It's taken me a while to write this as each time I try I get distracted but here is my birth story.
Had been getting mild irregular contractions for a while and a couple of weeks beforehand I had a hind waters leak which had re-sealed. On Monday evening we took the dogs for a walk on the beach and I noticed that every so often my waters were leaking. When we got back home I had some dinner and then phoned delivery suite, they asked me to go in for assessment so made my way there at about 8:30. Was put on a CTG which showed baby was fine and that I was having irregular contractions. The midwife did an internal examination to check it was my waters and confirmed that my hind waters had gone again and that I was 1cm dialated, by this time it was nearly midnight and as I was only in the very early stages I asked if I could go home. They agreed providing if nothing happened I went back in to be induced at 6pm Tuesday evening. I got home and by 1am contractions were every 15 minutes getting stronger...all hope of sleep went out the window. At 4am I had a bath which helped for a little while and then seemed to make things a lot worse! I woke Gary up as the contractions were every 6 or 7 minutes and I was struggling. I used my tens machine which really helped between the contractions but during them it really annoyed me so I gave up with it. At 9 am I was getting contractions every 4 minutes and most of them were making me throw up, we called delivery who asked us to come in for assessment but said they thought they'd be sending me home again. We got there at 9:30 and was left until 11 before I was examined, the midwife confirmed that I was in established labour at 'a good 5cm with my forewaters bulging' and said she was suprised how well I was coping...I didn't think I was coping well. She then talked to me about my birth plan and said that my water birth was a no go as my waters had broken too long ago and the risk of infection was too high. I was struggling to cope with the pain and didn't find the gas and air helped so I had some pethadine, it was great! I fell asleep between contractions and only woke up for the peak of them, Gary could see when they were coming on the CTG monitor so had a wet, cold towel ready everytime. By 12 I was fully dialated and pushing but didn't think to tell the midwife until nearly 1 as the pethadine had me completely out of it. She predicted baby would be here by 3 and assigned a student midwife to me as I was having such a 'good' labour. I think that jinxed things a bit because after that nothing seemed to happen no matter how much I pushed and the midwives couldn't work out why (there were 4 by this point including the student.) The student midwife was great and the only person other than Gary that was able to keep me calm. At 5 o'clock I was shattered and really struggling, they gave me another shot of pethadine which wasn't as good the second time and they put me on a drip to try and make my contractions stronger, hoping it would move things along. I was still a bit of a puzzle so they got the dr to come and assess me. She had a good feel and said that despite being in the perfect position for weeks baby had turned back to back as she had moved down and had tilted her head back rather than forward, this had literally caused her to get jammed and there was no way she was coming out without help. By this stage I was begging anyone that would listen to take the pain away! The dr told me they would probably have to do a c-section but would try and deliver using the suction cap first. They would do this in theatre in case the c-section was necessary. The first epidural didn't work so a c-section was looking more and more likely, they had another go and it started to work but not as well as it should have so they gave me 2 injections in my fanjita too! The suction cap delivery did work thankfully but in the process I got a third degree tear and was cut in 2 places too. I needed over 100 stitches but the second she was put on my stomach I knew I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. She is so perfect and the bruising from the cap has completely gone now. My blood levels dropped to 7.6 which was below the level for transfusion but they decided not to and monitor me to see how I was. They released me on the Thursday and on Friday night I nearly had to be re-admitted as my head wasn't getting enough oxygen but they let me stay at home on bed rest for a few days. Because of all this I couldn't breast feed as it was causing too much stress with everything else and I was having trouble producing enough milk because of my blood levels. Am now almost back to my normal self and despite everything it was a great experience and I would go through it all again.
Jessica was born at 6:40pm on 15/7/08.
She weighed 8lb 5oz and her head circumference was 36cm.
Established labour was 9 hours 15 minutes but 6 hours of that were pushing!
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0571.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0584.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0647.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0650.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0657.jpg
Had to post the links to the pics as they were too big and I didn't know how to make them smaller. I can't believe how much she's changed already!
Had been getting mild irregular contractions for a while and a couple of weeks beforehand I had a hind waters leak which had re-sealed. On Monday evening we took the dogs for a walk on the beach and I noticed that every so often my waters were leaking. When we got back home I had some dinner and then phoned delivery suite, they asked me to go in for assessment so made my way there at about 8:30. Was put on a CTG which showed baby was fine and that I was having irregular contractions. The midwife did an internal examination to check it was my waters and confirmed that my hind waters had gone again and that I was 1cm dialated, by this time it was nearly midnight and as I was only in the very early stages I asked if I could go home. They agreed providing if nothing happened I went back in to be induced at 6pm Tuesday evening. I got home and by 1am contractions were every 15 minutes getting stronger...all hope of sleep went out the window. At 4am I had a bath which helped for a little while and then seemed to make things a lot worse! I woke Gary up as the contractions were every 6 or 7 minutes and I was struggling. I used my tens machine which really helped between the contractions but during them it really annoyed me so I gave up with it. At 9 am I was getting contractions every 4 minutes and most of them were making me throw up, we called delivery who asked us to come in for assessment but said they thought they'd be sending me home again. We got there at 9:30 and was left until 11 before I was examined, the midwife confirmed that I was in established labour at 'a good 5cm with my forewaters bulging' and said she was suprised how well I was coping...I didn't think I was coping well. She then talked to me about my birth plan and said that my water birth was a no go as my waters had broken too long ago and the risk of infection was too high. I was struggling to cope with the pain and didn't find the gas and air helped so I had some pethadine, it was great! I fell asleep between contractions and only woke up for the peak of them, Gary could see when they were coming on the CTG monitor so had a wet, cold towel ready everytime. By 12 I was fully dialated and pushing but didn't think to tell the midwife until nearly 1 as the pethadine had me completely out of it. She predicted baby would be here by 3 and assigned a student midwife to me as I was having such a 'good' labour. I think that jinxed things a bit because after that nothing seemed to happen no matter how much I pushed and the midwives couldn't work out why (there were 4 by this point including the student.) The student midwife was great and the only person other than Gary that was able to keep me calm. At 5 o'clock I was shattered and really struggling, they gave me another shot of pethadine which wasn't as good the second time and they put me on a drip to try and make my contractions stronger, hoping it would move things along. I was still a bit of a puzzle so they got the dr to come and assess me. She had a good feel and said that despite being in the perfect position for weeks baby had turned back to back as she had moved down and had tilted her head back rather than forward, this had literally caused her to get jammed and there was no way she was coming out without help. By this stage I was begging anyone that would listen to take the pain away! The dr told me they would probably have to do a c-section but would try and deliver using the suction cap first. They would do this in theatre in case the c-section was necessary. The first epidural didn't work so a c-section was looking more and more likely, they had another go and it started to work but not as well as it should have so they gave me 2 injections in my fanjita too! The suction cap delivery did work thankfully but in the process I got a third degree tear and was cut in 2 places too. I needed over 100 stitches but the second she was put on my stomach I knew I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. She is so perfect and the bruising from the cap has completely gone now. My blood levels dropped to 7.6 which was below the level for transfusion but they decided not to and monitor me to see how I was. They released me on the Thursday and on Friday night I nearly had to be re-admitted as my head wasn't getting enough oxygen but they let me stay at home on bed rest for a few days. Because of all this I couldn't breast feed as it was causing too much stress with everything else and I was having trouble producing enough milk because of my blood levels. Am now almost back to my normal self and despite everything it was a great experience and I would go through it all again.
Jessica was born at 6:40pm on 15/7/08.
She weighed 8lb 5oz and her head circumference was 36cm.
Established labour was 9 hours 15 minutes but 6 hours of that were pushing!
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0571.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0584.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0647.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0650.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj28 ... MG0657.jpg
Had to post the links to the pics as they were too big and I didn't know how to make them smaller. I can't believe how much she's changed already!
