Hi everybody!! Firstly, I just want to apologise for my lack of communication!! I've literally only just got rid of DH's parents who were visiting and so have time to sit down and document my experiences
Secondly, just want to say thank you all for your lovely messages. You ladies are amazing and I've missed y'all loads xxx Also congrats to Barbles - Jacob is GORGEOUS!! xxx Also I fully admit I am yet to catch up on everybody's news but I am will try to do so whilst up with Jessica for her nightly feeds lol.
Right so here goes nothing... I shall give you the very short version and the long version, feel free to skip the long version if you want to, I won't be offended!!
Short Version - After 76 hours of induction I finally was able to have my waters broken
Two hours after that I got hooked up to all the drips and my contractions started coming thick and fast! Officially went into established labour 4 hours later but failed to dilate properly. Then after 8 hours of labour my body started pushing when I was only 6cm dilated and I physically couldn't stop pushing. After gas and air and two shots of pethidine I was given an epidural as midwife and doctors thought this was the only way to stop my body pushing. Eventually I dilated to 10cm and then found out baby was back to back and that her head was wedged in such a position that she couldn't come out by me pushing. Sooooooo... I was taken to theatre and prepped for a caesarean but the amazing doctor managed to turn her and bring her out using forceps
She was born at 12.05pm on the 29th June 2011 weighing 8 pounds exactly
And I am absolutely over the moon with my little Jessica xxx
Long Version - I went in to be induced at 9.30am on Saturday 25th June and was given the first pessary. Had to wait 32 hours to be seen again though!! Then when I was seen there was no progress and so had to have pessary number two. Another 24 hour wait and when I was seen again there was very minimal change so then we moved onto the gel! For anybody who is being induced the pessaries and gels being put in is slightly uncomfortable but not painful so please don't worry about it. Thank god for DH during all this as he kept me sane... well as sane as I could get lol. So where was I???
Oh yes I'd just had the gel hadn't I? Well I had to wait 8 hours and thankfully the doctor examined me this time and although I was only 1cm dilated she managed to break my waters!! This was now Tuesday 28th June at 1.25pm ... let the games begin!! At 3.30pm after walking around the hospital trying to get things moving for a while I was strapped up to the sliding scale insulin drip and the synto drip to get my contractions moving. Pretty much straight away I started having 3 or so contractions every ten minutes but they had to wait until I was having 4 or 5 per 10 minutes. I can tell you that being strapped to two drips and a ctg machine is hilarious whilst trying to go for a wee lol. At 8pm I was finally classified as being in established labour (despite not being 4cm dilated - go figure!) and was examined by Mary, the midwife who would be lumbered with me all night!! She told me I was only 2cm... Up until this point I hadn't had any pain relief... not even paracetamol! I managed to last til 10pm and then I hit the gas and air with a vengeance lol. The registrar then came to examine me at midnight and told me I was only 3cm dilated. I'd only dilated 1cm in 4 hours and I was gutted when he said that. I cried - a lot! The contractions were really strong and really painful by now and Mary thought I should try some pethidine.
Pethidine is good sh!t lol. I genuinely don't remember a fair whack of what happened next which quite frankly is probably a blessing!! Now is the point in this account of my experiences where I would like to stress that my labour, delivery and recovery have been tough but what I went through is very unusual so please don't let my story scare you. So... first shot of pethidine down and something odd starts happening. My body starts pushing completely of its own accord and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. Mary the midwife tried to get me to stop pushing but I physically couldn't stop. We tried another shot of pethidine to see if it could relax me enough to stop the pushing and gave it an hour to try and work. It didn't. Mary examined me again and I was 6cm at a push (pardon the pun lol) but Mary noticed that my cervix was now swelling due to the constant pushing and that apparently wasn't good.
Mary decided that we needed to try an epidural as that would stop the pushing completely, allow me to get some rest and hopefully help me relax enough to let my cervix stop swelling and dilate instead. I will admit that by this point I was in complete agony and if the epidural didn't work we were looking towards a caesarean and I really didn't want that. The anaesthatist came in did his stuff and I'm not joking, within 10 minutes the pain had pretty much ceased and within 15 minutes I couldn't feel a thing. I actually cried with relief!! Lol I had been so out of it that I didn't even realise until this point that I had had a catheter fitted ha ha. By this time it was 6.30am on Wednesday 29th June and I was starting to feel like this labour was going to get very long lol.
