My birth story
On the 30th December I had what a thought was a small show, I never thought anything of it as I was only 38+5, then, On the 31st December, 8 days before my due date, I got up for one of usual wee breaks at 3am and as I sat up off the toilet I had a massive gush of water, lucky I was not in bed! I had a false alarm before so I put a pad in and went back to bed, I was so uncomfortable I got straight back up and went downstairs to bounce on my ball which did not help at all!!, I took some paracetamol and went back up stairs for a wee where I had a massive blood stained show and my pains started, just 20 minuets after the waters, I was quite freaked out by the blood so I woke hubby up and called the hospital, my pains were every 10 minuets by then and lasting nearly 60 seconds and I didn't expect that so soon.
We got to the hospital at 4:50 and got taken through to admissions where we waited until nearly 6am to be seen, I was 3-4cm by then and very uncomfortable, I got in the bath which helped for a short while. I then started on the gas and air which made me so light headed I couldn't walk around and it made me violently sick several times!
By 9:00 I was begging for an epidural, not the calm water birth I had planned, but as there was no bed on labour ward and I was still in admission they could not give me it as I needed one to one monitoring which they couldn't give me (hubby and I spent a lot of scary alone time in that assessment room!) this is when I went for the pethadine, another thing I didn't want originally. That really helped and by about 11:00 I was 8-9 cm and a bed was ready.
When I got to the labour ward I was almost fully dilated but still had an anterior lip, the midwife tried to coax it out of the way so I could start to push, by this time it was too late for an epidural I was told! My midwife went for lunch and the stand in midwife took over care, I was desperately in agony and asked for pethadine but she said it was too late and that it would make the baby too sleepy.
When my midwife came back I asked for pethadine again which was given and we were told if it affected baby there are things to counteract it. We started to push, its weird but it was actually a relief to start pushing. After over an hour of getting nowhere fast, the consultant came in to examine me. Baby was facing the wrong way and he explained he would need to turn to be able to come down, he gave me another hour of pushing to see if I could move him down on m own and went through our options if he didn't, I don't remember much of this really.
After nearly 3 hours of pushing it was decided that I needed trial of forceps and possible emergency section, I signed all the forms and was got ready very quickly, hubby was taken off after getting changed to wait for me to be ready.
The spinal was amazing, after 14 hours of pain I was finally free of it, was totally surreal seeing my legs being lifted though and not feeling them! The forceps failed, they could turn him but not pull him out and the consultant (I had the top dog!!!) didn't want to cause him any distress.
We went straight to section and Jacob was born at 17:28, it was such an emotional experience finally seeing my baby and I had a little cry, he was taken away to be checked and handed to daddy for his first cuddle.
They took 45 mins to sew me up as I was fully dilated it was more difficult as they had to pull him back up which meant a bigger cut into the uterus. I was then taken into recovery where I had my first cuddle. There is nothing like it and even though it was probably the most terrifying experience of my life I would do it all again for him.
We were taken up the ward just after 20:00 but as it was after visiting hubby had to say good bye at the lift, I was so sad to see him leave us
Becca x