DottyLottie
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Well, after 3 super easy births, I wasn't expecting my 4th labour to be much different. For weeks I have been telling everyone how my babie's just pop out and in super quick time (longest labour was 3.5 hrs). So, the boy has arrived and made me look a bit of a plonker! I will gloat no more!
On Thursday the 16th my friend visited for the evening, lucky she did, as I remembered to ask her if she could babysit when I went into labour, my mum would normally do it but she is in hospital, so my friendly agreed and we sat and talked about it, I even told her not to worry, it would probably be aaages yet before anything happenned. Although at the time, I was having really sharp stabbing pains in my lady bits, I wasn't overly concerned about this as I had felt baby engaging and disengaging for a couple of weeks now.
Anyway, when my friend left I decided to have a bath, just in case, the next day I would be 37 weeks!
I went to bed early, woke up at 2am with cramps, went to the loo, emptied my bowels and thought that would be the end of it, but by 3am the cramps felt pretty regular so I went downstairs and timed them. I woke OH at 3:25am, I think he thought it was probably a false alarm but he got up anyway.
I was supposed to be having a homebirth, but a quick analysis of the situation and we realised that was very unlikely, we had just moved house, our toddler was still sleeping in our bedroom whilst the paint dried in hers, we had no home birthing kit because my midwife had dissappeared on holiday and to top it all off, we had no phone (landline) and could no get a mobile phone signal anywhere in the house, I had no hospital bag packed, no crib, no car seat (both were still at my parents house) and well, I was really pissed off!
After stomping around for 30 minutes moaning about how unprepared we were, I realised my contractions were quite strong and I needed to stop moaning and make some decisions. So we found our old fax machine and used it to call my friend, barely 6 hours since she had been in my house, and asked her to come over, packed my hospital bag, called the hospital and told them I was coming in and off we went. It was 4:30am when we left, my contractions were 3 minutes apart, strong but manageable. In the car on the way there I could feel my waters rupturing, I told OH they would go as soon as I stood up, and when we arrived at hos and I got out of the car, that's exactly what they did, so I limped into hospital like a child who had just wet herself https://s2.bbstatic.com/images/smilies/doh.gif
I was told the delivery suite was full and so was sdr asked to wait in an examining room, the midwife told me I would be there for at least an hour, OH and I laughed and said the baby would probably be here within the hour, the midwife looked doubtful and oh how wrong we were!
I was checked and shown to be 4cm dilated, my contractions were strong but quite irregular and I bounced on the ball whilst I waited, my hind waters went whilst I was on the ball, it was a shocking amount of water that more or less flooded the room.
At 8:30am I was taken to what appeared to be another examination room and another midwife took over from the previous, she was quite young and sweet, didn't really say much, and kind of just sat in the corner and watched whilst I got on with it, I liked her, and felt quite comforted by her quiet presence. After about 35 minutes I felt the urge to push and the midwife confirmed I was fully dilated and ready to go. The contractions were much stronger than what I had expected and the pain was mostly in my back, I told the midwife I didn't want to push, I knew it was going to hurt bad because of my back.
After 3 or 4 pushes I knew something was not right, my contractions were pretty consistent now, there was no gap in between them, I tried to push at the peak but it felt futile, like when you push something stupid heavy (a truck for example!) and you know it is just isn't going to move. I could feel the baby budge a tiny bit when I pushed, and then could feel him pull back up, the pain after pushing was worse than the contractions, it was all in my back and by now I was not coping with the pain. I hadn't expected to be in labour this long, let alone be in this much pain, so I was worried. The midwife had not said much, and I remember looking at the clock at 10:18am and saying to her I have been pushing for over an hour and this baby isn't moving, what is wrong?
The midwife checked me over and said the baby was back to back, and then she went and fetched another midwife. The second midwife was a bit of a battleaxe, she immediately ordered me off all fours and on to my back and legs into stirrups, by now the pain in my back was so severe (even between contractions) that even moving my legs had me hysterical with pain. I went from being in a reasonably comfortable (but painful state) and coping with gas and air to feeling very much out of control. I implored the second midwife not to put my feet in stirrups and pointed out this was perhaps the worst position to try and move baby down, but she was quite firm.
I was then told to bear down on the next contraction, which I did, and as with previous pushes felt nothing move, the pain in my back was unbearable and I begged them to let me get off my back, they would not relent so I ignored them anyway and asked OH to help me get up and out of the stirrups, to which the second midwife responded with lots of telling off and pointing out she was very skilled and had 2 children, I think I barked something about this being my fourth baby1 and told her that I could not cope with the pain whilst on my back. I then moved to standing and squatting and pushed for a further 20 minutes in this position, still nothing was happening though it was a more comfortable position.
