Soo much better - 2nd time round!
I've typed this up in word - so if some of it goes funny, sorry!!
My birth with my DD was far from ideal, my waters broke and nothing else happened. They put me on the syntocin drip and about 4ish hours later I was holding my baby girl. It was a pretty horrible birth, I felt like my body wasn’t ready for it, it came too fast. After she came out I began to bleed… severely. It was literally spraying about 7 inches out of my whoha. I was rushed into theatre and they removed a piece of placenta that was still attached. I had 3 blood transfusions over the following days. I was so dizzy, so sick, couldn’t stand, and didn’t trust myself to hold my baby in fear of dropping her.
So when we discovered that we were having baby number two I was very anxious. I would often have anxiety attacks in the middle of the night, vomiting, crying, and just absolutely freaking out about the whole birth and what lied ahead. I bought a variety of books to try and put my mind at ease, I found the Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth was the best! I read it twice.. absolutely loved that all these women could experience such a beautiful labour and birth – I hoped that I could overcome my fears and have a similar story to share
When my due date came and went I started to get ‘over it’. I really thought this baby would have come around the 11th of November – but I was clearly wrong! On the plus side, instead of being scared about the whole thing, I just began to get impatient. I wanted it to happen, so then it was done, and then I could stop freaking out – if that makes any sense. As the days grew closer to the 23rd (my DD’s 2nd birthday) I hoped that the baby would wait, so that I could spend the day with her rather than be in hospital missing out on the celebrations. On the 22nd I felt like I was still forever away from giving birth, DH and I dtd and I then snacked on about half a pineapple, hahaha – I just couldn’t do anymore! Still nothing – but that was good, didn’t want to have the baby today or tomorrow.
1:30 am on the 23rd of November I woke up to go to the toilet, I was feeling really icky, just not 100%. As I walked to the loo I felt a blob fall into my undies, when I turned the light on to check, I had most definitely lost my plug!! Woohoo I thought! This baby might be coming in the next couple of days. Changed my knickers and went back to bed. Had a bad cramp. Went to the toilet to do a poo. Had a bad cramp. Went to the toilet to do a poo. Had a bad cramp.. haha, you get the drift! This happened about 8 times. The cramps were coming about 7 minutes apart, and I knew that this was it. DH woke up and I told him that DD might have a birthday buddy. It was around now that I started to freak out. I had always expressed to DH my fear of being in labour at night time.. I have no idea why but for some reason night time labour was so much more painful in my mind. So it was night time and I cried about that. Then it clicked that it was DD’s birthday, and I cried about that. Then I cried because I couldn’t believe I was doing this to DD, how could I take away some of her love to give to our new baby!! I was soo emotional, a total wreck. DH told me to go on the computer and try and keep my mind off of things, so onto BB I went while he went back to sleep.
The contractions only got more painful, they didn’t get closer together. When DD woke up we gave her all of her presents as I swayed my hips through each one. My mum and my sister came around to visit and were excited to see that things were finally happening. But they still weren’t getting closer together, infact some of them were shifting to around 8 minutes apart – which was worrying me. Lunch time came and Mum took DD shopping, so DH and I could go for a walk to try and speed things along. The walk did nothing, except make me irritated. It was so hot and sticky. So into DHs 4WD we went and decided to go on a nice bumpy road. This really seemed to work, they soon started coming every 5 minutes, and were quite painful.
When 4 o’clock came we decided to head to the hospital to check things over. I thought my waters were broken and wanted to make sure bub was ok and was at no risk. On the way I could feel myself seizing up. I started freaking out that I was going to have a repeat performance of DDs birth and that they would hook me up to the synto and get things moving. My contractions soon slowed right down to 15 minutes apart, and all I could think about was Ina Mays description of the ‘shy sphincter’. I was holding in my tears, but it was clear that I was a total wreck. As soon as I saw the MW I burst into tears. She hooked me up to the machine and could see all of my contractions. She then did an internal…. No my waters had not broken – apparently I was just rather juicy down there!! Hahaha. And the worst news EVER – my cervix was tightly shut and still nice and long……
I cried again.
She told me I was in false labour, and it could last for days… She gave me a sleeping pill and 2 panadine to go home and try and get some sleep. I hadn’t slept for ages, and was starting to feel exhausted.
We got home, told mum that I wasn’t even in labour. So she came back with a birthday cake for DD and we sung happy birthday. I tried to be merry but it was hard.. I was in so much pain and I wasn’t even in labour – how cruel was my body!! Contractions were still there, still around every 7 minutes. DH told me I had to eat something (still hadn’t eaten since I lost my plug), so I had some spaghetti, had a shower and took my tablets hoping I’d wake up in the morning feeling fresh as a daisy!!
