- Joined
- Feb 14, 2009
- Messages
- 5,288
- Reaction score
- 166
Wow, i can't believe i am actually posting in here!!!!
So...here are the quick facts for those who don't have all day!
Tobias Taylor Holland born on the 6th November, 8.35pm at 38 weeks and 1 day weighing 2.855kg (6lb,5oz)
Total length of labour 19 hrs 46 minutes
Length of established labour 10 hours
Length of second stage 30 minutes
Length of third stage 11 minutes
Type of delivery- normal vaginal delivery, compound presentation, 2nd degree tear
And now for what really happened!
For those who don't know we had a pretty straightforward pregnancy other than I suffered from hyperemesis from 12 weeks until around 22 weeks and spent most of that time off sick from work. We also had a bit of a scare at 27 weeks when i had some pains and reduced fetal movement and had a 48 hour stay in hospital, but everything was fine with baby and they couldn't find a cause. They did pick up that i was positive for group b strep however and at that point our plans for a homebirth were cancelled and we started planning for a birth at our local hospital instead.
All the way through the pregnancy i was convinced i was going to go overdue so to deliver at 38 weeks was a HUGE (but pleasant) surprise! I have been looking back over my posts on here though in the days leading up to Toby's birth and with hindsight i can see that i did have lots of 'signs' that things weren't far from happening.
I had a midwife appointment on the 3rd november and posted on here that i had spent the whole day in a really foul and frustrated mood. The appointment didn't help as i was hoping to be told baby's head had engaged but was told (for the 2nd appointment in a row) that it was free but "at the brim". I was upset afterwards thinking about how certain i was to go overdue and how much i didn't want to end up getting to 42 weeks and being induced. Anyway at 7.25pm that night i started getting braxton hicks which were coming every 5 minutes spot on, right up until 11pm when i decide to go to bed. They were still coming as i was falling asleep but not painful, just uncomfy and not even so uncomfy as to keep me awake and in the morning they had completely gone. The following evening i had a similar thing, regular braxton hicks from about 4pm onwards, although these started out every 5 minutes but then got all irregular and were coming anything between 3 and 20 minutes apart. I also had some low down achey pain but put that down to some bedroom activity
The tightenings continued all night however and i hardly slept. At 4am i decide to give up and come downstairs and i dozed on the sofa until OH got up from work and i decided to be kind and give him a lift in. That was thursday morning and i said to my OH "i won't go to aquanatal this afternoon, i'm going to try to sleep all day, because if this baby were to come anytime soon i wouldn't have enough energy to actually give birth!" I didn't really believe anything was going to happen though, i still had it in my head that i would go past my EDD. But i did go back to bed after dropping him off and slept until after lunch...which as it turns out, is a good job. That evening i lost my mucus plug, it wasn't bloody and in fact there wasn't a huge amount of the stuff but i took it as a good sign that things might not be so far away from happening and maybe baby would be on time after all. I went to bed at midnight but about an hour later got up for a wee, i got to the bedroom door and felt a "pop", i reached my hand down and looked down and i was trickling a constant stream of fluid onto the landing. I yelled to my OH "My waters have broken" and i don't think he believed me at all. He came up stairs totally bewildered to find me in a puddle. After passing me a towel to stand on he said "what kind of time frame are we talking?" I was like "We're having a baby!" 
Honestly, even though i *thought* we were prepared and that i would be all calm when the time came, i wasn't at all. I had never expected to go into labour before 40 weeks and i had never expected my waters to break before i was in established labour, so i felt i had really been taken by surprise!
I decided to get a shower, which did give my chance to get my head around it a little bit, but didn't do much for the hygiene side of things because fluid was just constantly streaming out of me whenever i moved and in fact i remember walking down the stairs afterwards and leaking the whole way, i was getting pretty upset by it! OH made us both a cup of tea and i called delivery suite triage. I knew that baby's arrival wasn't going to be anytime soon but with the group b strep we had been told to call in as soon as i was in labour or as soon as my waters broke. The woman on the desk (who sounded extremely fed up and bored on the phone) told us to make our way in, so OH started ringing around taxi companies to try to get one who would come out to us- what a farce! Eventually we managed to order one, and in the meantime i had decided to straighten my hair and OH had deflated my birthing ball and packed it away.
The taxi journey was pretty surreal, i was sitting on a maternity mat and a bath towel and thinking it all felt like it wasn't really happening! The guy got us to the hospital pretty pronto and we'd been on a tour of the hospital not long before but still, when it came to it we couldn't find the elevator we needed without a bit of faffing. On delivery they sent me to do a urine specimen and we sat in the waiting room. I was starting to feel a bit upset because a. i was soaking! My knickers and leggings were totally saturated and when i moved i squelched which is just about the yukkiest sensation and b. i hadn't felt baby move since my waters had gone and was anxious to get on the monitor and hear the heartbeat.