By now the second midwife was REALLY annoying me, her tone and suggestions were quite upsetting and basically suggesting that I was not trying hard enough, and that my baby would have to be cut out if I did not behave and do as I was told! In the end I told her that she was really annoying me and to piss off https://s2.bbstatic.com/images/smilies/happydance2.gif which she did!
The first midwife wheeled me around to delivery to see a doctor, being in the wheelchair was really uncomfortable. Two lady doctors came and examined me internally, which again was crazy painful, I was literally writhing in pain and sucking gas and air like it was going out of fashion. The doctors confirmed the baby was back to back and that they needed to do an instrumental (ventouse) delivery, and also insisted I have an epidural as they did not think I would cope with the pain as I was already hurting so much. I was told they would need to do episiotomy too, which I point blank refused, despite them telling me the alternative was to tear pretty bad in a zig zag fashion, the thought of being cut was far worse and I swore rather a lot until they conceded they would not cut me.
The anaesthetist came and it semed to take forever to site the epidural, I had to bend forward with my legs shut and keep still whilst having contractions, again I sucked on that gas and air and could really not have coped without it, it doesn't take away the pain but makes you high enough not to care so much. I don't remember much of what happenned between the epidural being sited and the actual delivery, apparently they left me for 20 minutes before they started, to allow the epidural to take effect, but time kind of blurred for me.
The actual delivery was pretty barbaric, there were an awful lot of people in the room which really worried me, even OH was crying. They put the ventouse inside me, which really hurt, and told me when to push, eventually I felt the head come out, I could not see LO but I looked at OH and he looked completely horrified, at that moment I really thought LO had not made it, his body followed a moment later and he was placed on my chest. His little head was so swollen and bruised, it was really upsetting to see him that way, I felt so guilty and cried for such a long time.
By some miracle I did not tear at all, just grazed, and the placenta followed in one piece.
Aside from feeling a bit battered and bruised I am ok and baby Bear is doing just grand. After having 3 easy births I certainly paid the price this time, and I still feel really sad that little Bear had such a traumatic entry to the world, were just glad to have him home and well.
Sorry this was so long!
He is a very serious little man, though not at all grumpy! I keep telling OH this is how he will look when he is 80. I am going to try and photo shop on a tache and a flat cap
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/hoolatallulah/178.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/hoolatallulah/163.jpg
On Thursday the 16th my friend visited for the evening, lucky she did, as I remembered to ask her if she could babysit when I went into labour, my mum would normally do it but she is in hospital, so my friendly agreed and we sat and talked about it, I even told her not to worry, it would probably be aaages yet before anything happenned. Although at the time, I was having really sharp stabbing pains in my lady bits, I wasn't overly concerned about this as I had felt baby engaging and disengaging for a couple of weeks now.
Anyway, when my friend left I decided to have a bath, just in case, the next day I would be 37 weeks!
I went to bed early, woke up at 2am with cramps, went to the loo, emptied my bowels and thought that would be the end of it, but by 3am the cramps felt pretty regular so I went downstairs and timed them. I woke OH at 3:25am, I think he thought it was probably a false alarm but he got up anyway.
I was supposed to be having a homebirth, but a quick analysis of the situation and we realised that was very unlikely, we had just moved house, our toddler was still sleeping in our bedroom whilst the paint dried in hers, we had no home birthing kit because my midwife had dissappeared on holiday and to top it all off, we had no phone (landline) and could no get a mobile phone signal anywhere in the house, I had no hospital bag packed, no crib, no car seat (both were still at my parents house) and well, I was really pissed off!
After stomping around for 30 minutes moaning about how unprepared we were, I realised my contractions were quite strong and I needed to stop moaning and make some decisions. So we found our old fax machine and used it to call my friend, barely 6 hours since she had been in my house, and asked her to come over, packed my hospital bag, called the hospital and told them I was coming in and off we went. It was 4:30am when we left, my contractions were 3 minutes apart, strong but manageable. In the car on the way there I could feel my waters rupturing, I told OH they would go as soon as I stood up, and when we arrived at hos and I got out of the car, that's exactly what they did, so I limped into hospital like a child who had just wet herself https://s2.bbstatic.com/images/smilies/doh.gif
I was told the delivery suite was full and so was sdr asked to wait in an examining room, the midwife told me I would be there for at least an hour, OH and I laughed and said the baby would probably be here within the hour, the midwife looked doubtful and oh how wrong we were!