As I was lying in bed trying to nod off I had a killer one, and at the same time DD raced in and jumped on my belly. I absolutely lost it. I yelled at her, yelled at DH to get her to bed, and cried. Yes.. I was very emotional, quite embarrassing really. I then cried more because the poor little chicken had the worse birthday in the world.. what a crabby mummy I was!
I finally fell asleep… then woke 25 minutes later. It was around 10:00pm now. The house was quite everyone was asleep. The contractions were coming every 10 minutes. And the only way I could cope was to race to the shower when I knew one was about to hit, stand in the shower swaying my hips, then once it was over I’d go lie down in bed again. This continued for 2 hours. At midnight I woke DH up and told him I couldn’t handle it any more. I didn’t care what happened; I was so tired, in so much pain, and not even in labour – wtf!? I wanted him to call the hospital and tell them we were coming in for an epidural. Hahahaha. The MW on the phone said yes we could come in, but unfortunately an epidural wasn’t an option if I hadn’t been dilating. I didn’t care – I wanted to be in hospital.
Called mum, she came round to mind DD while we were away, and off we went. On the way there DH had to stop during each contraction because I couldn’t stand him driving when one hit. When we finally got there we were greeted by a MW who seemed a little bit … irritated that I was even there. She had a chat to me, tried to get me to lie down so she could monitor the contractions but I couldn’t handle it and wanted to be sitting upright. I think this irritated her a bit too. But I really didn’t give a hoot what she thought. While she was talking to DH I had another one, and then told her I needed to use the toilet to do a poo. She asked if she could check me before I went. No worries. She then checked me and her facial expression changed. “Darling that’s not a poo, that’s a baby’s head – you can push when you’re ready” :o
WOW!!!! YOU”RE KIDDING!!! I then swore. I was so excited, couldn’t believe it!! The adrenaline was pumping – which I don’t think was really a good thing. Because then the contractions basically stopped… They were about 15 minutes apart. We had to turn the radio on because the ticking of the clock was too loud. “You’ve got a very lazy uterus!” the MW commented. She asked me to hop in the shower to try and relax and let them come. So in I went.
In the shower I squatted, remembering what I had read, I thought this would be a good position to help things move along. After about 5 minutes in the shower I was on all fours yelling that I needed to push. In the MW came with her mat, put it between my legs and let me push when I had to. I didn’t like it in the shower – it was too awkward. So I asked them to help me back onto the bed. They propped it up so I could be sitting upright, with my legs lower than my waist, iykwim. I than pushed. The urge to push was incredible… I couldn’t fight it. It almost felt good to push through all the pain. The MW got the mirror for me and I could see the head… incredible!! Sooo incredible! Pushing the head out was like pushing out a car… hahaha. Then when the head was out she asked me to lift my legs as high as possible so I didn’t sit on it.. yeah right.. as if I could do that! So DH helped me. Then I had the shoulders to push out… wow!! Pushing the shoulders out was like pushing out a bus! Bahahahaha! And then he was out… on my chest, all blue and beautiful. I couldn’t believe it, my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. The MW asked if I was going to see what sex the baby was, so I move the cord and told DH “It’s a boy!”. He was so shocked.. we both were. We really thought it was going to be a girl. DH got to cut the cord (something he never did with DD).
They then jabbed me with the syntocin needle, and I pushed out the placenta. “Ahh that feels better”, I remember saying. I then began to haemorrhage – but it was no where near the same amount as DD so I wasn’t concerned. They hooked me up to a syntocin drip to help my uterus contract and stop the bleeding. He then had his first feed – such a pro! Latched on beautifully, didn’t hurt at all (it did with DD). We sat in the room for about 2 hours, cuddling him, deciding on his name and enjoying the moment. The MW then came to stitch me up, I had a 2nd degree tear. And they weighed and measured him.
Name - Theodore (Theo) Logan James
Date - 24th November 2009 at 2:53am (his own birthday)
Weight - 9 pound 10 ounces
HC – 36.5cm
L – 50cm
Drugs – 2 panedine and a sleeping tablet
I am still on a high… I can’t believe how great the birth was.. I can honestly say through all the emotions.. I really enjoyed it. I think being told that I was in false labour worked out well, I stayed at home for as long as possible because of it – therefore had zero intervention! Bliss!
I also would like to thank all of the ladies who have shared their birth story with Belly Belly.. You really inspired me :hug: Sounds bizarre but I’d like to also thank Boomba, I read your birth story about 5 times (whenever I’d start to get anxious). I felt if your second birth could be great – so could mine. Xx
