Kitten
Mummy to Theakston & Nyah
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I had a sweep at 11am on Monday and booked my induction for Sunday. I was also due another sweep on Wednesday.
Monday afternoon I had random back pains and groin pains from about 5pm. We went up to bed at 9pm and had sex and then the pains got worse after that. At 11pm I had a bloody show but blamed the sweep and assumed the pains were sweep related too. By midnight the pains were starting to become regular so I was timing them online and they were 3-5mins apart last 30-60 secs and all in my back, groin and legs which the internet said meant false labour. By 2am it was really bad and I was shaking so I rang the delivery suite and explained. She rang the midwives and said they'd be in touch. The community midwife on call rang and said it sounded like I was in labour but her colleague lived somewhere random so she'd see what she thought. She then rang back and said they were going to come over in about half an hour.
They came round and I was suffering a bit with the pain already and wondering how I was going to cope later on! They examined me and found I was fully effaced and 3-5cms, in my notes it says I was officially in labour from 3.15am so that must have been when they examined me. One of them figured out the TENS machine and put it on for me and that seemed to help. They recommended I have a bath and left, saying to each other they'd probably be back about 6. I got in the bath then and it did help and then I got into bed with the TENS. I'd asked them how I'd know when to ring them and they said "you'll know". Helpful. Well, I did know. By 6.15am ish the contractions were only 1min 30 apart and lasting a minute and they were agonising. I was in a right state and told Sam I wanted to hold out ringing til 7am but eventually caved. Sam rang up and they said the midwife would be in touch. After 15mins we'd heard nothing so he rang again. By this point I was in hell! I know that they turned up roughly at 7.15am at which point I was screaming "I need help" and I soon had the entonox in my mouth, it was heaven
Once the gas and air had kicked in I was examined again and was 5cm, the midwives were quite impressed with me having held out so long before ringing them and also at the progress. 8am soon arrived and they were due to finish shift. It then transpired that there were some staffing problems and the next half hour or hour was spent listening to them make angry phone calls to their supervisers, trying to find someone to take over. They managed to get a lady from Horsham and another from further afield, both of whom got stuck in traffic and didn't arrive til 9.45am. I was totally out of it by now and riding through the pain with the entonox and TENS. The entonox ran out at this point but the new midwives had brought 5 cyclinders so my current midwives hooked me up to a new one and then left. By this point I hadn't bothered putting my underwear back on and was lying in a vest top with a towel covering my lower half, any care about people seeing me naked had gone out the window.
The next 3 hours are a blur, I think the reason for this will become apparent in a bit. Apparently I asked to get in the bath at some point and they insisted on checking my progress and I was 7cm. I was suffering quite a bit but getting through it with my breathing, TENS, and entonox. We managed to get upstairs and I got fully undressed and in the bath, expecting it to be amazing with the gas and air. It was not. It brought none of the relief that it had earlier and I was really gutted. By this point I was starting to lose faith in myself and was convinced I wouldn't make it. I was lying in the bath with pain ripping through my back and groin and the odd contraction in my stomach too. I figured I'd become immune to the gas and air having started it 'too early' (IMO) and was telling them I thought we'd need to transfer as I still had a way to go and the pain was becoming too much. In my head I was trying to weigh up hospital vs pain and whilst I really didn't want to give in, I knew I had to be realistic. At this point they checked the gas and air to see how much I had left and it still said a full tank which confused us all so we figured the dial was broken. The midwives took it off me and started fiddling with it and then all of a sudden one of them was on eye level with me and had this really serious look on her face. I was staring at her really intensely cos I was so out of it (I thought from the gas and air) and then she said really slowly and calmly "Sam, I'm really sorry, but they never turned it on".
I think I laughed at this point. They turned it on and handed it to me and I took one breath and it was bliss. They kept apologising and saying "I know you're really angry but you'll see the funny side later I'm sure". I was like "Angry?? Who's angry?? I can do this now!". I think hubby said "You're telling me she's gone from 5-8cm in the last 3 hours with no pain relief? Oh my God" whilst I just kept laughing. It was a real turning point for me because I had gone from giving up all hope to suddenly realising if I could do all that with nothing, I could certainly do the rest with gas and air. I then turned over and spent the time on all fours and had the gas and air to get through contractions as well as having whoever was available to pour hot water over the base of my back using a mug. We carried on like this for a while until they decided I needed to give gravity a chance to do its job as my waters still hadn't gone, so they made me walk up and down the stairs. The main problem I found was every time I moved it brought on a contraction and they had to monitor baby's heartbeat every half hour or so which triggered a contraction too. Sam put some music on and the midwife ran me another bath, this time with lavender in and we got back into our routine. I'd started screaming through some contractions now which felt SO good. They asked if I minded a student coming over and I said it was fine so soon I had 3 people and Sam looking after me.
Soon I was getting lots of urges to poo and was asking them when I need to start pushing and they told me I'd know. They kept checking my bum, I assume to see if it was bulging? Again they told me I needed to help gravity and at one point I was standing up in the bath singing and rocking from side to side, lol. We also had to have another walk up and down the stairs but still no water breaking. I even jogged up them on the way back. I think they let me have some more time in the bath before it was decided I needed to go downstairs to be examined. By this point I was really dependent on the entonox but still taking it out when I felt I was getting too high so I could stay in control. They examined me and said there was still a lip of cervix left. I asked if I could push and they said "your body will tell you, if you want to push, push" but then they were also saying not to push yet because of the lip but I wanted to so it was very confusing. She also said she couldn't feel my membranes so we figured they'd gone in the bath.
I was on all fours next and ripping up a wire cat toy thing. I was tapping the floor or clicking my fingers to manage contractions as well as using the gas and air a little too much. I decided I wanted to push so they set up a pile of cushions on the floor for me to lean on and we gave it a go but I was in the wrong position cos I had my bum in the air so they swapped it for the birth ball with a pillow on top. Sam was massaging my back but the student kept pushing him off and doing this horrible sacral massage which really hurt so I screamed at her to "get the F*** off me"
They then decided I needed to change position and so sat me with my back against the couch. I had my legs open but at a funny angle and the pushing wasn't doing anything so they sorted me out. I was in absoloute agony and they wouldn't let me use the entonox. I was allowed two breaths of it, and then a deep breath on my own, chin down, push, push, push, keep bloody pushing. I don't know how many pushes it was but it was an odd feeling. At one point he seemed to be coming out and then went completely back in and started moving and they told me he was turning (at last!) He then came back down and at this point they realised I did still have my waters so they had to go in and break them but there was only a trickle.
At this point, they read my birth plan
Soon I was pushing productively and it felt like he was further out than he was. I found it a lot easier to focus than I thought I would and seemed to relish in the pain and push through it. One of the midwives kept talking about my hand and I couldn't figure out why until they started trying to force me to feel his head even though I'd said I didn't want to and I ended up swearing at them again. They took his heart rate and it was 114 and the midwife told me I needed to push because it was dropping (she later told Sam this was normal so I assume it was a scare tactic). The delivery of the head was so bizarre, whilst it hurt like hell, it didn't feel like a head, it felt like a tennis ball, like, in my head I was envisioning that size a head! I felt them grab the shoulders and pull him out and all of a sudden I had this child on my chest! At this point the shock kicked in and I just went off to cloud cuckooland, I was totally unresponsive. There was loads of blood and I was stinging like hell and saying "I've torn really badly". They were concerned about the blood and let the cord stop pulsing before cutting it. They then gave him to Sam so they could try and get the placenta out. I knew it could take up to an hour to do naturally so was surprised when it came out in less than 5mins, whereas the midwives were concerned. She said to me after two of them rummaged round in me with a headlamp, that the placenta had delivered very quickly and there was trickling blood and it wasn't from a tear. She told me I had to have the injection or we could have problems and at that moment I just started thinking "It's OK, Sam has the baby, if we have to go to hospital it'll be fine, it's going to be fine" whilst nodding that she could give me the injection. Luckily it worked and the next thing I think they helped me lie down and covered me in a towel. I had a flap of skin that had torn down I think and a tear but nothing requiring stitches.
I could hear everything in the background but was completely on another planet and had no idea what was happening. They laid Theakston on a pillow next to me to breastfeed at some point. I was covered in blood and meconium and somehow ended up in bed. The midwives came and congratulated me and gave me a kiss on the forehead and said goodbye. I couldn't move/stand/walk or anything and just lay there spaced out while Sam did everything for baby after the midwives had apparently walked him through it all. After a while I was coming round and made 'the calls' before dozing off.
