Siuan
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2011
- Messages
- 3,217
- Reaction score
- 1
Well, that was a LONG process and probably about the hardest thing I've ever done or expected to have to do!
WARNING - if you're worried about your birth, look away now... this ain't pretty. It's also LONG! I’ll put a link to a photo of my gorgeous little girl at the bottom though
So, the saga started:
Sunday 8th April
8am induction booked and I go into hospital. Midwife examines me and says I'm a good 3cm dilated, monitors show regular uterus tightenings (with no pain so far yay!) and that although it would be slightly uncomfortable, he suggests avoiding prostin/pessary and going straight to ARM (water breaking). He calls to delivery suite and they put me on the waiting list.
Despite a couple of false alarms where rooms became available before being taken by emergencies, I was on the waiting list for the rest of the day. I saw a woman come in at 10am for induction who'd been due the same day as me. Only for her to go into labour naturally and take MY delivery room (funny now, but at the time I was in floods of tears)
Eventually at 6pm after a shift change in the staffing, the new midwife on duty (a very annoying ingratiating mouse of a woman) advised that I should now consider taking the pessary after all. After a long day of rollercoaster emotions I declined in favour of waiting for a delivery room. Mental exhaustion was kicking in as well as physical as I'd spent ALL day bouncing/gyrating on a birthing ball.
At 8pm, I'd had enough, went to the nurse's station and told them that if they didn't find me a bed by 10pm I was going home (no way I was spending a night in a ward potentially in early labour after a mentally exhausting day). At 9pm I went home. Having been in hospital for 13 hours and having had no further intervention than a 3rd sweep administered by the morning midwife.
Monday 9th April
Return to hospital for a 10am appointment. Pessary inserted as delivery suite still as busy as yesterday. But now refreshed and hoping to get ARM anyway as soon as a room available (this was agreed with ANOTHER new midwife on my arrival after a discussion of yesterday's antics. They don't usually allow ARM before 24 hours of pessary)
Nothing happens! So, we wait, and I bounce, I get monitored (too much) and we wait some more.
At 23:00 I'm moved into a spare room in the delivery suite, find I’m still a “good” 3cm, get ARM and finally things start to happen. From here it got blurry, but I remember asking for Meptid (which is an alternative to Pethidine but doesn’t transfer across the uterine wall to baby) and I know that at one point I was on a ball with my TENS machine with gas & air because my OH took a photo!!
Tuesday 10th April
My labouring was all in my back and I was really struggling with it. The meptid barely touched it and the only way I could get through it was with gas & air alongside the tens machine being boosted. In hindsight I wonder if perhaps I was being a bit wussy about it all, but at the time it was unmanageable.
So I asked for and got an epidural. That worked for 2 hours and was total bliss, but then the pains started coming back again. In the end I had 3 or 4 visits from the anaesthetist and her boss the anaesthetist consultant. They fitted a booster button which would deliver 50% of an hour’s dosage in 2 mins when pressed, but could only be pressed once every half an hour (well, you could press it, but it wouldn’t do anything unless half an hour had passed!)
In the end I remember the consultant shaking his head in confusion and making a comment that the amount of anaesthetic I’d had should be enough to drop a Rhino!
Somehow though by about 2:30pm or so, I’d managed to dilate to 10cm and I was told that we were going to try an hour of pushing. My God, that was hard! I put in every effort I possibly could, but LO didn’t move down at all. I could tell that nothing was happening, I just wasn’t feeling it and they kept trying to reach baby’s head, but it was just as far up as before (believe me I felt that too!). I was getting exhausted and so I was advised that I would be best off going down to theatre to have the ventouse or forceps administered (I still didn’t want the forceps so they agreed to only use ventouse) and to prepare for a potential c-section. I signed the consent form (best writing I’ve ever done!
) and after a panic about leaving my gas & air behind was rushed down to the operating theatre.
I know that the medical staff bless them managed to get me to theatre before the next contraction kicked in and I am ETERNALLY grateful to them for that because I really don’t think I could’ve breathed through it as I was told we would by the midwife if I got “caught short” in the middle of the corridor!