From then until 8am I slept as I was absolutely exhausted. Then I had new midwives
Debbie and Charlotte
Charlotte was a trainee midwife but she was fabulous, they both were. I was examined by them both at 10am and I was finally 10cm dilated and could push. I couldn't feel a thing pushing though which was really weird!! I tried pushing for 90 minutes but although they could see Jess's head she wasn't coming out and Debbie and Charlotte decided it was time for the doctor to have a look. And this is where everything goes very quickly!! The doctor examined me and immediately said that Jess's head was wedged so that her chin was higher than her forehead and she was back to back which basically meant I couldn't push her out unless her head could be moved and she could be turned. The doctor explained that I would most likely need a caesarean but that it wouldn't be an easy one to do as Jess was well and truly wedged. Then the doctor introduced a trainee doctor and announced that we were off to theatre right there and then.
At that point I admit I was petrified for Jessica, I just wanted her to be ok. Midwives and doctors came from everywhere and were hooking me up to all sorts of things and reading through forms with me which I had to sign. DH was amazing, he kept me so calm and was so supportive. He held my hand through everything and asked the questions I would have asked but couldn't get out. In short I couldn't have done it without him. And he looked incredibly cute in his scrubs lol. My epidural was topped up and all the checks were done and before I knew it we were in theatre and ready to rock and roll. The trainee doctor examined me and tried to turn Jess but said "No, its going to have to be a caesarean." Then the doctor said she was going to double check and literally 30 seconds later she looked at me, smiled and said "I can do this with forceps my lovely," so she got the forceps in position, I pushed once and then my beautiful, amazing princess was placed on my chest. I can't begin to explain to you all the immense rush of love that hit me at that moment which was followed by the complete relief of her being here safe and sound. DH just reached over and cuddled me and Jessica and at that moment it struck me that this was it, the moment my family was formed.
To perform the forceps delivery they had to give me an episiotomy and I had stitches which obviously I didn't feel at the time due to the epidural. I was taken to recovery for 20 mins where I gave Jess her first feed and then I was taken back to the labour ward where I was given tea and toast and a custard cream biscuit
then DH and I were left for 10 minutes to marvel at how amazing our baby girl is. After that I had a bed bath (eew!) and then I was taken to ante natal ward.
My first night with her was amazing, just the two of us staring at each other lol. I couldn't sleep at all! I was discharged the following afternoon after both of our blood sugars had been monitored and both were ok
My mam came to stay with us for a few days to show us what we were doing and it was lovely coming home with my family and all being together. Unfortunately, my stitches kept getting more and more painful and eventually on the Saturday night I had to go to an out of hours clinic and found out I had an infection in my stitches
a good course of antibiotics and codydramol later and I'm most definitely on the mend. I'm still a little bit sore and my body still feels drained, like little tasks tire me out but on the whole I feel so much better then I did on that Saturday. My big tip if you have stitches is to use the maternity pads not sanitary towels as they think the sanitary towels may have caused my infection due to keeping the wound too dry. Also, invest in several packs of frozen peas as they are heaven on your foof.
Now to Jessica... well I am totally biased but I think she is totally beautiful and amazing. In fact she's already holding her head up for periods of time all by herself. She's not sleeping particularly well at night but being only 12 days old I don't think she's aware of what a routine is lol. Here are some pics of the gorgeous one for you all. I am so in love with her and couldn't breathe without her. Her and DH truly are my life and I feel so blessed to have them.
Thanks again for everybody's kind messages, I hope you're all well and sorry again for lack of communication and not catching up before now!
Lots of love to you all XXX
I cried a bit reading that! What a story, sorry you're still in a bit of pain but that'll go soon I'm sure. She really is amazing and gorgeous and it seems like she's been here alot longer than 2 weeks!!! Almost time for all the Limbo babies to be here, I can't keep up with the ones we have already! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Glad to hear you're on the mend now too. Congratulations again hon- she's absolutely gorgeous.
Hope you'll be putting some pics up when the nursery is finished!
