(no subject)
Ok I finally am getting around to posting my birth story here, I'm pretty slow all round lately - Carter loves to fill his belly!
Well I guess you could say that my labour started on Sunday morningwhen I was having regular Braxton Hicks from the moment I woke up, butto be honest they didn't get painful until the afternoon, and theyslowly worked themselves up to the point where my brother drove us tothe hospital at 10pm. Once we got there they seemed to slow down andstopped being as strong so a midwife checked me over and told me to goback home and that it was probably just a practice run. So of coursethey started up again on the drive home!
I did manage to get afew hours sleep though I kept being woken up by contractions. Mondaymorning they seemed to get a lot stronger, although still no closerthan 8-10minutes apart, and I had an appointment at the hospital for12pm anyhow to discuss the large amounts of protein in my urine thatthey'd found in my 24 hour collection. So I went for a walk to try andget things going (I even stopped in at the post office but had onlytaken one thing I needed to post so yummymummy69your parcel will be sent soon :D). My brother drove us to myappointment, and teh consultant said that she'd examine me to determineif I was in labour and that if not and I wasn't favourable for aninduction then she'd like to give me a c-section on my due date. Icertainly didn't want another c -section so was really hoping that thecontractions hadn't been a figment of my overimaginative hyperchondriacbrain!
Luckily I was very thin and 2-3cm dilated when sheexamined me, she informed during the internal that she was giving me asweep (she didn't even ask me so I was a bit peed) and this resulted ina bloody show. So she sent me to the maternity ward to stay in a roomand hopefully the contractions would kick off properly by the morningor they'd discuss my induction then. I hoped they would get started asGareth would have to leave at 8:30pm if not and it's a long drive so Iwanted him by my side. It was somewhere around 5pm when my contractionswere 5-6mins apart that I sent Gareth for a midwife to come and checkme over to see if I was ready to go to the labour ward yet. When shegave me an internal I was at 5-6cm so all nice and ready. Plus I reallywanted some Gas and Air at this point!
Yay for Entonox. I gotto the labour and delivery suite, with a couple of contractions alongthe way that I had to stop for as they were really starting to getintense. I was starting to bleed properly instead of just losing btisof plug at this point as well which I assumed was normal. Once I hadthe Entonox in my hand then things became so managable, I was doinggreat. However that could be just because I can barely remember any ofit now! I was hooked up to a monitor but allowed to stay pretty mobileso I went from standing and leaning over the bed to kneeling on a chairwhile leaning on the bed and sucking the gas and air because my feetached lol.
The bleeding kept getting worse though, to the pointwhere I was soaking through maternity pads, I kept asking them if itwas normal and the reply I kept on getting was that it was a 'littlemore' than they'd like to see so they were keeping an eye on it.Obviously as I've had a previous c-section there was a slight risk ofuterine rupture so they wanted to be careful. It must have beensometime after midnight when they came and said they'd like to give meanother section as they were concerned about the amount of blood I waslosing. At this point the contractions had doubled in intensity and Iwas 8-9cm dilated plus out of my face so all my good intentions wentout of the window and I jumped at the chance. I'm so disapointed now asI had been doing really well, although I was starting to get noisybecause the Entonox wasn't helping nowhere near as much with thecontractions anymore. So to offer a drugged up me the chance to have itall over with was too tempting, I was just adamant I wanted to go homeand didn't want another baby at all!
I told them that in no waywould I have another epidural again as it had only worked for a shortamount of time last time so I was terrified of feeling them cutting meopen. They gave me a spinal block instead, which took several attempts(like the epidural with my last labour had) so I'm wondering if I havea dodgy shaped spine or something now. I really wasn't handling thecontractions I had while they were messing around with me at all wellby now and was really making some noise. I was so drowsy and prettymuch not on this planet anymore though.
I can hardly rememberthe c-section, I only felt a slight bit of tugging and pulling, andthis time Gareth was able to be there as previously I had a general dueto the epidural failing so he'd been kept out of the OR. Gareth told methat as my waters hadn't even broken during my labour the surgeon wasable to just let the baby push himself out and so the birth wasactually quite gentle for a c-section. Gareth was pretty impressed withhow calm and relaxed it all was (I was so drugged up I could barely see- or maybe they'd taken ym glasses off I don't know- and my eyes wererolling around like marbles). And that was it.
I got to seethe baby and have some skin to skin contact just after he was dressedand checked over (Gareth got to dress him). We attempted to get him tolatch on but he wasn't really interested and I wasn't in the best ofpositions as I still couldn't feel my legs yet. However about 12 hourslater he was feeding like he'd been doing it a long time after notreally taking much or showing an interest until then.
I do have some more photos of him here if you'd like a look. All in all, I am just relieved he is here and nothing really scary like a uterine rupture happened. He's perfect.
