Scuba
Mummy & Pregnant
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So on Tuesday 24th June I went in for my induction, was given a fairly new method of prostin induction thats meant to be good for first time Mums but that they've only been using at my hospital for the past 12 months called propess - midwife was confident it'd get me going by tea time the same day, or at least she told me she was grrrrrrrr - but needless to say nothing happened, nothing, not even the littlest twinge so I was told I'd need to see the consultant again the next morning to get prescribed either a dose of prostin gel or to see what he wanted to do next - but the next day came and went with no sign of consultant ALL day!!
Then on Thursday 26th I saw consultant who prescribed the gel for me so had 2nd induction then, felt nothing all day again despite pacing the corridors of hospital and feeding the ducks on the pond about 20 times on my little 'head south baby please' walks! So another Dr examined me just before bedtime and just as his hand was up there I got this pretty intense pain - he just told me it was him touching my cervix but that nothing was going to happen for a while because I wasn't 'favourable'... So my OH head off home for the night...
But the pains got more and more intense - not unbearable but uncomfortable like the worst period pain you can imagine and after watching BB (you know me!!) and then trying to play pyramids on the patientline computer thing I decided enough was enough and had a nice warm bath to try and ease the ouch factor. It didn't really help much but did relax me a bit. Then at about 2am the midwife examined me andfound I was between 2.5 and 3cm dialated but still quite posterior. The midwives kept offering me pain relief and asking if I wanted gas and air but because I'd got my heart set on a natural birth I wanted to wait until the last possible minute before I had gas and air as I had this idea in my head that it would be more effective at blocking the pain later on if I'd not had any earlier when I was still able to cope by controlling my breathing!
By 5am I was in much more pain so my OH was called and he came straight in all excited bless him and I then gave in and had gas and air, probably too much of it because I was really sick when I got down onto delivery suite!
Anyway, contractions were now really pretty hard and were coming every minute so they got me transfered from the maternity ward down onto the delivery suite, I had the most lovely midwife who examined me but I was STILL only 3cm dialated despite the contractions being biggies and how close together they were coming - for some reason my uterus just wasn't working like it should and I was getting all the pains and everything but without it actually working to open me up, I was totally gutted at this point as felt like I'd been in labour forever! So they got me hooked up with a drip of something - can't remember what it was called - to bring my contractions stronger and more regular.
So through the rest of the morning I kept being examined and kept having the gas and air and declined any other pain relief, looking back now I wish I hadn't but I did so there's no point pondering on it. The midwife Cheryl had a student with her who was going off shift at 3.30pm and who really wanted to assist at the delivery but baby Grace had other ideas and decided to not appear before he went off but he'd said he'd phone the delivery suite before Cheryls shift ended to see how the rest of the labour and birth had gone.. Cheryl kept saying if baby hadn't arrived by the time her shift ended (9.30pm!) that she'd give up midwifery lol so for a while I kept going without pain relief other than gas and air by thinking it can't be much longer now, but when she examined me later on in the afternoon and said I was only at 5cms, and then when the pains started to get so bad that I couldn't walk the few steps from bed to toilet without feeling like I was in process of being run over by a truck (and honestly thinking I might die from the pain of it all!!) I said stuff the natural birth plan and give me the drugs
and within about half hour I was hooked up to an epidural! You first time mummy to be's I can't stress enough how amazing the epidural was, I went from complete and utter agony, not being at all rational and in such alot of distress (I don't do pain!) to being calm and confident and almost pain free - it was absolutely fantastic and from the epidural in I really almost enjoyed the labour and birth!
Once I'd got the epidural line in I had to be monitored continuously (can't remember if I was before the epi or not!) but they saw from the monitoring that the reason I wasn't progressing was because I was hyperstimulating or something, but then nothing would happen for about 15 minutes, so it was a slow slow labour!
The night shift came and took over and I got Elaine another wonderful midwife take over from Cheryl and when I was examined at about 11pm I was 8-9cm dialated! They agreed to give me another 2 hours to open up fully which I was pleased about as the only other option was a c section and despite my pre epidural pleas to the midwives to 'just take me to theatre and cut baby out' I didn't want to have surgery if I could avoid it!!! At 1am I was FULLY DIALATED!!!! WAHAYYYYYYYY!!!
The Dr who examined me then told me that I was to wait an hour to allow the babies head to drop a little more and then we would start to deliver baby! I was lucky that with my epidural I could still feel my contractions as tightenings with slight pain so I knew when to push, and at about 2.30am I started pushing, they let me carry on trying to push baby out for almost an hour and a half but because of the contractions coming lots in one go and then none, every time they thought I was getting somewhere and they could see babys head the contractions would tail off and baby would slip back up round the corner and we were back to square one! At 4am I had 2 Dr's, a surgeon, a SCBU nurse, anaethetist (sp?!) 2 midwies, OH and me all in the room and they had decided that baby was becoming a bit stressed so they wanted her out as soon as possible and wanted to try a ventouse delivery before c section-ing me.
The ventouse was really effective for me and at 4.19am little baby Grace Lily was born! She weighed 7lb 9oz and was absolutely perfect!
OH and me were both in tears, it felt like it had been such a long and stressful time but suddenly here was this little squirming bundle of perfection - honest to God the huge amount of love and every other emotion under the sun that I felt when they handed her to me is just unexplainable. There I was feet on these stirrup rest things,butt hanging off the end of the delivery bed having been cut open for the ventouse and midway through being stitched up and poked around inside by 3 people all at once and I really didn't care! I'd have done it all over again straight away for her - I still would, she is just perfect and words are not enough to say how much I adore this little one!