After about 10 minutes we were taken to a room and i had my bp etc checked, took my wet things off and got on the bed. About 10 minutes after that a midwife appeared and asked all the usual questions. She was really nice and friendly and it turned out that she did her training with a couple of the girls i work with so we were having a nice chat while she put me on the monitor and then it picked up baby's heartbeat and the chatter stopped. The heartbeat was 80 and i said "Is it picking up mine?" and she shook her head "No, yours is 116" I was absolutely terrified. I knew that with the head not engaged there was a risk of cord prolapse and it was my "scary thing" that had been plaguing my thoughts for weeks. Straight away she had me roll on to my side and examined me which was an excrucatingly painful experience and i bawled my eyes out, partly from pain and partly because of fear that something wasn't right with our baby. She couldn't feel a cord but said that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't there and she also said my cervix was high and closed and that was why the VE had been so painful.
By this point baby's heartrate was back at a more respectable 130 but they didn't waste any time in wheeling me round to delivery. I had started to have contractions in triage, not regular but becoming increasingly uncomfortable and i was hopeful that things would progress nicely but aware that because of the GBS i wouldn't be allowed to go on too long with my waters gone and irregular contractions because of the infection risk. So after spending some time on the monitor and having my first lot of antibiotics it was agreed i could have an hour off monitoring to mobilise and see if i could get things moving by myself. Baby's heart rate had dropped a couple more times at this point but not as low and had recovered quickly so i was happy to have my hour pottering about, and i felt it definitely helped. The contractions were now strong enough i wanted to sway and breathe through them and although i found it hard to time them (and OH who had been awake for 24 hours at this point had dozed off in a chair) they seemed to be coming about every 10-15 minutes.
After an hour and a half i went back on the monitor and i was reviewed by the doctors who suggested that i be examined again and if i wasn't dilating i should be given the prostin gel to get things moving or if i was dilating myself then the prostin gel would just over stimulate my cervix so i should be started on a synto drip to regulate my contractions and increase their strength. At about 8.30am i was examined and found to be 1cm dilated, which i know most people would be upset about, but as my cervix had been unreachable at 3am i felt it was actually pretty good progress! My contractions still weren't regular though
and i was getting into this weird little pattern where i would have one stong one then nothing for a while then two more bearable ones so when they suggested putting up the drip i agreed. More or less as soon as it went up the contractions increased in strength and at this point i started using my tens. Baby's heart rate was stable for the majority of the time but with the stronger contractions it would drop. Sometimes it dropped at the height of the contraction, and i was told this was less worrying as it could just be baby's head being squeezed with the contraction and was quite normal, but sometimes it dropped after the contraction was finished and this was more of a problem as it indictated baby was not coping well with contractions, so because of this i was kept on continual monitoring throughout the whole labour. The drip was increased every half an hour and every four hours i had another dose of anitbiotics. I spent some time sitting on my birthing ball leaning over the side of the bed onto a pillow, which was probably my comfiest point in the whole labour. I started using the gas and air at about lunch time but at first didn't feel like it was doing much for me but it became apparent later that it was!
Our midwife asked me about pain relief and i told her i really really didn't want pethidine, and that honestly i'd prefer not to have an epidural either but that i would keep an open mind. Every time the drip was increased the contractions would get stronger and i was finding it increasingly difficult to cope. I didn't want to be on my birthing ball any more as i had loads of pressure in my bum and with every contraction i felt like i wanted to lift my bum up in the air. To make matters worse there were problems with the monitor as it kept losing contact meaning baby's heart rate would disappear and also my contractions weren't being picked up on the toco so they couldn't tell if they were regular on the trace. Although my midwife "J" who was lovely, did acknowledge that she *knew* i was having regular contractions because she was in the room with me but that she wanted it to show on the trace for when the dr's came to review.
Eventually i gave up on my birthing ball and got back on the bed and tried to find a comfy spot, which was pretty impossible since i was attached to 2 drips and a monitor. I was really struggling with the contractions by now and felt that i wasn't getting any warning when they were coming, there didn't seem to be any gradual build like there had been before the synto drip was put up, they were just "bam, pause, bam" and they were really taking my breath away. I was mooing through them and using the gas and air, plus my tens, which OH was in charge of pressing "boost" on because i couldn't concentrate on everything all at once! I knew they were planning to examine me at 2pm and i had been told that with first time labours it takes the longest time to get to 3cms and that after that you normally dilate roughly 1cm an hour so i made a deal with myself, if i am 3cms or more at this examination i will try to cope longer on just gas and air, but if not, i am having the epidural because i can't take much more! At 2.30pm i had a VE and was 2cms. At the same time an electrode was attached to baby's scalp and to another monitor so they could get a more accurate heart rate reading. Our midwife came over to talk to me about pain relief as it was obvious i wasn't coping and i think she thought she might have to 'convince' me in some way to try something else, but before she'd had chance to say really anything i said "i think i want an epidural now" and within half an hour it was in. That was a rough time, the contractions were immense and seemed to be all in my back, and i was petrified of having one whilst having my epi sited as i couldn't sit still through them. By about 3.20pm the epidural was working and i was a much happier person! I had a mobile epidural so i could still feel and move my legs etc and could also still feel every contraction but i felt them as tightening, much like having a braxton hicks, rather than as pain.
