Hey everyone 
I managed to write my birth plan, and as I expected its an epic! Turned out to be around 18 hours of established full on labour and although Im not in too much of a hurry to do it again it was all worth it!!
Monday 3rd Sept 7 days overdue:
The midwife came round for a check up and gave me a sweep at around mid-morning. She said that I wasnt at all dilated and my cervix was still 1-2cm thick but shed managed to get in and have a sweep around (and it felt pretty uncomfortable!). After that I had some mild bleeding but nothing more so went for a walk by the beach in the evening, ate a pineapple and did some other stuff that is known to bring labour on.. ..
Tuesday 4th Sept 8 days overdue:
I had what looked like a show over the morning; just clear jelly, then started getting the mildest period type pains from 10ish. They were so slight at first I didnt mention them because I didnt want to make a big deal about it.
I started writing down the timings from half eleven and they were anywhere between 3 and 15 minutes apart through until the evening, but mostly around 8-9 mins apart. I rang the delivery suite at the hospital to let them know things were happening; they needed advanced warning because I was booked in for a homebirth and they had to make sure there were enough midwives available to come over.
I was having no problems pain wise and didnt really know when to put the TENS machine on, I think we put it on around 7 in the evening - just for something to do really! By 9.30 the pains were stronger and generally averaged around 6 minutes apart. I tried to go for a lie down but that made the contractions really painful so decided to try a bath. My husband made me the most gorgeous, serene bath with candles and I was in there 5 minutes before ruining it with my waters breaking and I poured my ugly bloody show into it!
Wednesday 5th Sept 9 days overdue:
After midnight I was in a lot of pain and started really shivering (which I now realise is a good indication that Im dilating). The midwife came at quarter to two and examined me and said I was 5-6 cm - I was so stoked!! She said that I was doing great and she was going to stay and see how things go over the next few hours. The contractions came strong and regular all through the night/early morning and I was coping really well just using the TENS until about 5am I started having a bit of gas and air. Didnt really like breathing back into the mouthpiece but it was nice to feel so drunk!
Around 5.30am the midwife re-examined me, and this is where it all went waaaay off the birth plan. I hadnt dilated at all since the last internal 4 hours earlier.
I was so shocked, Id been contracting like a bugger for all those hours and nothing had been happening! The midwife didnt really hold out hope for any option other than going to the hospital and getting me started on a drip to force the labour on. It was all so surreal and I found it really hard to understand because I was so tired. The news really threw me and my contractions virtually stopped. The ambulance arrived within about ten minutes and Im so relieved I had everything packed up ready to go already. I was really in two minds about what to do. On one hand, and my preferred option, was to gear myself up again, get those contractions in line, demand an internal at the hospital and if there had been any progress make them let me carry on in the birth pool. But Id only had two contractions in the journey from home to the ambulance so I had no hope that Id made any progress and had to try and get realistic. The midwife warned me that even on a drip the dilation is an average 1cm an hour deal and then with a couple of hours of pushing I could be looking at having the baby sometime in the afternoon. It was 7am and she said if you think you can cope with the pain for that much longer then great, but Im not sure if youll be able to. And boy was she right, I totally agreed with her, I was already so exhausted and really had had enough of the contractions already. I was scared how much more they were going to hurt when the drip was put in. So without feeling that upset for my left behind birth plan I welcomed the anaesthetist in and got an epidural.
I spent the morning half relaxing in the bed and half watching the monitor frantically. I was really worried the babys heartbeat would start flying all over the place and they would start talking about more interventions and c-sections etc. Her heartbeat dipped to 97ish a few times at around 10-11am and I was shitting myself, but it was made better by me being put on my left side (by the midwife and my husband Jono as I couldnt use my legs anymore). But that made the epidural not work very well on my right side and I could feel the contractions. The midwives were discussing this and saying that I should be put back on my back and theyd figure out what to do about the baby finding this stressful I was like, are you kidding? Ill take the pain if it means the baby gets to relax in there. Im not sure what happened in the end, whether they topped up my epidural or made me lie a bit different on my back, I was too wiped out to remember.