I remember a lot of stuff going on at once, my drip was messed about with and I felt a warm liquid all over my feet. I thought it was saline solution – turned out to be blood where the drip hadn’t been put in properly (or something!) and when they tried to attach something to it, it sprayed blood everywhere. I remember having to sit still for 20 mins whilst the anaesthetist put in a spinal and I was laid down on the operating table with it tilted to the left at quite an angle (I think they were trying to get baby to move). A most surreal experience I can tell you.
The one thing that really sticks with me was the fact that I said something to one of the nurses about them not getting the baby out whilst my legs were straight and together and she laughed. Told me to take a look and I just lifted my head enough to see my legs were in fact as far apart as they could get on stirrups! I was asked to try to move both legs, but couldn’t; at least the pain had stopped!
OH arrived and the registrar told me she was about to use the ventouse and to push when I was told. How on earth you’re supposed to push when you can’t feel anything from your lower half, I really don’t know! But I did my best. Still nothing and so after a few minutes of them playing with the table to get it in the right position (which prompted OH to say something about how these people can put a human being back together again, but can’t manage to sort out an operating table!), they cut me open and baby was out within minutes.
I saw them lift her away from the table and could see them wiping her down. I heard her first cry and just burst into tears myself. Such an emotional moment (I’m in tears just writing about it). Unfortunately, OH didn’t get a chance to cut the cord or anything and in the confusion had forgotten to bring a camera into theatre, but after a few minutes baby was brought over to me and I was able to hold her briefly although it was VERY awkward in that position and I could barely see her through the tears/blurry eyes (I’d had them closed for most of the labour).
Francesca Mae was born at 16:16 on Tuesday 10th April, weighing 9lbs 7.5ozs after almost 30 hours of labouring. I lost 1.2 litres of blood (about 2.5 UK pints) though thankfully did not have a transfusion as that would’ve been the end of my blood donating days. Nothing went like it should (or at least as I had planned in my head beforehand), but thanks to modern medicine and the brilliant medical team we both are doing really well. Elective C-section next time I think, baby coped brilliantly, at no time did she show any distress, but I’m convinced my body is just not capable of a normal vaginal delivery. I’m going to be having a de-brief of it all with a senior midwife soon hopefully as I really need closure on it. Really, the most distressing/traumatic experience I’ve ever had, but completely worth it for my gorgeous little monkey girl
Link to a photo:
https://www.babyandbump.com/pregnancy-third-trimester/959465-finally-shes-here.html
WARNING - if you're worried about your birth, look away now... this ain't pretty. It's also LONG! I’ll put a link to a photo of my gorgeous little girl at the bottom though
So, the saga started:
Sunday 8th April
8am induction booked and I go into hospital. Midwife examines me and says I'm a good 3cm dilated, monitors show regular uterus tightenings (with no pain so far yay!) and that although it would be slightly uncomfortable, he suggests avoiding prostin/pessary and going straight to ARM (water breaking). He calls to delivery suite and they put me on the waiting list.
Despite a couple of false alarms where rooms became available before being taken by emergencies, I was on the waiting list for the rest of the day. I saw a woman come in at 10am for induction who'd been due the same day as me. Only for her to go into labour naturally and take MY delivery room (funny now, but at the time I was in floods of tears)
Eventually at 6pm after a shift change in the staffing, the new midwife on duty (a very annoying ingratiating mouse of a woman) advised that I should now consider taking the pessary after all. After a long day of rollercoaster emotions I declined in favour of waiting for a delivery room. Mental exhaustion was kicking in as well as physical as I'd spent ALL day bouncing/gyrating on a birthing ball.
At 8pm, I'd had enough, went to the nurse's station and told them that if they didn't find me a bed by 10pm I was going home (no way I was spending a night in a ward potentially in early labour after a mentally exhausting day). At 9pm I went home. Having been in hospital for 13 hours and having had no further intervention than a 3rd sweep administered by the morning midwife.
Monday 9th April
Return to hospital for a 10am appointment. Pessary inserted as delivery suite still as busy as yesterday. But now refreshed and hoping to get ARM anyway as soon as a room available (this was agreed with ANOTHER new midwife on my arrival after a discussion of yesterday's antics. They don't usually allow ARM before 24 hours of pessary)
Nothing happens! So, we wait, and I bounce, I get monitored (too much) and we wait some more.
At 23:00 I'm moved into a spare room in the delivery suite, find I’m still a “good” 3cm, get ARM and finally things start to happen. From here it got blurry, but I remember asking for Meptid (which is an alternative to Pethidine but doesn’t transfer across the uterine wall to baby) and I know that at one point I was on a ball with my TENS machine with gas & air because my OH took a photo!!