At that point, knowing i was only 2cms and being much more comfy with the epidural in OH and i decided he should head home as the dog had been home alone since 2am and i knew we could be in for a long haul, so off he went home to let the dog out in the yard and feed the cat etc. I was reviewed by a (junior) doctor who felt that the drip should be turned up further as i couldn't keep going along as i was or baby would never come out. OH must have been gone about half an hour at this point and the drip was once again turned up and immediately afterwards i had a huge contraction and baby's heart rate dropped and then was lost altogether. Our midwife J pulled the emergency buzzer and within minutes the room was full. Eventually the heart rate was found but was still low. I should point out at this point that i had been instructed to roll on to my side and that all the bloody doctors and midwives who had come in to the room were all stood behind me, talking about me and i had no idea what was being said at all. One doctor, who was with us a lot later on, did come round to my side though and actually introduce herself to my face. It was decided that obviously baby was not happy with the increase in the synto and the drip was turned back down to what it had been previously. The consultant then came in and round to my side of the bed, and i was crying my eyes out worried about LO and he was trying to reassure me that he didn't think this was a baby in distress and felt it was much more likely to be the position of baby's cord causing the dips. I was still crying though, and i remember saying something ridiculous like "my other half has gone home to feed the dog and i need him back!" like the consultant could do anything about it.
Anyway i had been told i could have epidural top ups every hour and to not let it wear off too much or things would quickly become unbearable again. After an hour and half i did feel like it wasn't really working, and our new midwife F (shift change!) got me a top up, which feels SO so weird going in by the way! Like a cold waterfall down your spine! The top up worked but i was starting to get a bit agitated that OH wasn't back and then baby dropped it's heart rate again, and again couldn't be found immediately and the emergency buzzer was pulled and an oxygen mask put on me and i was rolled on to my side before baby's heart rate was eventually picked up and was satisfactory. Again i was bawling my eyes out through this, i thought, "well that's it now, we're going for a c-section and OH isn't here and he's going to miss it all".
In view of baby's heartrate being like it was i was examined early at 4pm and was found to be 4cms, so it was decided the drip should remain as it was, as good progress was being made, but that they wanted to take a blood sample from baby's head to check that he had enough oxygen. This involved me lying on my side with my bum in the air and one leg in a stirrup while they put a tube inside me and obtained the blood sample through that. It was unbelievably undignified and more to the point, painful. Plus i was upset thinking that baby could be distressed in there, so it was really not a pleasant experience for me at all, although thankfully the result showed baby was doing fine..
OH was back by this point and i felt a little better just from having him there, but he hadn't been back long when LO dropped his heart rate again and we had another oxygen-mask-on-roll-on your-side situation. At this point they took the scalp electrode off and reattached another one whilst examining me and i was 6cms. I also had a catheter put in, but i honestly can't remember at what point. It wasn't until my epidural had been in a little while, but neither OH nor i can remember the time, it was honestly the least of my concerns anyway.
At the same time epidural was wearing off and so they arranged another top up, only just after they started administering it my head came over all funny, like a headache all across the front of my head and real feeling of my head being groggy. So they stopped plunging and got an anaesthetist in to review me. She didn't feel that my headache was being caused by the epidural but said they wanted to hold off giving me any more for half an hour to see if it would ease. It didn't really, my head felt very heavy and groggy, so when she came back and said she was happy it wasn't epidural related and that it was okay for me to have another fresh top-up i said no thanks and from that point on refused any pain relief, as i got into my head that it was the pain relief making me feel like shit (and not the fact i was about to give birth, haha!) I also started to feel very sick around about this point and kept asking for my vomit bowl. They took another blood sample from baby's head which again was a horrible experience but the result was good.
I was starting to get very tetchy with everyone though, my bp was up and down like a yo yo so they were doing my observations every 15 minutes and the bloody bp cuff blew up so tight it was cutting off my circulation and it was really bugging me, plus everyone seemed to be asking me questions "Can you feel that contraction rebecca?" (err yes that's why i am mooing like a cow!) "How's your head feeling now?" (like it could do with being asked less questions!) I remember saying to OH "I don't want to answer any more questions" and also "I'm tired and i want to go to sleep now" I mean, how i didn't realise i was in transition i do not know! I threw up twice, it was just water though as that's all i'd been allowed, and i felt much much better after but because my epidural had completely worn off and i was for some reason refusing the gas and air "in case it makes me feel sick" (even though it hadn't made me feel sick before, i mean i don't know, don't ask me what i was thinking!
) the contractions were pretty bloody unbearable and the pressure in my back and bum was immense.
I was examined at 8pm and told that there was just a rim of cervix left. The doctor took my catheter out and said she would be back in another hour to take another sample from baby's scalp and i remember thinking "No you bloody well won't, i won't be here in an hour, this baby is coming out!" Not long after that i started feeling pushy and even more irritated (if that's possible) I found pushing very hard at first because my instinct to cope with the pain of the contractions was to take a deep breath in and then mooooooo out but she told me to take a deep breath in and hold it and not let any air or sound escape my lips and to push until i needed to breathe and then start all over again. All sounds simple but i wanted to moooo! Not hold my breath! So i was crying to OH and to F and M another midwife who was staying with us saying "I can't do it i can't do it!" and everyone was being really encouraging saying i could so i kept trying and OH said "you just did it! You did it then!"
