M&S+Bump
M & S + Baby Joe = Family
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So, if you've been around the last week and a half, you've probably seen me moping around, whinging about contractions and getting gloomier and gloomier as the week progressed and my labour didn't.
I finally had my little boy on Monday morning at 2.25am, 12 days overdue! 7lb 15oz, 22 inches long and perfect.
Contractions started on Sunday 9th and by Monday morning I was absolutely sure he was on his way. Contractions were 6 minutes apart and the midwife was coming to check me at 9am. All good - except an hour before she was due to come, I noticed the contractions start to space out.. and by the time she arrived, they had stopped altogether!
This pattern went on to repeat all week - sometimes 6 hours, sometimes 12+ hours of regular, painful contractions, the same as I'd had in labour last time, none of yer period pain or BH uncomfiness like the books say early labour usually is.
Had a sweep on Wednesday (2cm, cervix posterior and long, baby not engaged) and another on Friday (2cm but stretching up to 4cm, 50% effaced, baby STILL not engaged!). On Friday my midwife reckoned baby would arrive that night!
No such luck. By 7am on Sunday morning, having been up over 24 hours with no sleep because it wasn't for letting up this time but still not getting any closer together either, I was an exhausted mess. I was convinced my body was broken, I couldn't labour properly, was going to end up with another c-section etc etc. Midwife suggested we go up to hospital for monitoring to check the baby and make sure I was ok too and then decide from there what was going to happen. I spent the morning bawling my eyes out because I was sure it just wasn't going to happen naturally and I really didn't want a c-section or induction.
Got to hospital and on the monitor for a bit, baby fine, contractions coming but irregular. Midwife suggested we stay for the afternoon and see if I can get some pain relief and a bit of sleep and get monitored again afterwards and then we'll see what to do. Got a couple of tablets of dihydracodeine at about 1.30pm and spent the next couple of hours drifting in and out of sleep inbetween contractions, that stuff was amazing!
4.30pm, pills all worn off and contractions coming every 15 minutes but still nothing to write home about. Back on the monitor.
6pm, my midwife comes back (she's a consultant midwife and works at the hospital in an advisory role mostly, only delivering babies when she feels like it, so she doesn't usually work Sundays) and as the contractions have picked up a little bit, we're admitted - one way or another this baby is coming out! She does an internal and I'm 5cm, fully effaced and baby has come down another bit, although he's still not engaged
so we're good to go without intervention, yay!
8pm, my midwife has to leave as she's got kids at home who need to be readied for school the next day etc - she causes a bit of an uproar at the desk apparently by dictating who can and can't come in to look after me, one midwife takes offense at not being good enough
(apparently she would have wanted to insert a venflo and have me not eat or drink anything other than water, just in case - so not helpful when I already don't have that much faith that I'm able to do this, I don't need people getting me ready for a c-section before I've even tried!) After a quick shuffle as the initial midwife wasn't happy with the idea of a VBAC attempt in water, we got a lovely one who then stayed with us all the way through to delivery.
I got bored of sitting on the ball and wanted to walk around so they started hunting for the telemetry monitor I'd been promised so I could go wireless - only to realise that it was the same one I'd been wired up to all along!
Contractions continued to pick up pace and were soon coming about every 5 minutes, still not too painful though, and not even as bad as they had been at points during the previous week!
11pm, time for a progress check - lying down HURTS. I can barely stay there long enough for her to check and have to hold DH's hand through the contractions. I'm 8cm and when the waters bulge with a contraction, it pushes the cervix to fully dilated so she tries to break my waters to bring baby's head down (he's still only 1/5th engaged, 4/5ths palpable!) The hook won't catch and she says I have the strongest membranes she's ever seen. Give up on the waters because I don't want to lie down any more and decide to try again later if necessary.
11.30pm, all the faffing around has done something and I ask them to fill the pool because it's starting to get a bit painful and I'd like to try the water. Get in the pool, have one nice easy contraction floating around in the water - and then they start coming thick and fast! Nobody warned me the pool at such a late stage could speed up the labour
Start on the gas and air even though I'm not particularly keen to try it because all I remember from last time is feeling like I was suffocating while on it.
12.15am - start feeling a burning sensation at the end of each contraction. Apparently this is the urge to push, although to me it felt more like the urge to clamp everything tightly shut and keep the baby in forever!
After a long while of pushing, lots of 'I can't do this, I want to go home!' and starting to think seriously of demanding forceps to just pull him out because it seriously felt like he was never coming, out comes half the water bag, still intact (yuck!) followed a few pushes later by his head. I just about managed to pant through the head crowning like they told me to (no ring of fire, but I was just so relieved that he was nearly out that I didn't want to stop in case he went back in again!), but the rest of him came shooting out in one go!