My midwife came back last night to check on me at about 7pm (they left at 3pm) after Sam had helped me shower. The poor woman came in to find me completely naked sat bleeding into the toilet holding the baby so Sam could answer the door (which was actually the first time I'd held him!). I kept going deaf and she said it was the entonox. I have a bad pain in my stomach that spreads down my leg so she thinks I've pulled something but it's also the placenta site I think. I can't turn over by myself or change position from standing/sitting etc. by myself either. Add to this the normal pain of not being able to sit down from the pain down there and I'm feeling utterly useless. I can't stand up long enough to change him so Sam's doing that.
Another midwife came round today and showed me how to breastfeed sitting up as I could only do it lying down while Sam positioned him the way the midwives had shown him. They're also making me have my haemoglobin checked at some point because they think all the dizziness/confusion/weakness etc. is from the blood loss.
According to my notes, Theakston was born at 1.50pm but I think they told me 1.47pm at the time. They have labour as lasting 10h 10mins with a 2nd stage of 25mins and a third stage of 5mins. Although to me labour started at midnight so in my opinion it was nearly a 14hour job. Despite me labouring through him being right occipital posterior, he did turn and was delivered left occipito anterior. He scored a 9 on Apgar after 1min and a 10 after 5mins. It's really bizarre because now I'm having the contractions of the uterus shrinking back but it's difficult to deal with because my labour was all in my back so I haven't had period pains in 10months, it's a bit of a shock to the system and I feel bruised all over.
If I have one tip it's to eat! I know they say that but I was such an idiot. We had our dinner at 8pm on Monday night and then I didn't have anything else until a piece of flapjack around 7am, and then two mouthfuls of cookie at around midday. I think that definitely contributed to me being so out of it at the end and also me feeling so rough in general. I also would recommend a water birth, labouring in the bath was amazing and at one point I asked if it would be possible but they said they couldn't because they couldn't access all sides. I didn't bother with one originally because I HATE baths and the whole 'bathing in your own filth' thing but at the time I couldn't have cared less.
If you've read all this, well done! It's nice to have it down in writing and in order for me anyway
Piccies:
https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19296&id=284300026&l=08673672aa
Monday afternoon I had random back pains and groin pains from about 5pm. We went up to bed at 9pm and had sex and then the pains got worse after that. At 11pm I had a bloody show but blamed the sweep and assumed the pains were sweep related too. By midnight the pains were starting to become regular so I was timing them online and they were 3-5mins apart last 30-60 secs and all in my back, groin and legs which the internet said meant false labour. By 2am it was really bad and I was shaking so I rang the delivery suite and explained. She rang the midwives and said they'd be in touch. The community midwife on call rang and said it sounded like I was in labour but her colleague lived somewhere random so she'd see what she thought. She then rang back and said they were going to come over in about half an hour.
They came round and I was suffering a bit with the pain already and wondering how I was going to cope later on! They examined me and found I was fully effaced and 3-5cms, in my notes it says I was officially in labour from 3.15am so that must have been when they examined me. One of them figured out the TENS machine and put it on for me and that seemed to help. They recommended I have a bath and left, saying to each other they'd probably be back about 6. I got in the bath then and it did help and then I got into bed with the TENS. I'd asked them how I'd know when to ring them and they said "you'll know". Helpful. Well, I did know. By 6.15am ish the contractions were only 1min 30 apart and lasting a minute and they were agonising. I was in a right state and told Sam I wanted to hold out ringing til 7am but eventually caved. Sam rang up and they said the midwife would be in touch. After 15mins we'd heard nothing so he rang again. By this point I was in hell! I know that they turned up roughly at 7.15am at which point I was screaming "I need help" and I soon had the entonox in my mouth, it was heaven
Once the gas and air had kicked in I was examined again and was 5cm, the midwives were quite impressed with me having held out so long before ringing them and also at the progress. 8am soon arrived and they were due to finish shift. It then transpired that there were some staffing problems and the next half hour or hour was spent listening to them make angry phone calls to their supervisers, trying to find someone to take over. They managed to get a lady from Horsham and another from further afield, both of whom got stuck in traffic and didn't arrive til 9.45am. I was totally out of it by now and riding through the pain with the entonox and TENS. The entonox ran out at this point but the new midwives had brought 5 cyclinders so my current midwives hooked me up to a new one and then left. By this point I hadn't bothered putting my underwear back on and was lying in a vest top with a towel covering my lower half, any care about people seeing me naked had gone out the window.
