KapowSchazam
16-04-2007, 11:52
Bianca was due on Sunday the 16th July, 2006. DH and I were going down the GC for the day, as we were leaving, DH brought my hospital bag out to the car, saying that since I was due now, to bring my bag with me all the time, just in case. I laughingly said to him that he’d better grab my toner then, since it wasn’t packed in the bag, so he grabbed it and shoved it in with everything else!
On the way there, we went the back way – along a dirt road with HEAPS of potholes, which DH was trying in vain to avoid for me (I can still remember how uncomfortable it felt). I hadn’t told DH, but I’d had a funny ‘feeling’ since I woke up that morning, and (half) jokingly said to him ‘are you trying to bring on the labour or something???’ He replied by swerving to GET EVERY POTHOLE! LOL
Around lunchtime, I could feel that I was either in REALLY early labour, or not far off going into labour, but still didn’t say anything to DH. I was eating a nice juicy hamburger, but couldn’t finish the bugger off – but I just blamed it on my oversized gut!
After that, DH and I went fishing with his friend and his then-GF, I didn’t fish, just sat on the nearby stairs and relaxed. By 3.30pm, I was in labour for sure, and contractions were about 5mins apart. I finally told DH that I was in labour, and we’d better head home so that we would be closer to the hospy. On the way home, I rung the hospy cos the pain was getting worse…they said to just head home and jump into the bath until the pain was too much. The drive was about ½-¾ hour, and by the time we were 10mins away from the hospy (we had to go past there to get home) I just said to DH to go straight there, cos I was getting terrible back pains, and it was about 3mins apart!
We got to the hospy and I waddled into the labour ward, we waited about an hour before anyone even looked at me. In the time since we were at the GC and got to hospy, I’d had a show, but by waters were still intact. The middie checked me out, and declared that I was 3cm and took me into a room to labour. I jumped into the shower for what seemed like 10mins, but when I asked DH, he said it was over an hour. I had the water running over my belly and back, and exclaimed to DH just before I got out that ‘it’s not working!’ As soon as I did get out, I realised just how much it had been working!!! I then requested some pethidine, there were two middies there, and they ARGUED over who would give it. The one who was ‘responsible’ for my care was basically refusing to administer it, and demanded the other give me the needle! Once I’d had it, I started feeling very woozy and light headed, so rested on the bed in the room, they also offered me the gas, so I took that, and they showed me how the breathe with it – I’d found my new best friend!
Labour progressed slowly, and at about 9.30pm, my water still hadn’t broken, so the middie did another check, and asked if I wanted her to break them to see if it would speed up the labour (I was only 5cm at that time), so she did and found that it was badly meconium stained – she said it was the worst she’d seen and was worried that bub was getting distressed. With that, she decided to hook us up to an ECG, and put the belt over my belly, and the electrode onto bub’s head. We were on the machine for about an hour, and bub’s heartrate kept dropping, sometimes to quite and alarming level! After the hour was up, the middie too the printout from the ECG to a doc for him to check it over, in a few minutes, they came back in together. The doc had decided that he wanted to run a PH test to confirm whether or not bub was distressed. To do this, they had to put me into the stirrups (OMG). He took the first sample of blood from my bubs head and gave it to the middie to test. The test failed as the machine couldn’t read the sample properly for some reason. So he had to take more blood from my bub’s little head! They had to take four samples of blood from bub’s head before the machine would read it – this took about 45mins! All this time I was sucking on the gas like no tomorrow, cos it hurt more than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life – even the contractions were nothing compared to this pain! At the same time, the pethidine was wearing off…
The machine then gave an ‘inconclusive’ result! The doc then spoke to DH, cos I was pretty much out of it by this time due to the pain – bub was also OBVIOUSLY distressed, cos it felt like she was trying to push out of there! And I was only 6cm dilated by this time! They decided to do an emergency c-sect to get bub out ASAP. By this time, I’m told it was around 11.30pm…I was taken to get prepped and have a spinal block done. The middies took away my new best friend (gas lol) and I was very drug free…the pain was unbearable, and I was shaking uncontrollably. The anethetist was trying to get me to curl up in a little ball, so that she could insert the needle for the spinal block (HELLO – BABY BELLY IN THE WAY!!!) and bub was still trying to push, and I was there, shaking and whimpering, asking her to just hurry up and get the needle in and stop reading me the blah blah blah!
Everthing happened very quickly after this, I was taken into theatre, checked that the spinal block worked, and next thing, they delivered a beautiful baby girl – Bianca Louise at 12.11am on the 17th July – 11 mins after her due date! After this, they had to take Bianca to get her cleaned, and to check that she didn’t inhale any meconium. The middie had to get it out of her ears, nose, eyes etc the poor little bubba. I was stitched up and taken to recovery, which seemed to take forever, but it was only an hour until I got to hold my little baby in my arms for the first time, and it was love at first sight. I felt that we bonded immediately, which I feel was helped by breastfeeding straight away, and the fact that the lovely night shift middie in the maternity ward positioned Bianca and myself so that we could have some lovely sleepy cuddles most of the night. I felt very out of it, I guess the shock of having the beautiful natural birth I’d planned going so far out the window it wasn’t funny, and it took me a very long time to accept that there really wasn’t anything I could have done in this case to change the outcome, and to be thankful that I had my beautiful baby girl in my arms, and in full working order!
On the way there, we went the back way – along a dirt road with HEAPS of potholes, which DH was trying in vain to avoid for me (I can still remember how uncomfortable it felt). I hadn’t told DH, but I’d had a funny ‘feeling’ since I woke up that morning, and (half) jokingly said to him ‘are you trying to bring on the labour or something???’ He replied by swerving to GET EVERY POTHOLE! LOL
Around lunchtime, I could feel that I was either in REALLY early labour, or not far off going into labour, but still didn’t say anything to DH. I was eating a nice juicy hamburger, but couldn’t finish the bugger off – but I just blamed it on my oversized gut!
After that, DH and I went fishing with his friend and his then-GF, I didn’t fish, just sat on the nearby stairs and relaxed. By 3.30pm, I was in labour for sure, and contractions were about 5mins apart. I finally told DH that I was in labour, and we’d better head home so that we would be closer to the hospy. On the way home, I rung the hospy cos the pain was getting worse…they said to just head home and jump into the bath until the pain was too much. The drive was about ½-¾ hour, and by the time we were 10mins away from the hospy (we had to go past there to get home) I just said to DH to go straight there, cos I was getting terrible back pains, and it was about 3mins apart!
We got to the hospy and I waddled into the labour ward, we waited about an hour before anyone even looked at me. In the time since we were at the GC and got to hospy, I’d had a show, but by waters were still intact. The middie checked me out, and declared that I was 3cm and took me into a room to labour. I jumped into the shower for what seemed like 10mins, but when I asked DH, he said it was over an hour. I had the water running over my belly and back, and exclaimed to DH just before I got out that ‘it’s not working!’ As soon as I did get out, I realised just how much it had been working!!! I then requested some pethidine, there were two middies there, and they ARGUED over who would give it. The one who was ‘responsible’ for my care was basically refusing to administer it, and demanded the other give me the needle! Once I’d had it, I started feeling very woozy and light headed, so rested on the bed in the room, they also offered me the gas, so I took that, and they showed me how the breathe with it – I’d found my new best friend!
Labour progressed slowly, and at about 9.30pm, my water still hadn’t broken, so the middie did another check, and asked if I wanted her to break them to see if it would speed up the labour (I was only 5cm at that time), so she did and found that it was badly meconium stained – she said it was the worst she’d seen and was worried that bub was getting distressed. With that, she decided to hook us up to an ECG, and put the belt over my belly, and the electrode onto bub’s head. We were on the machine for about an hour, and bub’s heartrate kept dropping, sometimes to quite and alarming level! After the hour was up, the middie too the printout from the ECG to a doc for him to check it over, in a few minutes, they came back in together. The doc had decided that he wanted to run a PH test to confirm whether or not bub was distressed. To do this, they had to put me into the stirrups (OMG). He took the first sample of blood from my bubs head and gave it to the middie to test. The test failed as the machine couldn’t read the sample properly for some reason. So he had to take more blood from my bub’s little head! They had to take four samples of blood from bub’s head before the machine would read it – this took about 45mins! All this time I was sucking on the gas like no tomorrow, cos it hurt more than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life – even the contractions were nothing compared to this pain! At the same time, the pethidine was wearing off…
The machine then gave an ‘inconclusive’ result! The doc then spoke to DH, cos I was pretty much out of it by this time due to the pain – bub was also OBVIOUSLY distressed, cos it felt like she was trying to push out of there! And I was only 6cm dilated by this time! They decided to do an emergency c-sect to get bub out ASAP. By this time, I’m told it was around 11.30pm…I was taken to get prepped and have a spinal block done. The middies took away my new best friend (gas lol) and I was very drug free…the pain was unbearable, and I was shaking uncontrollably. The anethetist was trying to get me to curl up in a little ball, so that she could insert the needle for the spinal block (HELLO – BABY BELLY IN THE WAY!!!) and bub was still trying to push, and I was there, shaking and whimpering, asking her to just hurry up and get the needle in and stop reading me the blah blah blah!
Everthing happened very quickly after this, I was taken into theatre, checked that the spinal block worked, and next thing, they delivered a beautiful baby girl – Bianca Louise at 12.11am on the 17th July – 11 mins after her due date! After this, they had to take Bianca to get her cleaned, and to check that she didn’t inhale any meconium. The middie had to get it out of her ears, nose, eyes etc the poor little bubba. I was stitched up and taken to recovery, which seemed to take forever, but it was only an hour until I got to hold my little baby in my arms for the first time, and it was love at first sight. I felt that we bonded immediately, which I feel was helped by breastfeeding straight away, and the fact that the lovely night shift middie in the maternity ward positioned Bianca and myself so that we could have some lovely sleepy cuddles most of the night. I felt very out of it, I guess the shock of having the beautiful natural birth I’d planned going so far out the window it wasn’t funny, and it took me a very long time to accept that there really wasn’t anything I could have done in this case to change the outcome, and to be thankful that I had my beautiful baby girl in my arms, and in full working order!