The rest is a bit of a blur, I was so knackered I couldn't move, couldn't grab him as he came out and had to be helped just to turn round in the pool to hold him. Everything felt as if it was happening under water - definitely not the euphoric sense of achievement I'd been promised! Taken back to the room, had skin to skin and fed him and got stitched up, had my toast and DH and SIL left to let me get some sleep.
We got home 12 hours later (would've been much earlier but they were busy so paperwork was delayed), a bit battered and bruised - the pain from the 2nd degree tear and bashed tail bone is comparable to day 2 after section - but I'm definitely feeling a lot better than I did last time, mentally if nothing else!
The lessons I learned:
The right support makes all the difference - had I had doctors fussing and wanting to induce and have me lying on my back on the bed like last time, I expect it would have went much the same way. Instead I had people who were happy for me to do my own thing and helped me to believe in myself even when I was losing faith. If you want something and are told you aren't 'allowed' or it's against 'hospital policy', question it, research it, then ask for a second, third opinion and stamp your feet until someone listens and answers. I was told a VBAC attempt had to be continually monitored, which meant bed, no pool, strapped to monitors, etc etc. I did have continual monitoring, but with a telemetry monitor so I was free to move and it even went in the water with me, and hey presto - a water VBAC in the same hospital I was told it wasn't possible in, with midwives who encouraged it when some of their colleagues had looked at me as if I had two heads for even daring to question the way it's usually done.
Lying down is painful. Sitting up and moving around helps the pain. The contractions at fully dilated were not nearly as painful as they were last time at 5cm when I was forced to lie on the bed.
Pain and contraction timing is not necessarily an indicator of how far along you are - I didn't get to the magic 3 minutes apart until it was pretty much pushing time, and had I been at home waiting, I'd have been giving birth in the car! So if you think it's time to go in - go in! The worst that'll happen is you get sent back home again.
If you intend to use the gas and air, start using it before you really feel the need to, so you can get used to how it works. I left it too late and it was only effective for about every other contraction because I kept losing the rhythm and panicking!
And lastly, if you have any teenage nieces in need of contraception, bring them into the labour room for a visit. Mine is traumatised even though the bit she witnessed was mainly just us sitting around having a laugh! Apparently the 'pain on my face' was enough to put her off ever having children
Good luck ladies!
I finally had my little boy on Monday morning at 2.25am, 12 days overdue! 7lb 15oz, 22 inches long and perfect.
Contractions started on Sunday 9th and by Monday morning I was absolutely sure he was on his way. Contractions were 6 minutes apart and the midwife was coming to check me at 9am. All good - except an hour before she was due to come, I noticed the contractions start to space out.. and by the time she arrived, they had stopped altogether!
This pattern went on to repeat all week - sometimes 6 hours, sometimes 12+ hours of regular, painful contractions, the same as I'd had in labour last time, none of yer period pain or BH uncomfiness like the books say early labour usually is.
Had a sweep on Wednesday (2cm, cervix posterior and long, baby not engaged) and another on Friday (2cm but stretching up to 4cm, 50% effaced, baby STILL not engaged!). On Friday my midwife reckoned baby would arrive that night!
No such luck. By 7am on Sunday morning, having been up over 24 hours with no sleep because it wasn't for letting up this time but still not getting any closer together either, I was an exhausted mess. I was convinced my body was broken, I couldn't labour properly, was going to end up with another c-section etc etc. Midwife suggested we go up to hospital for monitoring to check the baby and make sure I was ok too and then decide from there what was going to happen. I spent the morning bawling my eyes out because I was sure it just wasn't going to happen naturally and I really didn't want a c-section or induction.
Got to hospital and on the monitor for a bit, baby fine, contractions coming but irregular. Midwife suggested we stay for the afternoon and see if I can get some pain relief and a bit of sleep and get monitored again afterwards and then we'll see what to do. Got a couple of tablets of dihydracodeine at about 1.30pm and spent the next couple of hours drifting in and out of sleep inbetween contractions, that stuff was amazing!
4.30pm, pills all worn off and contractions coming every 15 minutes but still nothing to write home about. Back on the monitor.