I really wanted to get some kip but the midwife was constantly monitoring me and the babys stats so it was too hard to actually sleep. I just tried to keep chilled and conserve my energy for the pushing that they were telling me would start in the afternoon.
They had my day pretty well timetabled, first there was three hours of dilation until 12.30, then they were going to check me and hope Id be fully dilated (I was yes!
), then they were going to do nothing for an hour and let the baby start to descend without my help. Then at 1.30pm I was to start pushing myself. I was a bit nervous about it because I couldnt feel anything, I was lying on the bed and I know all the statistics on how further interventions were likely to be necessary. Because my birth plan had gone so off the rails I just really wanted to regain some control of the situation and push the baby out myself.
I started off okay, couldnt feel a thing and had no idea if I was doing any good but we gave it a couple of hours pushing through each contraction (coming every 3 mins so the monitor told me) and trying my legs in different positions again moved around for me. The doctor was brought in, I remember that two hours was about the limit a hospital will let you push for so I was half expecting him just to swan in waving a ventouse, but he was really nice and asked me to push so he could watch whether progress was being made. The pressure of the audience obviously worked and for the first time they saw the babys head way up the birth canal! So the doc said hed give me another half an hour. I was so pysched up by this, and ready to get the baby out, but in that whole half hour following the midwife didnt see the baby again. Getting desperate I told them that I pushed better when I had their hand inside me, basically pointing at the direction to push in, like having something to push against, so we did that for a while. Then I was getting Jono to push my back to make me more upright and to squeeze the baby out of me from my top half too. When he gave a good push the midwife always said yes! Thats it, keep that coming! so it was obviously working better than my pushing attempts! I had my legs pushing against Jono and the midwifes hips, either side of the bed and that worked well for a long time but the poor midwife was getting some serious backache. The doctor came back and I was really flagging, but after he watched again he said the baby was still moving down and the monitor showed no distress so hed let me keep going! I didnt know whether to thank him by this time I was sooo tired!! Id been pushing for over 3 hours and didnt think I could actually get the baby out. Instead I figured that Ill probably end up with a ventouse delivery but for each push Ill get the baby closer to the door so making it less of a big deal. I know ventouse delivery isnt the worst thing in the world too, far from it, its just that because Id been bouncing around on my ball for 4 hours at 5cm dilated the midwife had told me the head was already bulging out funny (cant remember the technical term!) so I didnt want to add to that with the extra pressure on her poor head!
Anyhoo, after four hours the head was coming through this I could feel! Her heartbeat was still solid and so I took my time and really tried not to get torn. But when her head was out facing down, it just looked so lifeless and grey it totally freaked me out and I just wanted to push and push to get her out in case she needed some kind of resuscitation. So the rest of her was born pretty quickly (giving me a bit of bother down below) and she was put straight into my arms and they let me hold her for the longest time. I was so out of it by then, you try and imagine the moment that the baby is given to you and of course you cant, its too huge a thing and it was really overwhelming. Really early on I checked that it was definitely a girl Ive been so paranoid the scan was wrong! I let her try and find the breast herself (sound mental here but check this link - http://breastcrawl.org/). She was showing totally identical signs as the baby in the breast crawl video, but I got spooked that the midwives were going to come and force it so I gave her a bit of a helping hand and she fed fine for a short time.
Its been a week now and apart from further problems with my stitches (infected) everything is going great! Im still finding the whole thing so surreal, not forgetting that we have a baby, but just doing a double take every now and again! It feels weird to do normal things like watch tv because life has changed so much.
I thought if my birth plan went so far out the window Id be really traumatised by it, but I really couldnt care at all how it happened the end result is so amazing. Here are some pictures (of the 1000s weve already taken!). . . .
just home from the hospital, first go in the moses basket:
four days old in her cot:
I managed to write my birth plan, and as I expected its an epic! Turned out to be around 18 hours of established full on labour and although Im not in too much of a hurry to do it again it was all worth it!!
