Bron
03-05-2007, 05:05 PM
I was due on 18 April 2007. When I saw my obstetrician on 19th he told me that my cervix was still hard and closed and that our baby hadn’t dropped. He thought we had another week or more to go. I was feeling pretty cranky by this stage. We returned to see my obstetrician again on 24 April at which point he told me that some progress had been made. We made arrangements for an induction on 26 April, if nothing happened sooner.
At about 3am on Wednesday 25 April, I woke up in quite a lot of pain. I thought I just needed to go to the toilet, but that didn’t seem to help. Then I realised that I was feeling this pain regularly. I tried to rest as much as possible, but by 6am I knew that we weren’t going to make it to the induction the next day. I woke my husband and sent him off to walk the dog while I showered and drank a cup of tea. I called the labour ward at about 7am and they told me to come in within the next hour because my contractions were about 6 minutes apart. We headed into the hospital at about 8am and were delighted that the birthing suite was available (the other rooms aren’t anywhere near as nice!). We set ourselves up in the birthing suite and played cards and listened to music between contractions, which were getting stronger and closer together. The midwife examined me and said I was 5cm dilated, made encouraging noises and went to phone my obstetrician.
My obstetrician came in at about 10am and examined me. He ruptured my membranes and vanished again. After this the card playing came to an end as my contractions fired up and became increasingly painful. I spent a lot of time leaning against the wall moaning, but was still able to smile and chat a bit between contractions. My obstetrician came in again at around 12 and said “you’re smiling so there’s no way that you could have progressed” which I thought was charming – just because I was calm between contractions doesn’t mean they weren’t causing me discomfort. Anyway, an examination revealed that I was nearly 7cm dilated. He still didn’t think I was progressing as much as I should have, so he put me on a syntocin drip and vanished again.
From then on, I was in an awful lot of pain and really unable to do much except moan. I sat on the toilet for a while and DH mopped my brow with each contraction. I completely stopped talking and just focussed on getting through each contraction. It helped me to notice that each contraction felt a little stronger than the last, because it meant that things were progressing. At this stage the midwives were fantastic. They knew that if I needed any pain relief I would ask for it, so they didn’t offer any, just made suggestions about positions that might make me more comfortable and offered words of encouragement.
I started to feel that I desperately needed to push and that I almost couldn’t help it. The midwife examined me again and said that there was just an anterior lip of the cervix to go, it was tiny, but I couldn’t push yet. I didn’t speak, I just continued to focus on my breathing and try to get through. I used the gas for two or three contractions when I felt utterly unable to do anything but push – it helped me focus on my breathing and therefore take my focus off how much I wanted to push. Finally the midwife gave me the go ahead and pushing started in earnest. By this stage I had DH and three midwives helping me (there was a change in shift, and also a student midwife was there. It was great because one of them massaged my feet between contractions). After what felt like only 5 minutes of pushing, but I later learned was more like an hour, my obstetrician arrived and said that I was progressing well but that our baby was starting to show the very beginning signs of distress after each contraction. He said it was nothing to worry about yet, but that he would only let me push for another 5 minutes before he would need to intervene. Turns out he meant a vacuum extraction, but I thought he meant a c-section. So I thought “bugger that for a game of soldiers” dug in really deep and with the next contraction gave an almighty push – I don’t know where it came from, I thought I’d been pushing pretty hard already, but something within me was able to summon together some monumental strength. With that push, there was a head, and a bugger of an episiotomy, a couple of gentle pushes later and our baby boy was born. Straight onto my chest while DH said “oh, Bron, it’s a boy” – he had tears in his eyes.
The obstetrician stitched me up while Hamish was weighed and checked out, all under the watchful eye of his very doting Dad. When they told me what he weighed, I almost fell off the bed in disbelief and delight that I had managed to birth such a huge baby.
His details –
Hamish Rupert
25/4/07 at 4.18pm
Weight 4485 grams (9lb 14 oz)
Length 52cm
Head circumference 36cm
What helped me have the labour I wanted –
Research, preparedness, hypno birthing classes.
An amazing and supportive husband
An understanding obstetrician
Incredible midwives
Being in the birthing suite, where epidurals are not on offer – this meant I never even considered wanting one, because moving to another room seemed all too hard.
What I know now that I didn’t know before –
Someone can keep you awake for 5 hours without resting or feeding and you can still feel utter delight and love at the very sight of them.
If you deliver a nearly 10 pound baby vaginally and without an epidural at a private hospital that has a sky high c-section and epidural rate, you are treated like a super star, with staff coming in to congratulate you!