After a few pushes though the pain was indescribable and i felt like i wanted to reach down and push the baby back up and in. I was adamant that i couldn't do it, and was saying "Please it hurts too much! I'm scared!" (which i really was) But again M was saying, "don't be scared, that is just the muscles stretching", and i said "it doesn't feel like they're stretching, it feels like they're going to rip!"
F had her hand down there and was saying "push here, this is where you need to push, push my hand away" and i said to her "don't do that, it hurts" to which she replied "it's not me hurting you, it's the baby's head!"
I was seriously loving the idea of a section at this point and even though part of me knew it was absurd i honestly didn't see how else the baby was going to get out, it didn't feel like it would fit. I told OH it wouldn't fit and he said "remember what you told me, your body wouldn't make a baby so big you couldn't push it out!" (I should point out i don't recall when i said that to him but anyway, it was the encouragement i needed) and i just really put my all into pushing. The midwives were saying "that's it rebecca, get angry with it" and actually, i was angry, because no one was listening to me when i was saying how much it hurt and wouldn't fit! I remember a sensation and thinking it felt like my perineum was a balloon that was being blown up too much and was about to pop, and then screaming and thinking "god that was loud" and then "was that really me?!"
Then M was saying "now listen to F" so i tried to ignore the burning pain and listen to her and she was saying "small pushes small pushes" and i was thinking in my head " sausages sausages" because i remember reading a birth story on here and someone saying that giving birth to the head felt like pushing out melon and then giving birth to the body felt like pushing out slivery sausages. So i was thinking "well sausages are better than a melon! The melon is nearly out, just the sausages now!" OH had a peep down there at the head when it was out, he says that one of the midwives kept trying to get him to look down there but that he was trying to concentrate on helping me.
I finally pushed our baby into the world at 8.35pm, he presented with his arm up by his head so i tore and the umbilical cord was around his neck and also around his arm. He screamed straight away though and was passed up to me. I didn't cry. All i had done all day since the synto had gone up was cry, cry because of pain, cry because of fear, cry because things weren't going as we'd hoped, so when i was finally holding our little boy i didn't cry, i couldn't stop grinning and staring at him and saying "Oh hello!" OH said "It's a boy!" and i said "what?" and both him and F said "It's a boy!" and i was still a bit out of it and was thinking "Of course it is!" Even though we had been on team yellow during the pregnancy i had a real feeling we were having a boy from about 20 weeks onwards and especially during the latter weeks and the labour so to me it seemed obvious it was a boy!
He was really alert and looking at us both, it was amazing to finally meet him and i felt incredible that i'd actually pushed him out when i was certain i never would. I said to OH "I pushed him out!" and he told me how well i'd done and how proud of me he was.
OH cut the cord, and I had the injection to help deliver the placenta and that came away not long after, although i have heard people say that they didn't feel it coming out but i actually had to push and it did feel uncomfortable but i had our beautiful little boy as a distraction.
They checked to see if i had torn and i had so my legs were put in stirrups and a new midwife (another shift change) came to stitch me up. My bits were so odeomatus though, (she said it was from being on the bed immobile basically all day) that she couldn't even see where to stitch
so had to bleep a doctor to come and do it. OH went out to make the "He's here!" phonecalls, and eventually the Dr arrived and starting stitching which was real agony and i was crying again. They had taken Tobias off me and put him in the cot where he was crying too, although to be honest it's a good job they did take him as it was all i could do to puff away on the gas and air while being stitched. OH came back and had cuddles with Tobias and after i'd been stitched our new midwife fetched tea and toast. Toby was rooting so i put him to the breast for his first feed although he didn't stay on long. Delivery suite was full and they needed my room so there was a bit of pressure on me really to get up and get showered, which i did and which felt WEIRD! I felt like i was in someone else's body, it was so bizare! And then we were transferred to the postnatal ward and OH had to go home 
I had expected a 24-48 hour stay after the birth but the infection markers in Toby's blood were slightly raised and with my history of GBS they didn't want to take any chances so he was started on antibiotics, and blood cultures were sent off, but they were negative after 48 hours so his antibiotics were stopped and we were kept in for an extra day just for observation. So all told we were in from 2am friday morning and got back home at 7pm wednesday night.
The birth was pretty much the opposite of everything we had planned, even if you ignore the fact i initially wanted a home water birth, once we knew we were going to the hospital i had planned to use my natal hypnotherapy cd and birthing ball and massage oil and different positions etc but with the labour being artifically augmented with the synto, and with Toby's heart rate being like it was and being attached to every bloody thing under the sun our plans had to go out of the window and we just had to keep open minded. It was a terrifying experience at the time i will admit but now it'd done i actually feel REALLY positive about the birth, and although i wouldn't have wished for it to happen that way, i feel like under the circumstances it went as well as it could and i feel quite proud of myself and of my fantastic OH and our baby boy too.
Toby is gorgeous and a fantastic little feeder and both OH and i are on cloud nine to have him home and we're all settling in really well
Here are some pictures i wanted to share:
This was taken about 10.30am, 1cm dilated and i look knackered already!
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23921.jpg
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23932.jpg
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23930.jpg
First cuddles with daddy
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23934.jpg
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23939.jpg
Ready to go home!
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL24020.jpg
If you made it to the end- wow, well done and thanks for listening!
So...here are the quick facts for those who don't have all day!
Tobias Taylor Holland born on the 6th November, 8.35pm at 38 weeks and 1 day weighing 2.855kg (6lb,5oz)
Total length of labour 19 hrs 46 minutes
Length of established labour 10 hours
Length of second stage 30 minutes
Length of third stage 11 minutes
Type of delivery- normal vaginal delivery, compound presentation, 2nd degree tear
And now for what really happened!
For those who don't know we had a pretty straightforward pregnancy other than I suffered from hyperemesis from 12 weeks until around 22 weeks and spent most of that time off sick from work. We also had a bit of a scare at 27 weeks when i had some pains and reduced fetal movement and had a 48 hour stay in hospital, but everything was fine with baby and they couldn't find a cause. They did pick up that i was positive for group b strep however and at that point our plans for a homebirth were cancelled and we started planning for a birth at our local hospital instead.
All the way through the pregnancy i was convinced i was going to go overdue so to deliver at 38 weeks was a HUGE (but pleasant) surprise! I have been looking back over my posts on here though in the days leading up to Toby's birth and with hindsight i can see that i did have lots of 'signs' that things weren't far from happening.
I had a midwife appointment on the 3rd november and posted on here that i had spent the whole day in a really foul and frustrated mood. The appointment didn't help as i was hoping to be told baby's head had engaged but was told (for the 2nd appointment in a row) that it was free but "at the brim". I was upset afterwards thinking about how certain i was to go overdue and how much i didn't want to end up getting to 42 weeks and being induced. Anyway at 7.25pm that night i started getting braxton hicks which were coming every 5 minutes spot on, right up until 11pm when i decide to go to bed. They were still coming as i was falling asleep but not painful, just uncomfy and not even so uncomfy as to keep me awake and in the morning they had completely gone. The following evening i had a similar thing, regular braxton hicks from about 4pm onwards, although these started out every 5 minutes but then got all irregular and were coming anything between 3 and 20 minutes apart. I also had some low down achey pain but put that down to some bedroom activity
The tightenings continued all night however and i hardly slept. At 4am i decide to give up and come downstairs and i dozed on the sofa until OH got up from work and i decided to be kind and give him a lift in. That was thursday morning and i said to my OH "i won't go to aquanatal this afternoon, i'm going to try to sleep all day, because if this baby were to come anytime soon i wouldn't have enough energy to actually give birth!" I didn't really believe anything was going to happen though, i still had it in my head that i would go past my EDD. But i did go back to bed after dropping him off and slept until after lunch...which as it turns out, is a good job. That evening i lost my mucus plug, it wasn't bloody and in fact there wasn't a huge amount of the stuff but i took it as a good sign that things might not be so far away from happening and maybe baby would be on time after all. I went to bed at midnight but about an hour later got up for a wee, i got to the bedroom door and felt a "pop", i reached my hand down and looked down and i was trickling a constant stream of fluid onto the landing. I yelled to my OH "My waters have broken" and i don't think he believed me at all. He came up stairs totally bewildered to find me in a puddle. After passing me a towel to stand on he said "what kind of time frame are we talking?" I was like "We're having a baby!" Honestly, even though i *thought* we were prepared and that i would be all calm when the time came, i wasn't at all. I had never expected to go into labour before 40 weeks and i had never expected my waters to break before i was in established labour, so i felt i had really been taken by surprise!
I decided to get a shower, which did give my chance to get my head around it a little bit, but didn't do much for the hygiene side of things because fluid was just constantly streaming out of me whenever i moved and in fact i remember walking down the stairs afterwards and leaking the whole way, i was getting pretty upset by it! OH made us both a cup of tea and i called delivery suite triage. I knew that baby's arrival wasn't going to be anytime soon but with the group b strep we had been told to call in as soon as i was in labour or as soon as my waters broke. The woman on the desk (who sounded extremely fed up and bored on the phone) told us to make our way in, so OH started ringing around taxi companies to try to get one who would come out to us- what a farce! Eventually we managed to order one, and in the meantime i had decided to straighten my hair and OH had deflated my birthing ball and packed it away.
The taxi journey was pretty surreal, i was sitting on a maternity mat and a bath towel and thinking it all felt like it wasn't really happening! The guy got us to the hospital pretty pronto and we'd been on a tour of the hospital not long before but still, when it came to it we couldn't find the elevator we needed without a bit of faffing. On delivery they sent me to do a urine specimen and we sat in the waiting room. I was starting to feel a bit upset because a. i was soaking! My knickers and leggings were totally saturated and when i moved i squelched which is just about the yukkiest sensation and b. i hadn't felt baby move since my waters had gone and was anxious to get on the monitor and hear the heartbeat.
After about 10 minutes we were taken to a room and i had my bp etc checked, took my wet things off and got on the bed. About 10 minutes after that a midwife appeared and asked all the usual questions. She was really nice and friendly and it turned out that she did her training with a couple of the girls i work with so we were having a nice chat while she put me on the monitor and then it picked up baby's heartbeat and the chatter stopped. The heartbeat was 80 and i said "Is it picking up mine?" and she shook her head "No, yours is 116" I was absolutely terrified. I knew that with the head not engaged there was a risk of cord prolapse and it was my "scary thing" that had been plaguing my thoughts for weeks. Straight away she had me roll on to my side and examined me which was an excrucatingly painful experience and i bawled my eyes out, partly from pain and partly because of fear that something wasn't right with our baby. She couldn't feel a cord but said that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't there and she also said my cervix was high and closed and that was why the VE had been so painful.