The next 3 hours are a blur, I think the reason for this will become apparent in a bit. Apparently I asked to get in the bath at some point and they insisted on checking my progress and I was 7cm. I was suffering quite a bit but getting through it with my breathing, TENS, and entonox. We managed to get upstairs and I got fully undressed and in the bath, expecting it to be amazing with the gas and air. It was not. It brought none of the relief that it had earlier and I was really gutted. By this point I was starting to lose faith in myself and was convinced I wouldn't make it. I was lying in the bath with pain ripping through my back and groin and the odd contraction in my stomach too. I figured I'd become immune to the gas and air having started it 'too early' (IMO) and was telling them I thought we'd need to transfer as I still had a way to go and the pain was becoming too much. In my head I was trying to weigh up hospital vs pain and whilst I really didn't want to give in, I knew I had to be realistic. At this point they checked the gas and air to see how much I had left and it still said a full tank which confused us all so we figured the dial was broken. The midwives took it off me and started fiddling with it and then all of a sudden one of them was on eye level with me and had this really serious look on her face. I was staring at her really intensely cos I was so out of it (I thought from the gas and air) and then she said really slowly and calmly "Sam, I'm really sorry, but they never turned it on".
I think I laughed at this point. They turned it on and handed it to me and I took one breath and it was bliss. They kept apologising and saying "I know you're really angry but you'll see the funny side later I'm sure". I was like "Angry?? Who's angry?? I can do this now!". I think hubby said "You're telling me she's gone from 5-8cm in the last 3 hours with no pain relief? Oh my God" whilst I just kept laughing. It was a real turning point for me because I had gone from giving up all hope to suddenly realising if I could do all that with nothing, I could certainly do the rest with gas and air. I then turned over and spent the time on all fours and had the gas and air to get through contractions as well as having whoever was available to pour hot water over the base of my back using a mug. We carried on like this for a while until they decided I needed to give gravity a chance to do its job as my waters still hadn't gone, so they made me walk up and down the stairs. The main problem I found was every time I moved it brought on a contraction and they had to monitor baby's heartbeat every half hour or so which triggered a contraction too. Sam put some music on and the midwife ran me another bath, this time with lavender in and we got back into our routine. I'd started screaming through some contractions now which felt SO good. They asked if I minded a student coming over and I said it was fine so soon I had 3 people and Sam looking after me.
Soon I was getting lots of urges to poo and was asking them when I need to start pushing and they told me I'd know. They kept checking my bum, I assume to see if it was bulging? Again they told me I needed to help gravity and at one point I was standing up in the bath singing and rocking from side to side, lol. We also had to have another walk up and down the stairs but still no water breaking. I even jogged up them on the way back. I think they let me have some more time in the bath before it was decided I needed to go downstairs to be examined. By this point I was really dependent on the entonox but still taking it out when I felt I was getting too high so I could stay in control. They examined me and said there was still a lip of cervix left. I asked if I could push and they said "your body will tell you, if you want to push, push" but then they were also saying not to push yet because of the lip but I wanted to so it was very confusing. She also said she couldn't feel my membranes so we figured they'd gone in the bath.
I was on all fours next and ripping up a wire cat toy thing. I was tapping the floor or clicking my fingers to manage contractions as well as using the gas and air a little too much. I decided I wanted to push so they set up a pile of cushions on the floor for me to lean on and we gave it a go but I was in the wrong position cos I had my bum in the air so they swapped it for the birth ball with a pillow on top. Sam was massaging my back but the student kept pushing him off and doing this horrible sacral massage which really hurt so I screamed at her to "get the F*** off me"
They then decided I needed to change position and so sat me with my back against the couch. I had my legs open but at a funny angle and the pushing wasn't doing anything so they sorted me out. I was in absoloute agony and they wouldn't let me use the entonox. I was allowed two breaths of it, and then a deep breath on my own, chin down, push, push, push, keep bloody pushing. I don't know how many pushes it was but it was an odd feeling. At one point he seemed to be coming out and then went completely back in and started moving and they told me he was turning (at last!) He then came back down and at this point they realised I did still have my waters so they had to go in and break them but there was only a trickle.