Its bloody hard work being a new mum but its so worth it!
Congrats if you got to the end of this loooong in depth birth story! xx
Then on Thursday 26th I saw consultant who prescribed the gel for me so had 2nd induction then, felt nothing all day again despite pacing the corridors of hospital and feeding the ducks on the pond about 20 times on my little 'head south baby please' walks! So another Dr examined me just before bedtime and just as his hand was up there I got this pretty intense pain - he just told me it was him touching my cervix but that nothing was going to happen for a while because I wasn't 'favourable'... So my OH head off home for the night...
But the pains got more and more intense - not unbearable but uncomfortable like the worst period pain you can imagine and after watching BB (you know me!!) and then trying to play pyramids on the patientline computer thing I decided enough was enough and had a nice warm bath to try and ease the ouch factor. It didn't really help much but did relax me a bit. Then at about 2am the midwife examined me andfound I was between 2.5 and 3cm dialated but still quite posterior. The midwives kept offering me pain relief and asking if I wanted gas and air but because I'd got my heart set on a natural birth I wanted to wait until the last possible minute before I had gas and air as I had this idea in my head that it would be more effective at blocking the pain later on if I'd not had any earlier when I was still able to cope by controlling my breathing!
By 5am I was in much more pain so my OH was called and he came straight in all excited bless him and I then gave in and had gas and air, probably too much of it because I was really sick when I got down onto delivery suite!
Anyway, contractions were now really pretty hard and were coming every minute so they got me transfered from the maternity ward down onto the delivery suite, I had the most lovely midwife who examined me but I was STILL only 3cm dialated despite the contractions being biggies and how close together they were coming - for some reason my uterus just wasn't working like it should and I was getting all the pains and everything but without it actually working to open me up, I was totally gutted at this point as felt like I'd been in labour forever! So they got me hooked up with a drip of something - can't remember what it was called - to bring my contractions stronger and more regular.
So through the rest of the morning I kept being examined and kept having the gas and air and declined any other pain relief, looking back now I wish I hadn't but I did so there's no point pondering on it. The midwife Cheryl had a student with her who was going off shift at 3.30pm and who really wanted to assist at the delivery but baby Grace had other ideas and decided to not appear before he went off but he'd said he'd phone the delivery suite before Cheryls shift ended to see how the rest of the labour and birth had gone.. Cheryl kept saying if baby hadn't arrived by the time her shift ended (9.30pm!) that she'd give up midwifery lol so for a while I kept going without pain relief other than gas and air by thinking it can't be much longer now, but when she examined me later on in the afternoon and said I was only at 5cms, and then when the pains started to get so bad that I couldn't walk the few steps from bed to toilet without feeling like I was in process of being run over by a truck (and honestly thinking I might die from the pain of it all!!) I said stuff the natural birth plan and give me the drugs
and within about half hour I was hooked up to an epidural! You first time mummy to be's I can't stress enough how amazing the epidural was, I went from complete and utter agony, not being at all rational and in such alot of distress (I don't do pain!) to being calm and confident and almost pain free - it was absolutely fantastic and from the epidural in I really almost enjoyed the labour and birth!Once I'd got the epidural line in I had to be monitored continuously (can't remember if I was before the epi or not!) but they saw from the monitoring that the reason I wasn't progressing was because I was hyperstimulating or something, but then nothing would happen for about 15 minutes, so it was a slow slow labour!
The night shift came and took over and I got Elaine another wonderful midwife take over from Cheryl and when I was examined at about 11pm I was 8-9cm dialated! They agreed to give me another 2 hours to open up fully which I was pleased about as the only other option was a c section and despite my pre epidural pleas to the midwives to 'just take me to theatre and cut baby out' I didn't want to have surgery if I could avoid it!!! At 1am I was FULLY DIALATED!!!! WAHAYYYYYYYY!!!
The Dr who examined me then told me that I was to wait an hour to allow the babies head to drop a little more and then we would start to deliver baby! I was lucky that with my epidural I could still feel my contractions as tightenings with slight pain so I knew when to push, and at about 2.30am I started pushing, they let me carry on trying to push baby out for almost an hour and a half but because of the contractions coming lots in one go and then none, every time they thought I was getting somewhere and they could see babys head the contractions would tail off and baby would slip back up round the corner and we were back to square one! At 4am I had 2 Dr's, a surgeon, a SCBU nurse, anaethetist (sp?!) 2 midwies, OH and me all in the room and they had decided that baby was becoming a bit stressed so they wanted her out as soon as possible and wanted to try a ventouse delivery before c section-ing me.
The ventouse was really effective for me and at 4.19am little baby Grace Lily was born! She weighed 7lb 9oz and was absolutely perfect!
OH and me were both in tears, it felt like it had been such a long and stressful time but suddenly here was this little squirming bundle of perfection - honest to God the huge amount of love and every other emotion under the sun that I felt when they handed her to me is just unexplainable. There I was feet on these stirrup rest things,butt hanging off the end of the delivery bed having been cut open for the ventouse and midway through being stitched up and poked around inside by 3 people all at once and I really didn't care! I'd have done it all over again straight away for her - I still would, she is just perfect and words are not enough to say how much I adore this little one!
Its bloody hard work being a new mum but its so worth it!
Congrats if you got to the end of this loooong in depth birth story! xx
xx
Or more likely a steak dinner and some champers!