By this point baby's heartrate was back at a more respectable 130 but they didn't waste any time in wheeling me round to delivery. I had started to have contractions in triage, not regular but becoming increasingly uncomfortable and i was hopeful that things would progress nicely but aware that because of the GBS i wouldn't be allowed to go on too long with my waters gone and irregular contractions because of the infection risk. So after spending some time on the monitor and having my first lot of antibiotics it was agreed i could have an hour off monitoring to mobilise and see if i could get things moving by myself. Baby's heart rate had dropped a couple more times at this point but not as low and had recovered quickly so i was happy to have my hour pottering about, and i felt it definitely helped. The contractions were now strong enough i wanted to sway and breathe through them and although i found it hard to time them (and OH who had been awake for 24 hours at this point had dozed off in a chair) they seemed to be coming about every 10-15 minutes.
After an hour and a half i went back on the monitor and i was reviewed by the doctors who suggested that i be examined again and if i wasn't dilating i should be given the prostin gel to get things moving or if i was dilating myself then the prostin gel would just over stimulate my cervix so i should be started on a synto drip to regulate my contractions and increase their strength. At about 8.30am i was examined and found to be 1cm dilated, which i know most people would be upset about, but as my cervix had been unreachable at 3am i felt it was actually pretty good progress! My contractions still weren't regular though
and i was getting into this weird little pattern where i would have one stong one then nothing for a while then two more bearable ones so when they suggested putting up the drip i agreed. More or less as soon as it went up the contractions increased in strength and at this point i started using my tens. Baby's heart rate was stable for the majority of the time but with the stronger contractions it would drop. Sometimes it dropped at the height of the contraction, and i was told this was less worrying as it could just be baby's head being squeezed with the contraction and was quite normal, but sometimes it dropped after the contraction was finished and this was more of a problem as it indictated baby was not coping well with contractions, so because of this i was kept on continual monitoring throughout the whole labour. The drip was increased every half an hour and every four hours i had another dose of anitbiotics. I spent some time sitting on my birthing ball leaning over the side of the bed onto a pillow, which was probably my comfiest point in the whole labour. I started using the gas and air at about lunch time but at first didn't feel like it was doing much for me but it became apparent later that it was!Our midwife asked me about pain relief and i told her i really really didn't want pethidine, and that honestly i'd prefer not to have an epidural either but that i would keep an open mind. Every time the drip was increased the contractions would get stronger and i was finding it increasingly difficult to cope. I didn't want to be on my birthing ball any more as i had loads of pressure in my bum and with every contraction i felt like i wanted to lift my bum up in the air. To make matters worse there were problems with the monitor as it kept losing contact meaning baby's heart rate would disappear and also my contractions weren't being picked up on the toco so they couldn't tell if they were regular on the trace. Although my midwife "J" who was lovely, did acknowledge that she *knew* i was having regular contractions because she was in the room with me but that she wanted it to show on the trace for when the dr's came to review.
Eventually i gave up on my birthing ball and got back on the bed and tried to find a comfy spot, which was pretty impossible since i was attached to 2 drips and a monitor. I was really struggling with the contractions by now and felt that i wasn't getting any warning when they were coming, there didn't seem to be any gradual build like there had been before the synto drip was put up, they were just "bam, pause, bam" and they were really taking my breath away. I was mooing through them and using the gas and air, plus my tens, which OH was in charge of pressing "boost" on because i couldn't concentrate on everything all at once! I knew they were planning to examine me at 2pm and i had been told that with first time labours it takes the longest time to get to 3cms and that after that you normally dilate roughly 1cm an hour so i made a deal with myself, if i am 3cms or more at this examination i will try to cope longer on just gas and air, but if not, i am having the epidural because i can't take much more! At 2.30pm i had a VE and was 2cms. At the same time an electrode was attached to baby's scalp and to another monitor so they could get a more accurate heart rate reading. Our midwife came over to talk to me about pain relief as it was obvious i wasn't coping and i think she thought she might have to 'convince' me in some way to try something else, but before she'd had chance to say really anything i said "i think i want an epidural now" and within half an hour it was in. That was a rough time, the contractions were immense and seemed to be all in my back, and i was petrified of having one whilst having my epi sited as i couldn't sit still through them. By about 3.20pm the epidural was working and i was a much happier person! I had a mobile epidural so i could still feel and move my legs etc and could also still feel every contraction but i felt them as tightening, much like having a braxton hicks, rather than as pain.