At this point, they read my birth plan
Soon I was pushing productively and it felt like he was further out than he was. I found it a lot easier to focus than I thought I would and seemed to relish in the pain and push through it. One of the midwives kept talking about my hand and I couldn't figure out why until they started trying to force me to feel his head even though I'd said I didn't want to and I ended up swearing at them again. They took his heart rate and it was 114 and the midwife told me I needed to push because it was dropping (she later told Sam this was normal so I assume it was a scare tactic). The delivery of the head was so bizarre, whilst it hurt like hell, it didn't feel like a head, it felt like a tennis ball, like, in my head I was envisioning that size a head! I felt them grab the shoulders and pull him out and all of a sudden I had this child on my chest! At this point the shock kicked in and I just went off to cloud cuckooland, I was totally unresponsive. There was loads of blood and I was stinging like hell and saying "I've torn really badly". They were concerned about the blood and let the cord stop pulsing before cutting it. They then gave him to Sam so they could try and get the placenta out. I knew it could take up to an hour to do naturally so was surprised when it came out in less than 5mins, whereas the midwives were concerned. She said to me after two of them rummaged round in me with a headlamp, that the placenta had delivered very quickly and there was trickling blood and it wasn't from a tear. She told me I had to have the injection or we could have problems and at that moment I just started thinking "It's OK, Sam has the baby, if we have to go to hospital it'll be fine, it's going to be fine" whilst nodding that she could give me the injection. Luckily it worked and the next thing I think they helped me lie down and covered me in a towel. I had a flap of skin that had torn down I think and a tear but nothing requiring stitches.
I could hear everything in the background but was completely on another planet and had no idea what was happening. They laid Theakston on a pillow next to me to breastfeed at some point. I was covered in blood and meconium and somehow ended up in bed. The midwives came and congratulated me and gave me a kiss on the forehead and said goodbye. I couldn't move/stand/walk or anything and just lay there spaced out while Sam did everything for baby after the midwives had apparently walked him through it all. After a while I was coming round and made 'the calls' before dozing off.
My midwife came back last night to check on me at about 7pm (they left at 3pm) after Sam had helped me shower. The poor woman came in to find me completely naked sat bleeding into the toilet holding the baby so Sam could answer the door (which was actually the first time I'd held him!). I kept going deaf and she said it was the entonox. I have a bad pain in my stomach that spreads down my leg so she thinks I've pulled something but it's also the placenta site I think. I can't turn over by myself or change position from standing/sitting etc. by myself either. Add to this the normal pain of not being able to sit down from the pain down there and I'm feeling utterly useless. I can't stand up long enough to change him so Sam's doing that.
Another midwife came round today and showed me how to breastfeed sitting up as I could only do it lying down while Sam positioned him the way the midwives had shown him. They're also making me have my haemoglobin checked at some point because they think all the dizziness/confusion/weakness etc. is from the blood loss.
According to my notes, Theakston was born at 1.50pm but I think they told me 1.47pm at the time. They have labour as lasting 10h 10mins with a 2nd stage of 25mins and a third stage of 5mins. Although to me labour started at midnight so in my opinion it was nearly a 14hour job. Despite me labouring through him being right occipital posterior, he did turn and was delivered left occipito anterior. He scored a 9 on Apgar after 1min and a 10 after 5mins. It's really bizarre because now I'm having the contractions of the uterus shrinking back but it's difficult to deal with because my labour was all in my back so I haven't had period pains in 10months, it's a bit of a shock to the system and I feel bruised all over.
If I have one tip it's to eat! I know they say that but I was such an idiot. We had our dinner at 8pm on Monday night and then I didn't have anything else until a piece of flapjack around 7am, and then two mouthfuls of cookie at around midday. I think that definitely contributed to me being so out of it at the end and also me feeling so rough in general. I also would recommend a water birth, labouring in the bath was amazing and at one point I asked if it would be possible but they said they couldn't because they couldn't access all sides. I didn't bother with one originally because I HATE baths and the whole 'bathing in your own filth' thing but at the time I couldn't have cared less.
If you've read all this, well done! It's nice to have it down in writing and in order for me anyway
Piccies:
https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19296&id=284300026&l=08673672aa