6pm, my midwife comes back (she's a consultant midwife and works at the hospital in an advisory role mostly, only delivering babies when she feels like it, so she doesn't usually work Sundays) and as the contractions have picked up a little bit, we're admitted - one way or another this baby is coming out! She does an internal and I'm 5cm, fully effaced and baby has come down another bit, although he's still not engaged
so we're good to go without intervention, yay!8pm, my midwife has to leave as she's got kids at home who need to be readied for school the next day etc - she causes a bit of an uproar at the desk apparently by dictating who can and can't come in to look after me, one midwife takes offense at not being good enough
(apparently she would have wanted to insert a venflo and have me not eat or drink anything other than water, just in case - so not helpful when I already don't have that much faith that I'm able to do this, I don't need people getting me ready for a c-section before I've even tried!) After a quick shuffle as the initial midwife wasn't happy with the idea of a VBAC attempt in water, we got a lovely one who then stayed with us all the way through to delivery.I got bored of sitting on the ball and wanted to walk around so they started hunting for the telemetry monitor I'd been promised so I could go wireless - only to realise that it was the same one I'd been wired up to all along!
Contractions continued to pick up pace and were soon coming about every 5 minutes, still not too painful though, and not even as bad as they had been at points during the previous week!
11pm, time for a progress check - lying down HURTS. I can barely stay there long enough for her to check and have to hold DH's hand through the contractions. I'm 8cm and when the waters bulge with a contraction, it pushes the cervix to fully dilated so she tries to break my waters to bring baby's head down (he's still only 1/5th engaged, 4/5ths palpable!) The hook won't catch and she says I have the strongest membranes she's ever seen. Give up on the waters because I don't want to lie down any more and decide to try again later if necessary.
11.30pm, all the faffing around has done something and I ask them to fill the pool because it's starting to get a bit painful and I'd like to try the water. Get in the pool, have one nice easy contraction floating around in the water - and then they start coming thick and fast! Nobody warned me the pool at such a late stage could speed up the labour
Start on the gas and air even though I'm not particularly keen to try it because all I remember from last time is feeling like I was suffocating while on it.12.15am - start feeling a burning sensation at the end of each contraction. Apparently this is the urge to push, although to me it felt more like the urge to clamp everything tightly shut and keep the baby in forever!
After a long while of pushing, lots of 'I can't do this, I want to go home!' and starting to think seriously of demanding forceps to just pull him out because it seriously felt like he was never coming, out comes half the water bag, still intact (yuck!) followed a few pushes later by his head. I just about managed to pant through the head crowning like they told me to (no ring of fire, but I was just so relieved that he was nearly out that I didn't want to stop in case he went back in again!), but the rest of him came shooting out in one go!
The rest is a bit of a blur, I was so knackered I couldn't move, couldn't grab him as he came out and had to be helped just to turn round in the pool to hold him. Everything felt as if it was happening under water - definitely not the euphoric sense of achievement I'd been promised! Taken back to the room, had skin to skin and fed him and got stitched up, had my toast and DH and SIL left to let me get some sleep.
We got home 12 hours later (would've been much earlier but they were busy so paperwork was delayed), a bit battered and bruised - the pain from the 2nd degree tear and bashed tail bone is comparable to day 2 after section - but I'm definitely feeling a lot better than I did last time, mentally if nothing else!
The lessons I learned:
The right support makes all the difference - had I had doctors fussing and wanting to induce and have me lying on my back on the bed like last time, I expect it would have went much the same way. Instead I had people who were happy for me to do my own thing and helped me to believe in myself even when I was losing faith. If you want something and are told you aren't 'allowed' or it's against 'hospital policy', question it, research it, then ask for a second, third opinion and stamp your feet until someone listens and answers. I was told a VBAC attempt had to be continually monitored, which meant bed, no pool, strapped to monitors, etc etc. I did have continual monitoring, but with a telemetry monitor so I was free to move and it even went in the water with me, and hey presto - a water VBAC in the same hospital I was told it wasn't possible in, with midwives who encouraged it when some of their colleagues had looked at me as if I had two heads for even daring to question the way it's usually done.
Lying down is painful. Sitting up and moving around helps the pain. The contractions at fully dilated were not nearly as painful as they were last time at 5cm when I was forced to lie on the bed.
Pain and contraction timing is not necessarily an indicator of how far along you are - I didn't get to the magic 3 minutes apart until it was pretty much pushing time, and had I been at home waiting, I'd have been giving birth in the car! So if you think it's time to go in - go in! The worst that'll happen is you get sent back home again.
If you intend to use the gas and air, start using it before you really feel the need to, so you can get used to how it works. I left it too late and it was only effective for about every other contraction because I kept losing the rhythm and panicking!
And lastly, if you have any teenage nieces in need of contraception, bring them into the labour room for a visit. Mine is traumatised even though the bit she witnessed was mainly just us sitting around having a laugh! Apparently the 'pain on my face' was enough to put her off ever having children
Good luck ladies!