At that point, knowing i was only 2cms and being much more comfy with the epidural in OH and i decided he should head home as the dog had been home alone since 2am and i knew we could be in for a long haul, so off he went home to let the dog out in the yard and feed the cat etc. I was reviewed by a (junior) doctor who felt that the drip should be turned up further as i couldn't keep going along as i was or baby would never come out. OH must have been gone about half an hour at this point and the drip was once again turned up and immediately afterwards i had a huge contraction and baby's heart rate dropped and then was lost altogether. Our midwife J pulled the emergency buzzer and within minutes the room was full. Eventually the heart rate was found but was still low. I should point out at this point that i had been instructed to roll on to my side and that all the bloody doctors and midwives who had come in to the room were all stood behind me, talking about me and i had no idea what was being said at all. One doctor, who was with us a lot later on, did come round to my side though and actually introduce herself to my face. It was decided that obviously baby was not happy with the increase in the synto and the drip was turned back down to what it had been previously. The consultant then came in and round to my side of the bed, and i was crying my eyes out worried about LO and he was trying to reassure me that he didn't think this was a baby in distress and felt it was much more likely to be the position of baby's cord causing the dips. I was still crying though, and i remember saying something ridiculous like "my other half has gone home to feed the dog and i need him back!" like the consultant could do anything about it.
Anyway i had been told i could have epidural top ups every hour and to not let it wear off too much or things would quickly become unbearable again. After an hour and half i did feel like it wasn't really working, and our new midwife F (shift change!) got me a top up, which feels SO so weird going in by the way! Like a cold waterfall down your spine! The top up worked but i was starting to get a bit agitated that OH wasn't back and then baby dropped it's heart rate again, and again couldn't be found immediately and the emergency buzzer was pulled and an oxygen mask put on me and i was rolled on to my side before baby's heart rate was eventually picked up and was satisfactory. Again i was bawling my eyes out through this, i thought, "well that's it now, we're going for a c-section and OH isn't here and he's going to miss it all".
In view of baby's heartrate being like it was i was examined early at 4pm and was found to be 4cms, so it was decided the drip should remain as it was, as good progress was being made, but that they wanted to take a blood sample from baby's head to check that he had enough oxygen. This involved me lying on my side with my bum in the air and one leg in a stirrup while they put a tube inside me and obtained the blood sample through that. It was unbelievably undignified and more to the point, painful. Plus i was upset thinking that baby could be distressed in there, so it was really not a pleasant experience for me at all, although thankfully the result showed baby was doing fine..
OH was back by this point and i felt a little better just from having him there, but he hadn't been back long when LO dropped his heart rate again and we had another oxygen-mask-on-roll-on your-side situation. At this point they took the scalp electrode off and reattached another one whilst examining me and i was 6cms. I also had a catheter put in, but i honestly can't remember at what point. It wasn't until my epidural had been in a little while, but neither OH nor i can remember the time, it was honestly the least of my concerns anyway.
At the same time epidural was wearing off and so they arranged another top up, only just after they started administering it my head came over all funny, like a headache all across the front of my head and real feeling of my head being groggy. So they stopped plunging and got an anaesthetist in to review me. She didn't feel that my headache was being caused by the epidural but said they wanted to hold off giving me any more for half an hour to see if it would ease. It didn't really, my head felt very heavy and groggy, so when she came back and said she was happy it wasn't epidural related and that it was okay for me to have another fresh top-up i said no thanks and from that point on refused any pain relief, as i got into my head that it was the pain relief making me feel like shit (and not the fact i was about to give birth, haha!) I also started to feel very sick around about this point and kept asking for my vomit bowl. They took another blood sample from baby's head which again was a horrible experience but the result was good.
I was starting to get very tetchy with everyone though, my bp was up and down like a yo yo so they were doing my observations every 15 minutes and the bloody bp cuff blew up so tight it was cutting off my circulation and it was really bugging me, plus everyone seemed to be asking me questions "Can you feel that contraction rebecca?" (err yes that's why i am mooing like a cow!) "How's your head feeling now?" (like it could do with being asked less questions!) I remember saying to OH "I don't want to answer any more questions" and also "I'm tired and i want to go to sleep now" I mean, how i didn't realise i was in transition i do not know! I threw up twice, it was just water though as that's all i'd been allowed, and i felt much much better after but because my epidural had completely worn off and i was for some reason refusing the gas and air "in case it makes me feel sick" (even though it hadn't made me feel sick before, i mean i don't know, don't ask me what i was thinking!
) the contractions were pretty bloody unbearable and the pressure in my back and bum was immense.I was examined at 8pm and told that there was just a rim of cervix left. The doctor took my catheter out and said she would be back in another hour to take another sample from baby's scalp and i remember thinking "No you bloody well won't, i won't be here in an hour, this baby is coming out!" Not long after that i started feeling pushy and even more irritated (if that's possible) I found pushing very hard at first because my instinct to cope with the pain of the contractions was to take a deep breath in and then mooooooo out but she told me to take a deep breath in and hold it and not let any air or sound escape my lips and to push until i needed to breathe and then start all over again. All sounds simple but i wanted to moooo! Not hold my breath! So i was crying to OH and to F and M another midwife who was staying with us saying "I can't do it i can't do it!" and everyone was being really encouraging saying i could so i kept trying and OH said "you just did it! You did it then!"
After a few pushes though the pain was indescribable and i felt like i wanted to reach down and push the baby back up and in. I was adamant that i couldn't do it, and was saying "Please it hurts too much! I'm scared!" (which i really was) But again M was saying, "don't be scared, that is just the muscles stretching", and i said "it doesn't feel like they're stretching, it feels like they're going to rip!"
