I was 40+4 when I had sweep numero uno. My dreams of going into spontaneous labour as I left the doctors didn't happen but that night, I thought it did! I had 3 hours of very mild contractions about 10-12 minutes apart from 2am. Having read everyone elses stories and advice on my facebook support group, I didn't panic, I simply stayed in bed. They'd totally tailed off and I brushed it off and drifted back to sleep.
Friday passed with nothing significant happening but I wasn't concerned, I was having another sweep on Saturday. This sweep was a little more encouraging - I was nice and thin (my cervix was at least) and approx 1-2cm dilated. OK, mot a huge amount but I'd started to doubt it even had an exit!
The mild contractions started again that afternoon and came and went without much gusto. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I really started to contract and realised that this was, if not 'it', then closer to 'it' than I'd been before.
I hadn't felt as many movements as I'd liked so I called up the delivery suite and told them I was having mild contractions and would they mind checking me out? They invited me in and thankfully, all was fine. They advised me to labour at home and come back later, which I was happy to do. In fact, we went for a fry up ;)
About 4 hours later at 4pm, I was contracting at between 10-12 minutes apart and really starting to feel the intensity rise so I popped on my TENS machine and tried to ride the waves dude! I found my most comfortable position was hanging over the edge of the sofa with my bum sticking up like a cat on heat. All of a sudden they started to come along every 7 minutes and then quickly to every 5. So with my TENS machine jacked up to 250 I popped off to the hospital with my husband and my mum.
My contractions were now every 4-5 minutes and nice and strong, I had an internal exam and guess what? 2-3 cm's. Are you kidding me? I was in SO much pain but they packed me off home with paracetamol and codeine.
I got home and laid on the bed, completely stoned from the codeine.I put my natal hypnotherapy breathing to use and do believe that it helped to keep me calm.
It was 1am and clearly this wasn't going to be quick so I sent my mum home again. My contractions stayed at 5 minutes apart and I tried to rely on the TENS machine and my breathing. I'm not sure whether the codeine actually helped with the pain or more helped me to rest in between and keep my energy up. Every half an hour or so I'd beg my husband to let me go back to the hospital but he kept saying No. He was convinced they'd not help me as I hadn't progressed enough. Finally at 6am, getting desperate, I called my Mum to come back to take me in.
Husband decided to have a couple of hours more in bed which I was fine with as I was quite convinced I'd still be hours. The drive to the hospital was excruciating. Me bent over on all fours on my mums back seat of her tiny car, grunting like a warthog. Why do they put SO many speed bumps on the entrance to a hospital? Every single one felt like a hot poker to my cervix.
We got almost into the front entrance to the maternity ward when I had a big mama of a contraction and had to hang off the cart of the dustbin man. Class. A passing maternity nurse scooped me up and got me into a room where I got given some G&A and was finally told I was allowed to stay and labour there, which is exactly what I wanted. My flat is tiny and I felt so claustrophobic being there in labour. I didn't want to have the memory of the pain in my bedroom if that makes sense?
The Lister hospital where I was had only just completed their brand spankers new state of the art Midwife led Low risk birthing unit. It was due to open the following morning but I was asked if I'd like to move up to there as I was apparently a nice low risk case and they were pretty sure I'd be delivering soon and wanted to get me in the birthing pool.
So up we went, meeting hub on the way who was nice and refreshed after his sleep, I on the other hand was starting to feel like the inside of an arsehole by now. Until I got in the pool. Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuush!
SO there I was, floating around with my gas and air, happily contracting every 3-4 minutes, having my picture taken by the head of the department as I was going to be the first lady to have her baby on this unit.
Things started to pick up rapidly and soon enough my contractions were almost back to back and I was on all fours and the pressure I felt was unbelievable! My mum and husband were sat by the edge of the pool and the midwives were all excited and I could hear them in the back of the room preparing things for the birth. About 15 minutes of me mooing and shaking, they were encouraging me that it wouldn't be too much longer and how well I was doing etc...
A mirror was placed under the water to see if they could see the baby crowning yet. it was really hard to ignore the body language of the staff there and I could tell by their faces they were shocked. There was no bubba there?! I was taken out of the pool and given another exam. After all that, with the frequency and intensity of my contractions, I was still only 2-3cm. I was totally and utterly heartbroken. 10 minutes after that my contractions tailed off. I think it was a mixture of the shock, exhaustion that made them stop. They then suggested I go home again.
