How Ashley came into the world - 6 July 2009
The lead up to the big day
On Thursday 2 July I woke up and my pad was quite damp. At the time I wondered whether my waters were leaking, but didn’t really have any more clues that morning so I headed off to my acupuncture appointment that afternoon. Friday morning I again woke to find that my pad was quite damp. Again I thought I’ll keep an eye on that, but while I was up and around there were no signs of it leaking. Mid morning I decided to have a lay down on the couch. When I got up I had drip run down my leg. That’s when I decided I better call the hospital.
After speaking with the midwife she told me I better come on in to be checked out. I called DH to come home, he was so excited to get the phone call but did ask ‘really’ incredulously. I must admit at the time I was sceptical anything was happening and thought I would probably end up wasting everyone’s times. Other than a few Braxton hicks a couple of days earlier, I had no real signs that anything was getting started.
So we headed off to the hospital. They did CTG monitoring and then asked to test the fluid on my pad. To my surprise the midwife came back declaring that it was ‘baby water!’. She had a feel of my tummy and confirmed that the baby was yet to engage. I had to go to the bathroom then and to my surprise I’d had my show! I proudly declared it when I came out and she told me that she didn’t think I would be going home because it was likely my waters had started leaking the day before. My OB was away and I didn’t really like the guy who was covering for him so I shared my concerns with her. She went off to call him and DH went out to have a chat with her. My darling DH told her how much I was wanting to have a natural labour and asked if there was anyway that we would be able to wait it out. In the meantime I’d been moved to one of the birthing suites and was sitting there writing a list of what DH had to get from home. When the midwife returned she told me that she’d been able to get in touch with my OB and that he had agreed to give me 96 hours (4 days) to go into labour naturally cos he also knew how much I wanted a natural labour (I was so lucky to have such an understanding and supportive OB). They thought that my waters had probably started leaking on Thursday, so gave me till Monday 6 July to go into labour naturally. But I did need to come into the hospital each day for CTG monitoring, take AB’s and check my temperature every 4 hours.
I was really happy that I’d been given the time and for some reason I was sure that DS would be born the next day on Saturday 4 July. I’d had a horoscope that was quite pointed and it just felt like that was going to be his birthday. At about 1am on the Saturday morning I’d woken up with tummy pains (that I now know were contractions). They continued every 15 minutes or so until about 6am when they just petered out. So we went in for our CTG and everything was good. I asked them to check to see if the baby had engaged. They told me that his head had gone in further but at an angle, but not to worry. Over the course of the weekend nothing more happened despite lots of walking and efforts to get things moving. So Sunday night I went to bed thinking that I would probably have to be induced, but hoping that maybe labour would start over night.
Monday 6 July 2009 – Ashley’s birthday
Nothing had happened overnight so Monday morning we headed into the hospital at 7am for our scheduled induction. We’d met the midwife Miriam the day before and she did another CTG and got me all set up. My OB came in just before 8am, put in the canula and broke my waters. When he broke them he pulled out a bit of DS’s hair, it was very long and exciting to see that our little one was going to have a lot of hair. At that point I was 1cm dilated. They then started the syntocin and AB’s. Even though I was hooked up to monitoring I had my TENs machine and Miriam was great at helping move around to different positions to try and get comfortable. By 9am I was in full blown labour having contractions that lasted 70 seconds every 2 minutes. The pain was hideous, but I battled on clutching at my TENs button for dear life. At around midday I became really nauseas. I asked to be checked again and was only 2 or 3cms. The pain was becoming unbearable and the sickness on top of it was just too much to take. I declared that I wanted an epidural. Miriam asked if I wanted to try the gas or pethidine first cos she knew that I wanted to do it without drugs, but I was at the point where I didn’t want to much around. I knew I had hours and hours to go of this and that I just couldn’t do too much more.
They stopped the syntocin at that point to give me a break while we waited for the epidural. My contractions stopped pretty much straight away. So I got the epidural at about 12.45pm and the syntocin was started up again. The rest of the afternoon was spent laying on the bed watching TV, resting and eating pretzels. Miriam’s shift finished and we were given another midwife, a man who was an agency midwife. I am so glad I had the epidural because this guy was totally useless. At about 5pm the babies heart rate started to go up and down a lot. He told me that he thought I might be in transition, but didn’t want to do an internal because my OB was coming in soon. By 6.30pm I felt intense pressure and wanted to push. When my OB came in shortly after he did another internal and told me that I was only about 7cms and that DS had a posterior lip (his head was stuck at a really bad angle). He told me we could give it another hour or so and see how we went. I asked him what he thought. He really didn’t want to advise me but did say that in his experience a posterior lip like that doesn’t correct itself. In the end we decided to get things set up for CS, but before we went ahead he would check and see if I had dilated anymore. They stopped the syntocin and again my contractions stopped, which in hindsight I think shows that my body and DS just weren’t ready, or weren’t able to proceed with a natural labour.
So just before 8pm we went into the theatre where my OB did another internal, there was no change so we went ahead with the CS. At 8.04pm they lowered the curtain and I heard my darling boy cry for the first time as they carefully pulled him out. He was held up so that we could see him for the first time and find out the sex. My eyes filled with tears of joy, finally my beautiful little boy had arrived. DH went over while the paediatrician checked him out and he got to cut the cord. He had an APGAR of 9. He was quickly wrapped up and brought over to me for our first cuddle. I was able to cuddle him for the entire time while they stitched my up. Then as I went off to recovery, DH went with him to have all his checks done. I was out of recovery within 30 minutes. That night we had our first night together as family, it was magical, I slept with my beautiful boy on my chest and my darling DH by myside.
Ashley was 3.7kgs, 48cm tall and had a head circumference of 36cms and a full head of thick hair – just perfect.