F had her hand down there and was saying "push here, this is where you need to push, push my hand away" and i said to her "don't do that, it hurts" to which she replied "it's not me hurting you, it's the baby's head!"
I was seriously loving the idea of a section at this point and even though part of me knew it was absurd i honestly didn't see how else the baby was going to get out, it didn't feel like it would fit. I told OH it wouldn't fit and he said "remember what you told me, your body wouldn't make a baby so big you couldn't push it out!" (I should point out i don't recall when i said that to him but anyway, it was the encouragement i needed) and i just really put my all into pushing. The midwives were saying "that's it rebecca, get angry with it" and actually, i was angry, because no one was listening to me when i was saying how much it hurt and wouldn't fit! I remember a sensation and thinking it felt like my perineum was a balloon that was being blown up too much and was about to pop, and then screaming and thinking "god that was loud" and then "was that really me?!"
Then M was saying "now listen to F" so i tried to ignore the burning pain and listen to her and she was saying "small pushes small pushes" and i was thinking in my head " sausages sausages" because i remember reading a birth story on here and someone saying that giving birth to the head felt like pushing out melon and then giving birth to the body felt like pushing out slivery sausages. So i was thinking "well sausages are better than a melon! The melon is nearly out, just the sausages now!" OH had a peep down there at the head when it was out, he says that one of the midwives kept trying to get him to look down there but that he was trying to concentrate on helping me.
I finally pushed our baby into the world at 8.35pm, he presented with his arm up by his head so i tore and the umbilical cord was around his neck and also around his arm. He screamed straight away though and was passed up to me. I didn't cry. All i had done all day since the synto had gone up was cry, cry because of pain, cry because of fear, cry because things weren't going as we'd hoped, so when i was finally holding our little boy i didn't cry, i couldn't stop grinning and staring at him and saying "Oh hello!" OH said "It's a boy!" and i said "what?" and both him and F said "It's a boy!" and i was still a bit out of it and was thinking "Of course it is!" Even though we had been on team yellow during the pregnancy i had a real feeling we were having a boy from about 20 weeks onwards and especially during the latter weeks and the labour so to me it seemed obvious it was a boy!
He was really alert and looking at us both, it was amazing to finally meet him and i felt incredible that i'd actually pushed him out when i was certain i never would. I said to OH "I pushed him out!" and he told me how well i'd done and how proud of me he was.
OH cut the cord, and I had the injection to help deliver the placenta and that came away not long after, although i have heard people say that they didn't feel it coming out but i actually had to push and it did feel uncomfortable but i had our beautiful little boy as a distraction.
They checked to see if i had torn and i had so my legs were put in stirrups and a new midwife (another shift change) came to stitch me up. My bits were so odeomatus though, (she said it was from being on the bed immobile basically all day) that she couldn't even see where to stitch
so had to bleep a doctor to come and do it. OH went out to make the "He's here!" phonecalls, and eventually the Dr arrived and starting stitching which was real agony and i was crying again. They had taken Tobias off me and put him in the cot where he was crying too, although to be honest it's a good job they did take him as it was all i could do to puff away on the gas and air while being stitched. OH came back and had cuddles with Tobias and after i'd been stitched our new midwife fetched tea and toast. Toby was rooting so i put him to the breast for his first feed although he didn't stay on long. Delivery suite was full and they needed my room so there was a bit of pressure on me really to get up and get showered, which i did and which felt WEIRD! I felt like i was in someone else's body, it was so bizare! And then we were transferred to the postnatal ward and OH had to go home I had expected a 24-48 hour stay after the birth but the infection markers in Toby's blood were slightly raised and with my history of GBS they didn't want to take any chances so he was started on antibiotics, and blood cultures were sent off, but they were negative after 48 hours so his antibiotics were stopped and we were kept in for an extra day just for observation. So all told we were in from 2am friday morning and got back home at 7pm wednesday night.
The birth was pretty much the opposite of everything we had planned, even if you ignore the fact i initially wanted a home water birth, once we knew we were going to the hospital i had planned to use my natal hypnotherapy cd and birthing ball and massage oil and different positions etc but with the labour being artifically augmented with the synto, and with Toby's heart rate being like it was and being attached to every bloody thing under the sun our plans had to go out of the window and we just had to keep open minded. It was a terrifying experience at the time i will admit but now it'd done i actually feel REALLY positive about the birth, and although i wouldn't have wished for it to happen that way, i feel like under the circumstances it went as well as it could and i feel quite proud of myself and of my fantastic OH and our baby boy too.
Toby is gorgeous and a fantastic little feeder and both OH and i are on cloud nine to have him home and we're all settling in really well
Here are some pictures i wanted to share:
This was taken about 10.30am, 1cm dilated and i look knackered already!
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23921.jpg
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23932.jpg
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23930.jpg
First cuddles with daddy
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23934.jpg
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL23939.jpg
Ready to go home!
https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/fakeplasticgirl7/Tobias/SSL24020.jpg
If you made it to the end- wow, well done and thanks for listening!
sounds like you had a terrible time, but thanks for sharing your story