I begged them not to make me go home, I'd suddenly become really afraid of labouring in my flat. Not giving birth there, just being in pain in my home. They could see how scared I was so they let me stay and even talked about arranging for my Mum and Paul to have a sleep somewhere (it seems that everyone slept but me!?).
I was bloody determined to have this baby that day so I slept for an hour and then got myself on that ball and bounced. I paced the corridors and scaled flights and flights of stairs 2 at a time. All of a sudden, they picked up again.
Bam- within half an hour I was back to every 4 minutes. So my obs were taken and it was here that things changed dramatically. My temperature was up, a lot. My pulse rate was 120 and they weren't happy with my blood pressure. I was now no longer low risk and had to be sent back down to the consultant led department. My water birth hopes were slowly disappearing.
To be honest, by this time, I didn't care whether I was in water or not, nor did I care to go much longer without some serious druggage!
Downstairs I was strapped to the monitor and made to lie on my back which made the pain of the contractions SO MUCH WORSE! Why do they make so many people lay like that?!!
I was begging for more pain relief by now as the position was making it too hard for me to breath through and my TENS machine may as well have not been there. The pressure of the monitors were also sat right on the areas that hurt in a contraction, but they refused (quite rightly) to take them off. Because of my super high temperature which they figured out to be an infection, they wouldn't give me an epidural. But they needed my contractions to intensify even more as I was now 3 cm's and clearly, ain't no baby gonna squeeze through that!
They wanted to put me onto the Syntocin with no extra meds for 4 hours to 'see how it went'. 4 hours. No extra pain relief. I almost fainted from shock. There was no way I'd have been able to do that. Hats well and truly off to ladies who can, but after the length of time I'd been awake for, I was beaten. Well and truly done. My husband had a full on debate with the obstetrician who insisted that I wasn't in established labour as I hadn't dilated to 5. But that was apparently the only box that I didn't tick. Everything else about my labouring was established, it was just my cervix not playing ball.
In the end they could see the distress it was causing me to be strapped down to the monitor on the syntocin drip with no pain relief and after 1 horrid hour of it they hooked me up to a morphine drip and some fluids, antibiotics and liquid paracetamol IVs to try and rehydrate me and bring my temperature down. The next 3 hours passed by in a blur of contractions, drowsiness and different doctors.
I don't know how I got to this next stage as I was so totally out of it due to the morphine and my temperature but it was decided that I needed to be put onto different pain management as they were going to jack up the Syntocin even higher. I had yet another IV drip inserted with an analgesic controlled by a button I had to press every time I felt a contraction. Now this PCA shit was strong and I was totally overwhelmed and sleep deprived. I was lying on my side facing the monitor and stupidly watched the screen. This meant I could see every contraction as it was happening and in my baffled state, instead of only pressing it when I could
feel it, I pressed it when I could
see it. This meant I ploughed through the dose 3 times faster than they allowed time for. The machine bleeped and the midwife explained that it had run out and that I'd reached the maximum dose I could be administered. The one person who could make the decision on the next step in pain relief was busy.
So I was told I'd basically have to do it without. My temperature was burning off morphine and my pulse was too high to risk it. I must have started to panic because machines started to be wheeled in and the next thing I know I'm lying on my back, I've got a team of unfriendly heart docs pegging me up to an ECG machine, some nurse is trying to get something else into my arm and she buggars it up. Queue blood all over everything and a rapidly swelling arm. There must have literally been 7/8 people working on me at once. For the first time, I seriously thought either me or the baby was in big trouble.
They were more concerned with my heart rate and rising temperature than pain relief for me which I understand. At the time I was beside myself with pain, panicking and being totally overwhelmed by the amount of people working over me, all talking to each other in medical terms, I was totally on the edge of meltdown.Thankfully, as soon as the fluids had passed through me they decided that, along with the antibiotics I'd been given, my temperature was under control and I was finally allowed to have an epidural. I never ever thought I'd have one, let alone be begging for one.
The epidural was administered and it was then I really started to have that 'out of body' experience, I felt like I was on One Born Every Minute. The anaesthetist even commented on how well I assumed the position! So that was in and I was given a little button to press to give myself a shot of the good stuff. The weird thing was, after a few contractions, it turns out that although the pain of the contraction was numbed, it was replaced with a shooting pain all through my left bum cheek and leg. The bloody epidural was only sitting on a nerve! Could the anaesthetist come back and adjust it? No. He'd gone home. Marvellous.
Another anaesthetist was called and she wasn't prepared to tweak another persons epidural which is understandable. Except that by this time, I'd had it! I lost control and started to weep!So out that came and in went a second one. Aaaaah, bliss! For the first time since it all started I was pain free and my gosh it felt great.
The whole atmosphere of the room changed and all talk was on whether the Syntocin had done it's job and they were going to examine me to see how wonderfully dilated I must surely be.... I even got out my make-up bag and applied some make-up to brighten myself up for the post baby photos, all the while marvelling out loud at how the monitor said I was contracting but i couldn't feel it! To be fair, I was very, very drugged...
Yet another doctor came along and delved into my nether regions. At this point I was so excited, I was going to give birth to my baby. All be it not in the way I'd always wanted but I was going to deliver my baby and I was buzzing!
Except that having extracted her gloved hand she looked at me with that pitying look that they give you. I was a grand total of 5cm dilated.
I clumsily leaned over on my side, as much as I could to have a little cry to myself and all of a sudden I caught a glimpse of the doctors face. She was looking at the monitor and asked me to move back onto my back, and quickly. I did and her expression changed again. It turns out that when I leaned the first time, my poor baby's heartbeat had plummeted dangerously low. On moving back, it had risen again and then spiked. So now my options have been taken away and the decision has been made, it was emergency c section, like it or not.
Right at this moment, I was so scared for my baby, if they'd have told me that they'd have to reach down my throat to pull the baby out I'd have ripped my jaw off to help them.
In all the manic comings and goings of the surgeons and consultants, I slowly went into shock. My mum had gone home for a sleep, my husband was there holding my hand and comforting me. I can honestly say, I don't remember a single word anyone said to me.
I apologise for the lack of timeline from now on but I cannot recall it accurately, so the order of it may be off but bear with me.
I was wheeled out of the room on the bed having signed the form that basically allows them to slice and dice me. Paul my husband gets left behind, I ask him to call my mum. I don't know how I wasn't crying by this point because all I can think is that I may not get a chance to say goodbye to my mum because everything was moving so quickly and I still had all these separate teams working on me for different reasons. Instead I stared blankly at the ceiling and, rather embarrassingly, I held the hand of a nurse who I'm sure had more important things to do.
They sprayed me with the cold spray to check I'd been adequately numbed and it had, thankfully worked.
Then, a lovely older nurse who I never saw again after I left the theatre whispered in my ear that my husband was on his way in and that he was in his scrubs and looked lovely. 'This is your George Clooney moment' she said. And she was right. Love that he gave himself enough time to take a photo?! (I made him keep the scrubs...just in case ya know!?)
He was sat next to me, kissing my face and stroking my hair whilst I apparently just stared. The epidural had worked beautifully, however it had spread up my arms somewhat. I then tried to brush a piece of hair from my eyes and proceeded to whack myself in the face. 4 times!
Then it was showtime. I could've done without the commentary from the surgeon to be honest. I could feel they were stretching me, really didn't need to be told. So- lots of pressure, tugging and pulling and then all of the sudden I felt this whoosh and a huge sense of relief on all my organs as she was finally pulled from me.
She was separated from the cord and lifted over my head to the nurses. My god she was so beautiful And shiny! She cried straight away.
I tried to lift my tingly numb arms out to her but they felt too weak. Instead, as I'd begged the lovely nurse for skin to skin they said I could have a few minutes with her. She was bought over screaming but to my utter joy, on being placed with me she settled. My heart instantly doubled in size.
And there she was, my daughter. Totally perfect. I couldn't kiss her enough. Those 2 minutes she lay with me were so precious and I truly believe got us both through the next few days. She knew me I'm sure of it and I'm so glad I got to whisper to her how much I loved her because seconds after she was whisked off to SCBU to be hooked up to her own drugs as my temperature and infection could've been passed on. Daddy went with her at my insistence and the rest is another blog post....
Until next time
So I turned to the computer. From one forum to another, I started to drum up conversations. This led to a facebook group being set up with 100+ amazing ladies who have been with me through every step of the way. I even dictated my 'In Labour' post to my husband in between contractions, such is the bond. Through that, I met a lovely lass who lives a stones throw from me and we started going to Aqua-natal classes together. Now, even if we don't see each other regularly, it's nice to know that I have a friend nearby.