Tuesday 10th April
My labouring was all in my back and I was really struggling with it. The meptid barely touched it and the only way I could get through it was with gas & air alongside the tens machine being boosted. In hindsight I wonder if perhaps I was being a bit wussy about it all, but at the time it was unmanageable.
So I asked for and got an epidural. That worked for 2 hours and was total bliss, but then the pains started coming back again. In the end I had 3 or 4 visits from the anaesthetist and her boss the anaesthetist consultant. They fitted a booster button which would deliver 50% of an hour’s dosage in 2 mins when pressed, but could only be pressed once every half an hour (well, you could press it, but it wouldn’t do anything unless half an hour had passed!)
In the end I remember the consultant shaking his head in confusion and making a comment that the amount of anaesthetic I’d had should be enough to drop a Rhino!
Somehow though by about 2:30pm or so, I’d managed to dilate to 10cm and I was told that we were going to try an hour of pushing. My God, that was hard! I put in every effort I possibly could, but LO didn’t move down at all. I could tell that nothing was happening, I just wasn’t feeling it and they kept trying to reach baby’s head, but it was just as far up as before (believe me I felt that too!). I was getting exhausted and so I was advised that I would be best off going down to theatre to have the ventouse or forceps administered (I still didn’t want the forceps so they agreed to only use ventouse) and to prepare for a potential c-section. I signed the consent form (best writing I’ve ever done!
) and after a panic about leaving my gas & air behind was rushed down to the operating theatre. I know that the medical staff bless them managed to get me to theatre before the next contraction kicked in and I am ETERNALLY grateful to them for that because I really don’t think I could’ve breathed through it as I was told we would by the midwife if I got “caught short” in the middle of the corridor!
I remember a lot of stuff going on at once, my drip was messed about with and I felt a warm liquid all over my feet. I thought it was saline solution – turned out to be blood where the drip hadn’t been put in properly (or something!) and when they tried to attach something to it, it sprayed blood everywhere. I remember having to sit still for 20 mins whilst the anaesthetist put in a spinal and I was laid down on the operating table with it tilted to the left at quite an angle (I think they were trying to get baby to move). A most surreal experience I can tell you.
The one thing that really sticks with me was the fact that I said something to one of the nurses about them not getting the baby out whilst my legs were straight and together and she laughed. Told me to take a look and I just lifted my head enough to see my legs were in fact as far apart as they could get on stirrups! I was asked to try to move both legs, but couldn’t; at least the pain had stopped!
OH arrived and the registrar told me she was about to use the ventouse and to push when I was told. How on earth you’re supposed to push when you can’t feel anything from your lower half, I really don’t know! But I did my best. Still nothing and so after a few minutes of them playing with the table to get it in the right position (which prompted OH to say something about how these people can put a human being back together again, but can’t manage to sort out an operating table!), they cut me open and baby was out within minutes.
I saw them lift her away from the table and could see them wiping her down. I heard her first cry and just burst into tears myself. Such an emotional moment (I’m in tears just writing about it). Unfortunately, OH didn’t get a chance to cut the cord or anything and in the confusion had forgotten to bring a camera into theatre, but after a few minutes baby was brought over to me and I was able to hold her briefly although it was VERY awkward in that position and I could barely see her through the tears/blurry eyes (I’d had them closed for most of the labour).
Francesca Mae was born at 16:16 on Tuesday 10th April, weighing 9lbs 7.5ozs after almost 30 hours of labouring. I lost 1.2 litres of blood (about 2.5 UK pints) though thankfully did not have a transfusion as that would’ve been the end of my blood donating days. Nothing went like it should (or at least as I had planned in my head beforehand), but thanks to modern medicine and the brilliant medical team we both are doing really well. Elective C-section next time I think, baby coped brilliantly, at no time did she show any distress, but I’m convinced my body is just not capable of a normal vaginal delivery. I’m going to be having a de-brief of it all with a senior midwife soon hopefully as I really need closure on it. Really, the most distressing/traumatic experience I’ve ever had, but completely worth it for my gorgeous little monkey girl
Link to a photo:
https://www.babyandbump.com/pregnancy-third-trimester/959465-finally-shes-here.html
