keiko

I was 8 days late (Miro was due 3 days after me we were having a race on who could have our girls first .. she won!)

I was due to have a sweep on the tuesday but my cervix was too high up so she booked me in for a week tuesday in the AM which was the same day I was booked in to be induced which I really wanted to avoid. We tried everything under the sun to try and bring on labour but by the thursday still no mucus plug, still no waters breaking no sign of anything.

I managed to get my midwife to come friday morning at 11 AM to perform the sweep luckily she forced her hand up there and managed to do it even though my cervix was still pretty high and I was only 1 cm dialated! An hour later at 12 PM i started to feel period like cramps which they said was normal so i continued sewing for my buisness making baby bibs and then the pain got more and more severe and I couldnt ignore it any more. We started writing my contractions down: how frequent they were and how long they lasted it went from one contraction every 10 mins lasting 10 seconds to two contractions every 10 mins lasting 35-45 seconds. Thats when I decided to ring the hospital (well my partner did because I was in too much pain) they asked me to come in straight away, by this point I had decided to use my TENS machine which really helped, initially I was scared to do it because the thought of an electric pulse being sent through my back freaked me out but it was a god send!

I went into hospital at 8PM and the babies heart rate was monitored for 20 mins and I had bloods taken which they messed up twice because the bottle they used didnt work which for me was a big deal because im a wuss when it comes to needles! After 20 mins for examinations and them seeing how far dialated i was they sent me home at I was only 2-3 cms and I was gutted I thought that was it. They asked me to come back by 1 am if nothing had happend before, so I went home and waited for what felt like an eternity I tried to eat to get my strength up but I kept on throwing up in pain.

1AM finally came and my birth partner, and my boyfriend and me all went down to the hosptial again. They monitored me again and noticed the babies heart rate kept on dropping during my contractions the one midwife checked how dialated i was and she said nothing had changed and i was gutted because my contractions were so frequent and long lasting by this point that I didnt want to be sent home yet again. Luckily she got a second opinion from the doctor becuase of the dropping heart rate and she said i was about 3-4 cm dialated and that I was being moved to the labour ward.

I was consultation led , high risk led and to begin with I was really offended by it (its because apparently my BMI is too low) but in the end it worked in my favour, we arrived in my room which was huge and it was all prepped for any eventuality due to being high risk. I got into my ward at about 2 am and from then on it was a waiting game. I was told I wasnt allowed any food or drink apart from water because I was in high risk and I was already so weak by this stage so this came as a massive blow to me.

The rest is all pretty hazy, I remember using my TENS machine a lot at the beginign and being asked to walk about and use the ball so I did that and by about 8 am I was in 'established labour' I ended up giving in too gas and air but it really didnt agree with me I had already been sick about 5 times prior to the gas and air and the gas and air just make it worse. I suffer with panic attacks any way and the gas and air to me was really a struggle to get on with at the begining I couldnt get the breathing right and felt like I was being suffocated so when it got to the top of my contraction I would rip it out my mouth and breath it out which seemed to actually work really well for me despite my midwife trying to make me keep it in my mouth!

I remember worrying about my birth partner and my partner eating and kept on asking them to eat/drink I think it helped to focus on someone else during the contractions and distract myself.
I was being closely monitored and my glucose levels feel significantly so I had to be given glucose tablets and was told I was allowed some haribo... it was like being given the best present ever! I was honestly so happy to be allowed 1 or 2 haribo after hours of no food and no sugar!! I was given a saline drip into my hand and the doctor who put it in pushed it in so hard it came up more painful than a contraction on the chart and then he told me he hadnt managed to do it and asked my boyfriend to open another packet for another one to be put in the side of my hand he was SO unproffesional and caused me so much unessary pain I wanted to kick off but I just stayed calm whilst watching blood pour out of my hand from where he did it wrong dripping on the floor, which he did nothing about, he just left the room!

After about 7 hours of gas and air my midwife suggested I used some other pain relief, and i didnt want to give in but I knew she was right I was shattered already after having contractions for a total of 26 hours and I was still not fully dilated, So the anaesthetist came into the room to discuss pain relief options and tried to talk me into getting an epidural because '90% of women do' and I was livid it was the last thing I wanted to have and he made me lye there during contractions and explain just why i didnt want one! Then I was offered pethadin which I was not so keen on just incase I didnt get on with it because it last quite a while. I was then offered Remifentanil which isnt usually used in labour but its a patient-controlled analgesia and you can press it once every two minutes but only lasts 30 seconds and meant I could control how much I had which I prefered the sound of. So I was given a leaflet to read about it (as if I can lye there and read a leaflet during agonising contractions!) and decided with the help of my midwife to go for remifentanil. So another drip was put in my other hand now and I had the first 'hit' which was like being super super drunk, I couldnt see anything and couldnt concentrate on anything and felt fucked! It was insane for those 30 seconds that it lasted and also made me sick so I was given a sickness jab in my leg which didnt work as I was sick loads after so then was given too me by a drip.

At about 330 pm ish (ive lost track of time) I was told I was fully dialated and it felt like such a relief! Now the hard work was to begin! I was asked to push and after and hour the doctors rushed in and said the baby had to have blood taken from her head beacuse her oxygen levels were dropping. they did 3 sets of tests the first one came back borderline and they said if the others were the same I would have to have an emergancy c section so by this point I was panicing. Also my oxygen levels had dropped so much I had to be given oxygen through my nose because of the remifentanil which if taken too much is fatal... something I found out after wards which explains why your only allowed one hit every 2 mins.

In the end they couldnt let me push anymore because the baby was too distressed so they told me they were going to use a sucktion cap, which came flying off, so then they had to use forceps. It felt like I was being ripped off the bed but I remember thinking it will all be over soon and thinking my baby has to come out NOW! So i focused all the last of my energy on that. And then she arrived onto my chest the most amazing perfect thing ever, looking around with her big eyes wide open.

Then with my legs still in stirrups I had to be stitched prior to this I didnt even know I had been cut because I was so in the zone , I had to have a diagonal cut and internal and external stitches after she was born which seemed to take an eternity it took about 30 mins and all the time I had my baby on my chest, I had no fight left in me at all and those last 30 mins seemed the worst part out of the whole labour but eventually they were done and I could enjoy my baby.

I was kept in hosptial over night and released the next evening with a bag full of pills and antibiotics and a beautiful baby in my arms..
It was all so worth it