amerikiwi
Mum of 2
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2009
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30-Dec 3PM
I was pleasantly surprised when I showed up for midwife check at 40+1 to be offered a sweep. As she did the sweep she announced that I had already begun early labour (2cm) and was therefore extremely favourable for the sweep. She then told me it could still be a couple of days so we left thinking that labour may start the next day. A side note, she also faxed our induction appointment form for 9-Jan to Delivery suite just in case it all stalls.
5:30PM
Been having some cramping since sweep. Not convinced that they are actually contractions I hop on contractionmaster for kicks and giggles and to see if there's any regularity to them. Results: 6 minutes apart lasting for 40 seconds each like clockwork. Send DH a slightly cryptic txt, "if these keep coming you're not going to work tomorrow." as I wanted him to know that this may be it but not to stress and rush home. Not quite the frantic movie-style phone call that he was expecting.
Contractions at home continue over next couple of hours. DH gets me set-up with TENs machine and MIL comes to house for support. I pace the house as sitting is uncomfortable, but walking feels good. By 9PM they're getting concerned that contractions are now 3 minutes apart and ask a few times if it might be a good time to go to hospital as neither fancy an impromptu home birth. I was in good spirits and joking between contractions and then would zone out into my own space and breathe through the contractions. Eventually I think a bath would be nice but knew if I went upstairs I may not get out again so we're off to hospital.
Get checked out at hospital and I'm 5-6cm dialated! A great flood of relief goes over me as I was afraid she'd say I was still 2cm. At this point the birthing pool looks very inviting so I take off TENs (water and electricity not a good mix) and hop in. It's absolute bliss!! My step-MIL arrives and I announce that I'm labouring at a resort. Things continue in pool for a quite a while. Eventually I decide to try some gas which I found personally to be of better use to re-center and relax in between contractions as oppposed to pain relief. Midwife keeps asking if contractions feel different at which point I keep saying "I don't know". MW and support crew (DH and 2 MILs) are also asking if I wanted different positions, water temp, etc. and in hindsight it turns out when all my answers were "I don't know", I had hit transition. Only problem is that I was too relaxed in pool to push so mw eventually tricked me out of pool.
Got out of pool and got checked--mw was right, I was fully dialated so it was time to start pushing!! The pushing stage was longer than I thought. My waters didn't break until about an hour and a half into pushing. Approaching 2 hours of pushing, mw is fighting off doctors who want to get in with forceps or ventous. As baby's heartbeat was perfect throughout, they give me 5 more minutes to push her out-and we did it!! My beautiful perfect Makayla Eve was born at 5:25am on the 31st weighing in at 8 pounds 10 ounces!
My support crew were absolutely amazing! I couldn't have asked for anything more from them. They kept me relaxed, focused, and everyone there had a hand, literally, in supporting me to push-lol.
I was very cautious before labour not to get my hopes set on a "perfect" dream labour as there's so much that can happen, but I am incredibly lucky to look back at my labour and say that it's exactly the way I wanted: drug-free, relaxed and with a healthy baby at the end!
I was pleasantly surprised when I showed up for midwife check at 40+1 to be offered a sweep. As she did the sweep she announced that I had already begun early labour (2cm) and was therefore extremely favourable for the sweep. She then told me it could still be a couple of days so we left thinking that labour may start the next day. A side note, she also faxed our induction appointment form for 9-Jan to Delivery suite just in case it all stalls.
5:30PM
Been having some cramping since sweep. Not convinced that they are actually contractions I hop on contractionmaster for kicks and giggles and to see if there's any regularity to them. Results: 6 minutes apart lasting for 40 seconds each like clockwork. Send DH a slightly cryptic txt, "if these keep coming you're not going to work tomorrow." as I wanted him to know that this may be it but not to stress and rush home. Not quite the frantic movie-style phone call that he was expecting.
Contractions at home continue over next couple of hours. DH gets me set-up with TENs machine and MIL comes to house for support. I pace the house as sitting is uncomfortable, but walking feels good. By 9PM they're getting concerned that contractions are now 3 minutes apart and ask a few times if it might be a good time to go to hospital as neither fancy an impromptu home birth. I was in good spirits and joking between contractions and then would zone out into my own space and breathe through the contractions. Eventually I think a bath would be nice but knew if I went upstairs I may not get out again so we're off to hospital.
Get checked out at hospital and I'm 5-6cm dialated! A great flood of relief goes over me as I was afraid she'd say I was still 2cm. At this point the birthing pool looks very inviting so I take off TENs (water and electricity not a good mix) and hop in. It's absolute bliss!! My step-MIL arrives and I announce that I'm labouring at a resort. Things continue in pool for a quite a while. Eventually I decide to try some gas which I found personally to be of better use to re-center and relax in between contractions as oppposed to pain relief. Midwife keeps asking if contractions feel different at which point I keep saying "I don't know". MW and support crew (DH and 2 MILs) are also asking if I wanted different positions, water temp, etc. and in hindsight it turns out when all my answers were "I don't know", I had hit transition. Only problem is that I was too relaxed in pool to push so mw eventually tricked me out of pool.
Got out of pool and got checked--mw was right, I was fully dialated so it was time to start pushing!! The pushing stage was longer than I thought. My waters didn't break until about an hour and a half into pushing. Approaching 2 hours of pushing, mw is fighting off doctors who want to get in with forceps or ventous. As baby's heartbeat was perfect throughout, they give me 5 more minutes to push her out-and we did it!! My beautiful perfect Makayla Eve was born at 5:25am on the 31st weighing in at 8 pounds 10 ounces!
My support crew were absolutely amazing! I couldn't have asked for anything more from them. They kept me relaxed, focused, and everyone there had a hand, literally, in supporting me to push-lol.
I was very cautious before labour not to get my hopes set on a "perfect" dream labour as there's so much that can happen, but I am incredibly lucky to look back at my labour and say that it's exactly the way I wanted: drug-free, relaxed and with a healthy baby at the end!
hehe. Congrats!!!
x
xx