Monday 3rd Sept 7 days overdue:
The midwife came round for a check up and gave me a sweep at around mid-morning. She said that I wasnt at all dilated and my cervix was still 1-2cm thick but shed managed to get in and have a sweep around (and it felt pretty uncomfortable!). After that I had some mild bleeding but nothing more so went for a walk by the beach in the evening, ate a pineapple and did some other stuff that is known to bring labour on.. ..
Tuesday 4th Sept 8 days overdue:
I had what looked like a show over the morning; just clear jelly, then started getting the mildest period type pains from 10ish. They were so slight at first I didnt mention them because I didnt want to make a big deal about it.
I started writing down the timings from half eleven and they were anywhere between 3 and 15 minutes apart through until the evening, but mostly around 8-9 mins apart. I rang the delivery suite at the hospital to let them know things were happening; they needed advanced warning because I was booked in for a homebirth and they had to make sure there were enough midwives available to come over.
I was having no problems pain wise and didnt really know when to put the TENS machine on, I think we put it on around 7 in the evening - just for something to do really! By 9.30 the pains were stronger and generally averaged around 6 minutes apart. I tried to go for a lie down but that made the contractions really painful so decided to try a bath. My husband made me the most gorgeous, serene bath with candles and I was in there 5 minutes before ruining it with my waters breaking and I poured my ugly bloody show into it!
Wednesday 5th Sept 9 days overdue:
After midnight I was in a lot of pain and started really shivering (which I now realise is a good indication that Im dilating). The midwife came at quarter to two and examined me and said I was 5-6 cm - I was so stoked!! She said that I was doing great and she was going to stay and see how things go over the next few hours. The contractions came strong and regular all through the night/early morning and I was coping really well just using the TENS until about 5am I started having a bit of gas and air. Didnt really like breathing back into the mouthpiece but it was nice to feel so drunk!
Around 5.30am the midwife re-examined me, and this is where it all went waaaay off the birth plan. I hadnt dilated at all since the last internal 4 hours earlier.
I was so shocked, Id been contracting like a bugger for all those hours and nothing had been happening! The midwife didnt really hold out hope for any option other than going to the hospital and getting me started on a drip to force the labour on. It was all so surreal and I found it really hard to understand because I was so tired. The news really threw me and my contractions virtually stopped. The ambulance arrived within about ten minutes and Im so relieved I had everything packed up ready to go already. I was really in two minds about what to do. On one hand, and my preferred option, was to gear myself up again, get those contractions in line, demand an internal at the hospital and if there had been any progress make them let me carry on in the birth pool. But Id only had two contractions in the journey from home to the ambulance so I had no hope that Id made any progress and had to try and get realistic. The midwife warned me that even on a drip the dilation is an average 1cm an hour deal and then with a couple of hours of pushing I could be looking at having the baby sometime in the afternoon. It was 7am and she said if you think you can cope with the pain for that much longer then great, but Im not sure if youll be able to. And boy was she right, I totally agreed with her, I was already so exhausted and really had had enough of the contractions already. I was scared how much more they were going to hurt when the drip was put in. So without feeling that upset for my left behind birth plan I welcomed the anaesthetist in and got an epidural. I spent the morning half relaxing in the bed and half watching the monitor frantically. I was really worried the babys heartbeat would start flying all over the place and they would start talking about more interventions and c-sections etc. Her heartbeat dipped to 97ish a few times at around 10-11am and I was shitting myself, but it was made better by me being put on my left side (by the midwife and my husband Jono as I couldnt use my legs anymore). But that made the epidural not work very well on my right side and I could feel the contractions. The midwives were discussing this and saying that I should be put back on my back and theyd figure out what to do about the baby finding this stressful I was like, are you kidding? Ill take the pain if it means the baby gets to relax in there. Im not sure what happened in the end, whether they topped up my epidural or made me lie a bit different on my back, I was too wiped out to remember.