What I’ve always known, but was happy to be reminded of –
I am married to the most wonderfully supportive, stoic man who loves me and our wonderful little boy more than I ever imagined possible.
At about 3am on Wednesday 25 April, I woke up in quite a lot of pain. I thought I just needed to go to the toilet, but that didn’t seem to help. Then I realised that I was feeling this pain regularly. I tried to rest as much as possible, but by 6am I knew that we weren’t going to make it to the induction the next day. I woke my husband and sent him off to walk the dog while I showered and drank a cup of tea. I called the labour ward at about 7am and they told me to come in within the next hour because my contractions were about 6 minutes apart. We headed into the hospital at about 8am and were delighted that the birthing suite was available (the other rooms aren’t anywhere near as nice!). We set ourselves up in the birthing suite and played cards and listened to music between contractions, which were getting stronger and closer together. The midwife examined me and said I was 5cm dilated, made encouraging noises and went to phone my obstetrician.
My obstetrician came in at about 10am and examined me. He ruptured my membranes and vanished again. After this the card playing came to an end as my contractions fired up and became increasingly painful. I spent a lot of time leaning against the wall moaning, but was still able to smile and chat a bit between contractions. My obstetrician came in again at around 12 and said “you’re smiling so there’s no way that you could have progressed” which I thought was charming – just because I was calm between contractions doesn’t mean they weren’t causing me discomfort. Anyway, an examination revealed that I was nearly 7cm dilated. He still didn’t think I was progressing as much as I should have, so he put me on a syntocin drip and vanished again.
From then on, I was in an awful lot of pain and really unable to do much except moan. I sat on the toilet for a while and DH mopped my brow with each contraction. I completely stopped talking and just focussed on getting through each contraction. It helped me to notice that each contraction felt a little stronger than the last, because it meant that things were progressing. At this stage the midwives were fantastic. They knew that if I needed any pain relief I would ask for it, so they didn’t offer any, just made suggestions about positions that might make me more comfortable and offered words of encouragement.
I started to feel that I desperately needed to push and that I almost couldn’t help it. The midwife examined me again and said that there was just an anterior lip of the cervix to go, it was tiny, but I couldn’t push yet. I didn’t speak, I just continued to focus on my breathing and try to get through. I used the gas for two or three contractions when I felt utterly unable to do anything but push – it helped me focus on my breathing and therefore take my focus off how much I wanted to push. Finally the midwife gave me the go ahead and pushing started in earnest. By this stage I had DH and three midwives helping me (there was a change in shift, and also a student midwife was there. It was great because one of them massaged my feet between contractions). After what felt like only 5 minutes of pushing, but I later learned was more like an hour, my obstetrician arrived and said that I was progressing well but that our baby was starting to show the very beginning signs of distress after each contraction. He said it was nothing to worry about yet, but that he would only let me push for another 5 minutes before he would need to intervene. Turns out he meant a vacuum extraction, but I thought he meant a c-section. So I thought “bugger that for a game of soldiers” dug in really deep and with the next contraction gave an almighty push – I don’t know where it came from, I thought I’d been pushing pretty hard already, but something within me was able to summon together some monumental strength. With that push, there was a head, and a bugger of an episiotomy, a couple of gentle pushes later and our baby boy was born. Straight onto my chest while DH said “oh, Bron, it’s a boy” – he had tears in his eyes.
The obstetrician stitched me up while Hamish was weighed and checked out, all under the watchful eye of his very doting Dad. When they told me what he weighed, I almost fell off the bed in disbelief and delight that I had managed to birth such a huge baby.
His details –
Hamish Rupert
25/4/07 at 4.18pm
Weight 4485 grams (9lb 14 oz)
Length 52cm
Head circumference 36cm
What helped me have the labour I wanted –
Research, preparedness, hypno birthing classes.
An amazing and supportive husband
An understanding obstetrician
Incredible midwives
Being in the birthing suite, where epidurals are not on offer – this meant I never even considered wanting one, because moving to another room seemed all too hard.
What I know now that I didn’t know before –
Someone can keep you awake for 5 hours without resting or feeding and you can still feel utter delight and love at the very sight of them.
If you deliver a nearly 10 pound baby vaginally and without an epidural at a private hospital that has a sky high c-section and epidural rate, you are treated like a super star, with staff coming in to congratulate you!
What I’ve always known, but was happy to be reminded of –
I am married to the most wonderfully supportive, stoic man who loves me and our wonderful little boy more than I ever imagined possible.