was shaking uncontrollably and crying my eyes out. i knew i wouldnt be able to cope. so OH's father came and took me to hospital(was a tough decision to make as yet again i was being separated from my newborn)So i was admitted back on the ward where i had been on the sunday previous with my newborn but this time i was without her and all i could here were newborn babies. The doctor put me on morphine and i cried myself to sleep
To cut yet another long story short, i ended up having tests galore, mri scan and seeing a variety of different consultants. They explained that due to one reason or another my bladder had been over extended and when i came in had in it 2litres of fluid. So the plan was to leave the catheter in for a couple of days then take it out and hopefully i wouldnt retain fluid anymore and be able to go home.pppffffftt!!!! It didnt work, i retained almost everything i drunk. This was day 5 and by this time i was absolutly beside myself with grief over the fact i wasnt with my newborn. Even though OH bought her in to see me, i couldnt just smell her or hold her and everyone was getting worried about the "bond" that it wasnt going to happen including me So day 5 they came to me with the news that i was going to have to go home with a catheter in for a week and a half!!!!!!! I said there was no way i was going without meds to kill the pain which they agreed.So off i went with many catheter bags, ones that strapped to my leg and then an extra one to attach for nighttimes and a stand to put them both on. So for a week and a half, i mooched around the house, taking morphine and antiinflammatories and paracetamol and lactulose for bowels and antibiotics in case of infection and iron tablets as we found i was anaemic from a major haemorrage that happened when i pushed Chloe into the world
(nice they miss little things like this when in recovery on maternirty wards) i was like a walking zombie except when the drugs wore off and then i was like a crazy lunatic jumping from the slightest pain. I enjoyed spending time with my little family but kept getting paranoid that my newborn hadnt bonded with me as she screamed everytime she was in my arms, but slowly that wore off and she loves her mumma now Then Friday, i went back into hospital, had the catheter out, and spent all day being monitered, scanned for fluid amounts and praying that my bladder had had enough rest that the nerves were finally going to respond for me to need a wee. Well, lucky for me, it worked and i was discharged with no drugs and no catheter that evening
i cant begin to tell you how happy i am. After 3 weeks of hell i can honestly say i will never ever take for granted something as simple as having a wee I am so glad i was able to give birth to Chloe as natural as possible. but never expected all the complcations afterwards. They still have no idea what caused the retention of my bladder but secretly i think it had something to do with the fact the midwife didnt tell me to empty my bladder during labor. So if there is something to come out of this ladies, i implore you all to make sure to remember to pee whilst in labor. something so easy to do yet was forgotten about and to endure 2 weeks of shame and pain and anguish. So for me its all about getting to know my newborn and appreciating every single minute with her as i've got to the point now where i'm paranoid something else is going to go wrong. I really hope i havent bored or scared anyone.
glad to hear everything is good now and congrats on your beautiful little girl! 