I really wanted to get some kip but the midwife was constantly monitoring me and the babys stats so it was too hard to actually sleep. I just tried to keep chilled and conserve my energy for the pushing that they were telling me would start in the afternoon.
They had my day pretty well timetabled, first there was three hours of dilation until 12.30, then they were going to check me and hope Id be fully dilated (I was yes!
), then they were going to do nothing for an hour and let the baby start to descend without my help. Then at 1.30pm I was to start pushing myself. I was a bit nervous about it because I couldnt feel anything, I was lying on the bed and I know all the statistics on how further interventions were likely to be necessary. Because my birth plan had gone so off the rails I just really wanted to regain some control of the situation and push the baby out myself.I started off okay, couldnt feel a thing and had no idea if I was doing any good but we gave it a couple of hours pushing through each contraction (coming every 3 mins so the monitor told me) and trying my legs in different positions again moved around for me. The doctor was brought in, I remember that two hours was about the limit a hospital will let you push for so I was half expecting him just to swan in waving a ventouse, but he was really nice and asked me to push so he could watch whether progress was being made. The pressure of the audience obviously worked and for the first time they saw the babys head way up the birth canal! So the doc said hed give me another half an hour. I was so pysched up by this, and ready to get the baby out, but in that whole half hour following the midwife didnt see the baby again. Getting desperate I told them that I pushed better when I had their hand inside me, basically pointing at the direction to push in, like having something to push against, so we did that for a while. Then I was getting Jono to push my back to make me more upright and to squeeze the baby out of me from my top half too. When he gave a good push the midwife always said yes! Thats it, keep that coming! so it was obviously working better than my pushing attempts! I had my legs pushing against Jono and the midwifes hips, either side of the bed and that worked well for a long time but the poor midwife was getting some serious backache. The doctor came back and I was really flagging, but after he watched again he said the baby was still moving down and the monitor showed no distress so hed let me keep going! I didnt know whether to thank him by this time I was sooo tired!! Id been pushing for over 3 hours and didnt think I could actually get the baby out. Instead I figured that Ill probably end up with a ventouse delivery but for each push Ill get the baby closer to the door so making it less of a big deal. I know ventouse delivery isnt the worst thing in the world too, far from it, its just that because Id been bouncing around on my ball for 4 hours at 5cm dilated the midwife had told me the head was already bulging out funny (cant remember the technical term!) so I didnt want to add to that with the extra pressure on her poor head!
Anyhoo, after four hours the head was coming through this I could feel! Her heartbeat was still solid and so I took my time and really tried not to get torn. But when her head was out facing down, it just looked so lifeless and grey it totally freaked me out and I just wanted to push and push to get her out in case she needed some kind of resuscitation. So the rest of her was born pretty quickly (giving me a bit of bother down below) and she was put straight into my arms and they let me hold her for the longest time. I was so out of it by then, you try and imagine the moment that the baby is given to you and of course you cant, its too huge a thing and it was really overwhelming. Really early on I checked that it was definitely a girl Ive been so paranoid the scan was wrong! I let her try and find the breast herself (sound mental here but check this link - http://breastcrawl.org/). She was showing totally identical signs as the baby in the breast crawl video, but I got spooked that the midwives were going to come and force it so I gave her a bit of a helping hand and she fed fine for a short time.
Its been a week now and apart from further problems with my stitches (infected) everything is going great! Im still finding the whole thing so surreal, not forgetting that we have a baby, but just doing a double take every now and again! It feels weird to do normal things like watch tv because life has changed so much.
I thought if my birth plan went so far out the window Id be really traumatised by it, but I really couldnt care at all how it happened the end result is so amazing. Here are some pictures (of the 1000s weve already taken!). . . .
just home from the hospital, first go in the moses basket:
four days old in her cot:
