Butterflymumma
06-03-2007, 06:29 AM
Okay so it’s taken me a while to write up my birth story, I’ve been so busy with my little girl! So here it goes…I was 10 days overdue and went to the hospital on Thursday night to get the prostaglandin gel put in but when my midwife hooked me and bubs up to the CTG scanner it became clear I was already contracting. I had felt these early contractions as extremely strong Braxton Hicks, so didn’t say anything about it when I went in that night! I was all packed and ready for a nights stay in the hospital but my midwife sent me home without having the gel put in and I was able to labour naturally at home that night.
The next day I got up, having had maybe 2 hours sleep in total, and went back to the hospital as arranged to have my waters broken. (Wow what a strange feeling that was having water leak from me for a couple of hours!) That happened at 7.30am and around 9am I started getting contractions 5 minutes apart lasting for 1 minute. This was fine until it quickly turned into 2 minutes apart for 1 minute by about 10.30 am!!! Ouch!
I labored naturally (Without screaming or swearing once!!) up until 6.00pm when I asked for an epidural. It wasn’t so much the pain that I couldn’t handle but by this time having been awake for hours the night before as well, I was just exhausted! I was 7cms by that stage and 2 hours later I hadn't progressed so they gave me the syntocinon drip, which got me to 10 cms by about 11.00pm that night.
I started pushing at about 12.00ish and it went on for ages and we could see a tiny part of her head but nothing was happening until they said to me "You are pushing so well, your contractions are some of the strongest I’ve ever seen, why isn’t she coming out!". After a couple of internals they soon found that she was transverse in the birth canal (coming out with her face facing my hip rather than my back) and basically very stuck, they told me they were going to try and use the Vac Suction to get her out and If that failed then it would be an ECS.
So over we went to theatre, my mum by my side the whole time (thank goodness!) and me starting to have a panic attack!!! In theatre they decided to try forceps instead but that didn’t work so they prepared for an emergency Caesarian Section. During the Caesar they had to pull Lillyana back up the birth canal and because she was so wedged in there from all my pushing I was torn from the cervix up into my uterus and lost about three bags of blood in the process. I could smell them burning all the veins and arteries back together and it took a very long time for them to fix it before they stitched me up. But she arrived safe and sound (her heart rate did not drop once during the whole ordeal! She was perfectly calm through it all!) Into the world at 2.18pm and mum got to cut her cord! I cried when I saw her, so much emotion filled my body. I held her for a while but disappointingly had to have her taken off me because I began to throw up from the surgery. I must admit after being sick I had trouble looking at Lillyana in my mums arms, it was just too emotionally draining, I was already running on complete empty and if I looked at her I just cried and was filled with so much pride and happiness and love that it was too much to bear and too hard to handle on that surgery table. When I went into recovery I got to finally hold her properly and I was feeling a lot better and much more relaxed.
I ended up dropping from a blood count of 120 to 75 which is pretty bad so I ended up having a blood transfusion on Tuesday. It would take me over 3 months to get back to normal if I just took iron tablets. I really didn’t want to do it and held off for a few days before I said yes and then cried when they started it but I made the decision for Lilly, not myself. I couldn’t get out of bed for longer than 5 minutes at a time and knew I needed to be stronger for her. She deserves a mum who has at least has a bit of energy to play and look after her. My body went from olive skinned to white, it was terrible!
But all is well now, I am still anemic but able to do so much more and am slowly building up my energy with iron tablets. Above all I am so thrilled to be a mummy! After all that happened to me in labour I must admit, I am really proud of myself and very happy with most of it. Only the Caesar bit was bad, the rest was really good, it hurt but it was an amazing and rewarding experience to go through and I am so proud that I did 9 hours of natural labour with no drugs and didn’t yell or scream or swear once! I was even laughing and joking in between pushing!! My mum cries when she tries to tell me how proud she is of me, she said she can’t believe how strong I was!! And for someone who would once cry from a stubbed toe- Neither can I! Welcome to the World Lillyana!! :smiliedance:
The next day I got up, having had maybe 2 hours sleep in total, and went back to the hospital as arranged to have my waters broken. (Wow what a strange feeling that was having water leak from me for a couple of hours!) That happened at 7.30am and around 9am I started getting contractions 5 minutes apart lasting for 1 minute. This was fine until it quickly turned into 2 minutes apart for 1 minute by about 10.30 am!!! Ouch!
I labored naturally (Without screaming or swearing once!!) up until 6.00pm when I asked for an epidural. It wasn’t so much the pain that I couldn’t handle but by this time having been awake for hours the night before as well, I was just exhausted! I was 7cms by that stage and 2 hours later I hadn't progressed so they gave me the syntocinon drip, which got me to 10 cms by about 11.00pm that night.
I started pushing at about 12.00ish and it went on for ages and we could see a tiny part of her head but nothing was happening until they said to me "You are pushing so well, your contractions are some of the strongest I’ve ever seen, why isn’t she coming out!". After a couple of internals they soon found that she was transverse in the birth canal (coming out with her face facing my hip rather than my back) and basically very stuck, they told me they were going to try and use the Vac Suction to get her out and If that failed then it would be an ECS.
So over we went to theatre, my mum by my side the whole time (thank goodness!) and me starting to have a panic attack!!! In theatre they decided to try forceps instead but that didn’t work so they prepared for an emergency Caesarian Section. During the Caesar they had to pull Lillyana back up the birth canal and because she was so wedged in there from all my pushing I was torn from the cervix up into my uterus and lost about three bags of blood in the process. I could smell them burning all the veins and arteries back together and it took a very long time for them to fix it before they stitched me up. But she arrived safe and sound (her heart rate did not drop once during the whole ordeal! She was perfectly calm through it all!) Into the world at 2.18pm and mum got to cut her cord! I cried when I saw her, so much emotion filled my body. I held her for a while but disappointingly had to have her taken off me because I began to throw up from the surgery. I must admit after being sick I had trouble looking at Lillyana in my mums arms, it was just too emotionally draining, I was already running on complete empty and if I looked at her I just cried and was filled with so much pride and happiness and love that it was too much to bear and too hard to handle on that surgery table. When I went into recovery I got to finally hold her properly and I was feeling a lot better and much more relaxed.
I ended up dropping from a blood count of 120 to 75 which is pretty bad so I ended up having a blood transfusion on Tuesday. It would take me over 3 months to get back to normal if I just took iron tablets. I really didn’t want to do it and held off for a few days before I said yes and then cried when they started it but I made the decision for Lilly, not myself. I couldn’t get out of bed for longer than 5 minutes at a time and knew I needed to be stronger for her. She deserves a mum who has at least has a bit of energy to play and look after her. My body went from olive skinned to white, it was terrible!
But all is well now, I am still anemic but able to do so much more and am slowly building up my energy with iron tablets. Above all I am so thrilled to be a mummy! After all that happened to me in labour I must admit, I am really proud of myself and very happy with most of it. Only the Caesar bit was bad, the rest was really good, it hurt but it was an amazing and rewarding experience to go through and I am so proud that I did 9 hours of natural labour with no drugs and didn’t yell or scream or swear once! I was even laughing and joking in between pushing!! My mum cries when she tries to tell me how proud she is of me, she said she can’t believe how strong I was!! And for someone who would once cry from a stubbed toe- Neither can I! Welcome to the World Lillyana!! :smiliedance: