Cordelia
31-12-2006, 19:50
I wasnt' due for another month (the 20th January) so I've been taking it fairly slow getting ready for the baby once I went on holidays at the start of December. So you can imagine my surprise when on the 20th December (exactly one month before the due date) at 6:30am my waters broke. My DH was having a shower so I opened the door and said "I think my waters broke" and his reaction was priceless! I was standing on the tiles in a pool of water and he jumped out of the shower and started running around going "what will I wear? what will I wear?" and then thinking that he should probably call the hospital ended up ringing his own number instead of the hospitals!
Well, on arrival to the hospital they did an ultrasound and decided that yes, my waters had definitely broken and that they were going to have to admit me to see if my labour started naturally.
From then on, i went on antiobiotics to stop an infection from ruptured membranes. We spent all day walking up and down the hospital hallways trying to bring on labour. I was still not having any contractiosn tho.
The next morning I was coming out of the shower when a midwife (a male one - midhusband?! :P) came and said "Right! Are you ready to have this baby?" giving me a huge shock. I gave my husband a ring immediately and he came running. They took all my stuff to the labour ward and hooked me up. They started to prepare me to get put on a drip with syntocin (is that it?) when a senior midwife questioned what they were doing. She called another hospital who said that they woud have waited another 48 hours so she rang the doctor and got him to change his mind.... soooo I was sent back to the ward with my bags again with more pressure to start contractions.
Another night of wandering up and down hallways and stressing out, the doctor arrived the next morning (Friday - I had been there since Wednesday) and said that they would start me on gel - (prostens?) immediately so I was hauled up to the labour ward again and administered gel. They gave me more gel that afternoon but apart from some ocassional tightening they discovered each time that there was no change.
On Saturday morning (this was my 4th day by now) they gave me gel in the morning and then surprise, surprise I still didnt' start contractions.
Seeing as I had 6 vaginal examinations already (and each one twice for the benefit of a student) they decided they wouldn't check me but put me on the syntocin straight away. So at 1pm I was away.
The contractions started getting really bad and by around 5pm the midwife started asking me if I wanted some gas. BUt I was determined that i would go for as long as possible without. At 6pm the contractions were coming every 2 minutes but only lasting for 30 seconds so they decided to turn the drip down. At 7 they did a vaginal examination and found that there had been absolutely no change at all. This was absolutely devastating to me after all this trauma and I started crying uncontrollably still getting these terrible contractions.
They called the doctor who ordered an emergency c-section for an hour and the midwife started preparing me. I was so devastated and upset that I would not get to have a natural birth that both me and my DH were absolutely bawling and crying. And my contractions were not subsiding which made it all the more traumatic.
The doctor came into see me 30 minutes later and asked what pain relief I was having. When the midwife told her I had had none the doctor said "well, it can't have been really labour she was in then". I was so mad and upset at that! How dare she! She had no ideda what I was going through - and I felt that if nothing else, at least I was going to do this drug-free.
They wheeled me down the hallway at 7:50 and Dh got changed into his pj looking clothes... They gave me the epidural which thank goodness wasn't so bad after all the pain I'd had. Unfortunately I got the shakes really badly which is a common side effect and which freaked my DH out.
It happened so quickly - one minute I was feeling these hands scrambling around in my stomach and the next we heard the beautiful cry of our baby daughter. They took her over to get suctioned and give oxygen to whilst me and my DH sat there completely overwhelemed. It took about 5 minutes for anyone to tell us that we had a baby daughter. My husbadn went over and took a photo and had a hold and they curled my little baby up in my arm to take back to maternity ward.
We called her Caitlin Joan (Joan was her great-grand mother) and she was born on the 23rd December at 8:45. She weighed a tiny 4 pound 9 and was kept in hospital for another week as she couldn't suck properly and was suffering from jaundice. She is still having trouble feeidng but we insisted on coming home and in the first 24 she's put on weight so let's hope that this continues.