Well I guess you could say that my labour started on Sunday morningwhen I was having regular Braxton Hicks from the moment I woke up, butto be honest they didn't get painful until the afternoon, and theyslowly worked themselves up to the point where my brother drove us tothe hospital at 10pm. Once we got there they seemed to slow down andstopped being as strong so a midwife checked me over and told me to goback home and that it was probably just a practice run. So of coursethey started up again on the drive home!
I did manage to get afew hours sleep though I kept being woken up by contractions. Mondaymorning they seemed to get a lot stronger, although still no closerthan 8-10minutes apart, and I had an appointment at the hospital for12pm anyhow to discuss the large amounts of protein in my urine thatthey'd found in my 24 hour collection. So I went for a walk to try andget things going (I even stopped in at the post office but had onlytaken one thing I needed to post so yummymummy69your parcel will be sent soon :D). My brother drove us to myappointment, and teh consultant said that she'd examine me to determineif I was in labour and that if not and I wasn't favourable for aninduction then she'd like to give me a c-section on my due date. Icertainly didn't want another c -section so was really hoping that thecontractions hadn't been a figment of my overimaginative hyperchondriacbrain!
Luckily I was very thin and 2-3cm dilated when sheexamined me, she informed during the internal that she was giving me asweep (she didn't even ask me so I was a bit peed) and this resulted ina bloody show. So she sent me to the maternity ward to stay in a roomand hopefully the contractions would kick off properly by the morningor they'd discuss my induction then. I hoped they would get started asGareth would have to leave at 8:30pm if not and it's a long drive so Iwanted him by my side. It was somewhere around 5pm when my contractionswere 5-6mins apart that I sent Gareth for a midwife to come and checkme over to see if I was ready to go to the labour ward yet. When shegave me an internal I was at 5-6cm so all nice and ready. Plus I reallywanted some Gas and Air at this point!
Yay for Entonox. I gotto the labour and delivery suite, with a couple of contractions alongthe way that I had to stop for as they were really starting to getintense. I was starting to bleed properly instead of just losing btisof plug at this point as well which I assumed was normal. Once I hadthe Entonox in my hand then things became so managable, I was doinggreat. However that could be just because I can barely remember any ofit now! I was hooked up to a monitor but allowed to stay pretty mobileso I went from standing and leaning over the bed to kneeling on a chairwhile leaning on the bed and sucking the gas and air because my feetached lol.
The bleeding kept getting worse though, to the pointwhere I was soaking through maternity pads, I kept asking them if itwas normal and the reply I kept on getting was that it was a 'littlemore' than they'd like to see so they were keeping an eye on it.Obviously as I've had a previous c-section there was a slight risk ofuterine rupture so they wanted to be careful. It must have beensometime after midnight when they came and said they'd like to give meanother section as they were concerned about the amount of blood I waslosing. At this point the contractions had doubled in intensity and Iwas 8-9cm dilated plus out of my face so all my good intentions wentout of the window and I jumped at the chance. I'm so disapointed now asI had been doing really well, although I was starting to get noisybecause the Entonox wasn't helping nowhere near as much with thecontractions anymore. So to offer a drugged up me the chance to have itall over with was too tempting, I was just adamant I wanted to go homeand didn't want another baby at all!
I told them that in no waywould I have another epidural again as it had only worked for a shortamount of time last time so I was terrified of feeling them cutting meopen. They gave me a spinal block instead, which took several attempts(like the epidural with my last labour had) so I'm wondering if I havea dodgy shaped spine or something now. I really wasn't handling thecontractions I had while they were messing around with me at all wellby now and was really making some noise. I was so drowsy and prettymuch not on this planet anymore though.
I can hardly rememberthe c-section, I only felt a slight bit of tugging and pulling, andthis time Gareth was able to be there as previously I had a general dueto the epidural failing so he'd been kept out of the OR. Gareth told methat as my waters hadn't even broken during my labour the surgeon wasable to just let the baby push himself out and so the birth wasactually quite gentle for a c-section. Gareth was pretty impressed withhow calm and relaxed it all was (I was so drugged up I could barely see- or maybe they'd taken ym glasses off I don't know- and my eyes wererolling around like marbles). And that was it.
I got to seethe baby and have some skin to skin contact just after he was dressedand checked over (Gareth got to dress him). We attempted to get him tolatch on but he wasn't really interested and I wasn't in the best ofpositions as I still couldn't feel my legs yet. However about 12 hourslater he was feeding like he'd been doing it a long time after notreally taking much or showing an interest until then.
I do have some more photos of him here if you'd like a look. All in all, I am just relieved he is here and nothing really scary like a uterine rupture happened. He's perfect.