I was checked and shown to be 4cm dilated, my contractions were strong but quite irregular and I bounced on the ball whilst I waited, my hind waters went whilst I was on the ball, it was a shocking amount of water that more or less flooded the room.
At 8:30am I was taken to what appeared to be another examination room and another midwife took over from the previous, she was quite young and sweet, didn't really say much, and kind of just sat in the corner and watched whilst I got on with it, I liked her, and felt quite comforted by her quiet presence. After about 35 minutes I felt the urge to push and the midwife confirmed I was fully dilated and ready to go. The contractions were much stronger than what I had expected and the pain was mostly in my back, I told the midwife I didn't want to push, I knew it was going to hurt bad because of my back.
After 3 or 4 pushes I knew something was not right, my contractions were pretty consistent now, there was no gap in between them, I tried to push at the peak but it felt futile, like when you push something stupid heavy (a truck for example!) and you know it is just isn't going to move. I could feel the baby budge a tiny bit when I pushed, and then could feel him pull back up, the pain after pushing was worse than the contractions, it was all in my back and by now I was not coping with the pain. I hadn't expected to be in labour this long, let alone be in this much pain, so I was worried. The midwife had not said much, and I remember looking at the clock at 10:18am and saying to her I have been pushing for over an hour and this baby isn't moving, what is wrong?
The midwife checked me over and said the baby was back to back, and then she went and fetched another midwife. The second midwife was a bit of a battleaxe, she immediately ordered me off all fours and on to my back and legs into stirrups, by now the pain in my back was so severe (even between contractions) that even moving my legs had me hysterical with pain. I went from being in a reasonably comfortable (but painful state) and coping with gas and air to feeling very much out of control. I implored the second midwife not to put my feet in stirrups and pointed out this was perhaps the worst position to try and move baby down, but she was quite firm.
I was then told to bear down on the next contraction, which I did, and as with previous pushes felt nothing move, the pain in my back was unbearable and I begged them to let me get off my back, they would not relent so I ignored them anyway and asked OH to help me get up and out of the stirrups, to which the second midwife responded with lots of telling off and pointing out she was very skilled and had 2 children, I think I barked something about this being my fourth baby1 and told her that I could not cope with the pain whilst on my back. I then moved to standing and squatting and pushed for a further 20 minutes in this position, still nothing was happening though it was a more comfortable position.
By now the second midwife was REALLY annoying me, her tone and suggestions were quite upsetting and basically suggesting that I was not trying hard enough, and that my baby would have to be cut out if I did not behave and do as I was told! In the end I told her that she was really annoying me and to piss off https://s2.bbstatic.com/images/smilies/happydance2.gif which she did!
The first midwife wheeled me around to delivery to see a doctor, being in the wheelchair was really uncomfortable. Two lady doctors came and examined me internally, which again was crazy painful, I was literally writhing in pain and sucking gas and air like it was going out of fashion. The doctors confirmed the baby was back to back and that they needed to do an instrumental (ventouse) delivery, and also insisted I have an epidural as they did not think I would cope with the pain as I was already hurting so much. I was told they would need to do episiotomy too, which I point blank refused, despite them telling me the alternative was to tear pretty bad in a zig zag fashion, the thought of being cut was far worse and I swore rather a lot until they conceded they would not cut me.
The anaesthetist came and it semed to take forever to site the epidural, I had to bend forward with my legs shut and keep still whilst having contractions, again I sucked on that gas and air and could really not have coped without it, it doesn't take away the pain but makes you high enough not to care so much. I don't remember much of what happenned between the epidural being sited and the actual delivery, apparently they left me for 20 minutes before they started, to allow the epidural to take effect, but time kind of blurred for me.
The actual delivery was pretty barbaric, there were an awful lot of people in the room which really worried me, even OH was crying. They put the ventouse inside me, which really hurt, and told me when to push, eventually I felt the head come out, I could not see LO but I looked at OH and he looked completely horrified, at that moment I really thought LO had not made it, his body followed a moment later and he was placed on my chest. His little head was so swollen and bruised, it was really upsetting to see him that way, I felt so guilty and cried for such a long time.
By some miracle I did not tear at all, just grazed, and the placenta followed in one piece.
Aside from feeling a bit battered and bruised I am ok and baby Bear is doing just grand. After having 3 easy births I certainly paid the price this time, and I still feel really sad that little Bear had such a traumatic entry to the world, were just glad to have him home and well.
Sorry this was so long!
He is a very serious little man, though not at all grumpy! I keep telling OH this is how he will look when he is 80. I am going to try and photo shop on a tache and a flat cap
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/hoolatallulah/178.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/hoolatallulah/163.jpg
sorry it was so rough!
xx
x