Otherwise, she is the most stunning, beautiful girl and my DH and I can't stop staring at this wonderful creation that we made. I can't believe how quickly it all happened and what a shock it all was but I would do it again and again if we could up with the same result. Its amazing to think that I could have so much love for this one little bundle!!
I'm sorry this is so long - It's been almost therapy for me to type it all out and get it all out in the open. If you made it to the end.... congratulations!!
Well, on arrival to the hospital they did an ultrasound and decided that yes, my waters had definitely broken and that they were going to have to admit me to see if my labour started naturally.
From then on, i went on antiobiotics to stop an infection from ruptured membranes. We spent all day walking up and down the hospital hallways trying to bring on labour. I was still not having any contractiosn tho.
The next morning I was coming out of the shower when a midwife (a male one - midhusband?! :P) came and said "Right! Are you ready to have this baby?" giving me a huge shock. I gave my husband a ring immediately and he came running. They took all my stuff to the labour ward and hooked me up. They started to prepare me to get put on a drip with syntocin (is that it?) when a senior midwife questioned what they were doing. She called another hospital who said that they woud have waited another 48 hours so she rang the doctor and got him to change his mind.... soooo I was sent back to the ward with my bags again with more pressure to start contractions.
Another night of wandering up and down hallways and stressing out, the doctor arrived the next morning (Friday - I had been there since Wednesday) and said that they would start me on gel - (prostens?) immediately so I was hauled up to the labour ward again and administered gel. They gave me more gel that afternoon but apart from some ocassional tightening they discovered each time that there was no change.
On Saturday morning (this was my 4th day by now) they gave me gel in the morning and then surprise, surprise I still didnt' start contractions.
Seeing as I had 6 vaginal examinations already (and each one twice for the benefit of a student) they decided they wouldn't check me but put me on the syntocin straight away. So at 1pm I was away.
The contractions started getting really bad and by around 5pm the midwife started asking me if I wanted some gas. BUt I was determined that i would go for as long as possible without. At 6pm the contractions were coming every 2 minutes but only lasting for 30 seconds so they decided to turn the drip down. At 7 they did a vaginal examination and found that there had been absolutely no change at all. This was absolutely devastating to me after all this trauma and I started crying uncontrollably still getting these terrible contractions.
They called the doctor who ordered an emergency c-section for an hour and the midwife started preparing me. I was so devastated and upset that I would not get to have a natural birth that both me and my DH were absolutely bawling and crying. And my contractions were not subsiding which made it all the more traumatic.
The doctor came into see me 30 minutes later and asked what pain relief I was having. When the midwife told her I had had none the doctor said "well, it can't have been really labour she was in then". I was so mad and upset at that! How dare she! She had no ideda what I was going through - and I felt that if nothing else, at least I was going to do this drug-free.
They wheeled me down the hallway at 7:50 and Dh got changed into his pj looking clothes... They gave me the epidural which thank goodness wasn't so bad after all the pain I'd had. Unfortunately I got the shakes really badly which is a common side effect and which freaked my DH out.
It happened so quickly - one minute I was feeling these hands scrambling around in my stomach and the next we heard the beautiful cry of our baby daughter. They took her over to get suctioned and give oxygen to whilst me and my DH sat there completely overwhelemed. It took about 5 minutes for anyone to tell us that we had a baby daughter. My husbadn went over and took a photo and had a hold and they curled my little baby up in my arm to take back to maternity ward.
We called her Caitlin Joan (Joan was her great-grand mother) and she was born on the 23rd December at 8:45. She weighed a tiny 4 pound 9 and was kept in hospital for another week as she couldn't suck properly and was suffering from jaundice. She is still having trouble feeidng but we insisted on coming home and in the first 24 she's put on weight so let's hope that this continues.
Otherwise, she is the most stunning, beautiful girl and my DH and I can't stop staring at this wonderful creation that we made. I can't believe how quickly it all happened and what a shock it all was but I would do it again and again if we could up with the same result. Its amazing to think that I could have so much love for this one little bundle!!
I'm sorry this is so long - It's been almost therapy for me to type it all out and get it all out in the open. If you made it to the end.... congratulations!!