firegal
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Everything started for me on the Sunday, 3 days after my little man was due. That night I had period pains and I had a little bit of blood come out too, but no mucus so I thought it wasn't a show. I rang the midwife on Monday morning and she said that the pain was probably just my cervix moving and the blood was nothing to worry about, it was probably just the very early stages of a show. The pain went away during the day but then they came back again that night, except this time they were stronger.
At this point OH starts asking me if the pains are contractions but I didn’t think that they were as they were too irregular in timing and they were only across my stomach.. I’d always been told that you feel labour pains in your back and that false labour is felt in your stomach, particularly as my baby was back to back to I was definitely expecting back pain. So I assumed my body was still just practicing and warming up. The pains were still there on Tuesday daytime but then on Tuesday night they got REALLY bad. I was in pretty much constant agony and couldn’t sleep at all, I was awake all night. I was still convinced it wasn’t actual labour though, as it was still just in my stomach area and I wasn't getting the whole thing of a contraction building in intensity and fading away with a break in between, this was just constant pain! But I thought I should get checked out so on Wednesday morning we went down to the Maternal Assessment Unit at the hospital.
When I got to MAU the first woman I saw told me that there would be nothing they could do for me as it’s my first pregnancy and the pain was probably just very early labour. I said “but I’m in constant agony” and she kind of reluctantly agreed to let me get checked out. So they strapped me up to monitor me for about an hour and that confirmed that I was in labour, but still they were going to just send me home! The midwife said that she could do an internal check if I wanted her to just to check if my cervix was dilated, but she clearly didn’t expect that it would be. Anyway, I said yes I wanted to be checked, and she found out that I was 3-4cm dilated so they sent me straight into the labour ward! This was about midday.
I asked for a water birth so they gave me a delivery room with a big built-in birthing pool in it. I had two midwives with me, one of them wasn’t quite qualified yet, and they were fantastic, such nice people, and I felt really safe with them. My labour was REALLY intense though. Because my contractions weren’t coming at regular intervals I’d get one on top of the other so I had no break in between. I hadn’t slept the night before at all so I was just exhausted and sick of being in pain! But of course there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I had a TENS machine and fiddling with it was distracting, but I don't think it helped the pain at all. I got into the birth pool after a couple of hours and that helped a bit, but they also gave me gas and air. Gas and air also didn't help the pain but the action of sucking on the pipe helped to regulate my breathing and calmed me down a bit. It was still sooooooooo intense. OH was fantastic, trying to support me through it, prompting me to slow my breathing down, etc. He was talking a bit too much though so I had to tell him to shut up twice
Anyway, after 7 hours and a LOT of yelling from me, Finn was born weighing 8lb 8oz. I couldn’t give birth to him in the water because my pushes weren’t strong enough when I was in the pool, I had to get out to allow my body to push harder. As it was, my 2nd stage ended up taking 1.5 hours so I only just got him out in time to avoid an intervention - I blame his big head, I'm only a small build!!! So he was born on dry land, although his waters didn't break until literally the last minute so he did kinda have a water birth
. He was so calm all the way through the birth and when he came out he didn’t cry at all. I held him straight away and fed him a little, and then OH got to hold him after that which he says was the most incredible feeling 
But then the dramas happened…..
I had a 2nd degree "complicated" tear, but that was the least of my worries. As they were trying to get the placenta out the umbilical cord snapped and some of the placenta got stuck inside me. They had to get 2 doctors in to get it out manually, and because it hadn’t come out my uterus hadn't started to contract and so I was still bleeding heavily. I lost 800ml of blood and my blood pressure and iron levels dropped hugely, while my pulse went really high. I had to spend that first night in the High Dependency Unit and I was too weak to even hold Finn so OH did most of the looking after of him. I went down to the maternity ward the next day and was still really, really weak. Eventually on the day after that, Friday, they decided they had to give me a blood transfusion, so I was giving 600ml of someone else’s blood. That totally fixed me right up – I instantly felt loads better and was allowed to go home on the Saturday night, 4 days after giving birth. I was SO relieved to be home!
And now I have my gorgeous little boy. Overall labour was far more intense and painful then I expected, mainly due to how long things went on for since I felt the first pain I think, but it's all worth it
At this point OH starts asking me if the pains are contractions but I didn’t think that they were as they were too irregular in timing and they were only across my stomach.. I’d always been told that you feel labour pains in your back and that false labour is felt in your stomach, particularly as my baby was back to back to I was definitely expecting back pain. So I assumed my body was still just practicing and warming up. The pains were still there on Tuesday daytime but then on Tuesday night they got REALLY bad. I was in pretty much constant agony and couldn’t sleep at all, I was awake all night. I was still convinced it wasn’t actual labour though, as it was still just in my stomach area and I wasn't getting the whole thing of a contraction building in intensity and fading away with a break in between, this was just constant pain! But I thought I should get checked out so on Wednesday morning we went down to the Maternal Assessment Unit at the hospital.
When I got to MAU the first woman I saw told me that there would be nothing they could do for me as it’s my first pregnancy and the pain was probably just very early labour. I said “but I’m in constant agony” and she kind of reluctantly agreed to let me get checked out. So they strapped me up to monitor me for about an hour and that confirmed that I was in labour, but still they were going to just send me home! The midwife said that she could do an internal check if I wanted her to just to check if my cervix was dilated, but she clearly didn’t expect that it would be. Anyway, I said yes I wanted to be checked, and she found out that I was 3-4cm dilated so they sent me straight into the labour ward! This was about midday.
I asked for a water birth so they gave me a delivery room with a big built-in birthing pool in it. I had two midwives with me, one of them wasn’t quite qualified yet, and they were fantastic, such nice people, and I felt really safe with them. My labour was REALLY intense though. Because my contractions weren’t coming at regular intervals I’d get one on top of the other so I had no break in between. I hadn’t slept the night before at all so I was just exhausted and sick of being in pain! But of course there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I had a TENS machine and fiddling with it was distracting, but I don't think it helped the pain at all. I got into the birth pool after a couple of hours and that helped a bit, but they also gave me gas and air. Gas and air also didn't help the pain but the action of sucking on the pipe helped to regulate my breathing and calmed me down a bit. It was still sooooooooo intense. OH was fantastic, trying to support me through it, prompting me to slow my breathing down, etc. He was talking a bit too much though so I had to tell him to shut up twice
Anyway, after 7 hours and a LOT of yelling from me, Finn was born weighing 8lb 8oz. I couldn’t give birth to him in the water because my pushes weren’t strong enough when I was in the pool, I had to get out to allow my body to push harder. As it was, my 2nd stage ended up taking 1.5 hours so I only just got him out in time to avoid an intervention - I blame his big head, I'm only a small build!!! So he was born on dry land, although his waters didn't break until literally the last minute so he did kinda have a water birth
. He was so calm all the way through the birth and when he came out he didn’t cry at all. I held him straight away and fed him a little, and then OH got to hold him after that which he says was the most incredible feeling But then the dramas happened…..I had a 2nd degree "complicated" tear, but that was the least of my worries. As they were trying to get the placenta out the umbilical cord snapped and some of the placenta got stuck inside me. They had to get 2 doctors in to get it out manually, and because it hadn’t come out my uterus hadn't started to contract and so I was still bleeding heavily. I lost 800ml of blood and my blood pressure and iron levels dropped hugely, while my pulse went really high. I had to spend that first night in the High Dependency Unit and I was too weak to even hold Finn so OH did most of the looking after of him. I went down to the maternity ward the next day and was still really, really weak. Eventually on the day after that, Friday, they decided they had to give me a blood transfusion, so I was giving 600ml of someone else’s blood. That totally fixed me right up – I instantly felt loads better and was allowed to go home on the Saturday night, 4 days after giving birth. I was SO relieved to be home!
And now I have my gorgeous little boy. Overall labour was far more intense and painful then I expected, mainly due to how long things went on for since I felt the first pain I think, but it's all worth it
