The birth of my big little man William
I have finally got a spare minute so wanted to share the birth story of my big little man William. My first labour was an induced one. I was GBS+ and my waters broke at 38 weeks and as labour didn't start I was induced. The pain was tremendous and i was adamant that i didn't want to be induced again this time.
I was convinced that I would also go early with DS2. 38 weeks came and went, my due date came and went and still I waited. I had an appointment with my midwife at 40 weeks and we had the dreaded conversation about induction. I was adamant that I would try everything to go into labour naturally so I had two acupuncture sessions and tried every old wives tale under the sun to go into labour and finally on Saturday morning at 8 am I felt those familiar twinges, I was finally in labour!
I woke DH up and said i was in labour. He asked if he could still take DS1 to his swimming lesson and thinking we were still ages away I said probably yes. Things developed quickly and by the time they were due to leave for swimming I was contracting every 2-5 minutes although they were still erratic and I was still able to talk through them. DH decided that it would be a good idea to miss swimming and as the pain was starting to get worse he called his parents over to look after DS1 so that he could attend to me. Every time i had a contraction i felt like i needed to be on the toilet so i spent alot of time running to the toilet as that felt the most natural position to be in.
By about 11am i called my midwife and said that I was in labour and as she was nearby she called in to see where we were at. She checked me and I was 5 centimeters so she said to head into the hospital and called ahead for them to fill the bath for me.
We got to the hospital and made the difficult walk to the emergency. The pain was really bad at this point and the walk was very long and difficult. We made it through the admin stuff and headed to the birth centre which was another horrible walk. Somewhere along the way someone thought to get me a wheelchair so they wizzed me to the birth centre where my midwife was getting a bit worried as we were taking so long. I got into the bath and had immediate relief.
I started to feel like i needed to push and my midwife suggested i just let my body do it. It didn't feel right though so I asked her to check and sure enough i was only 7 centimeters. I got on all 4's in the bath and after awhile i started some gas. This helped hugely and about 2 hours later my midwife checked again and i was still 7 centimeters. My waters were bulging and she suggested that we break my waters to help things along. I was devastated that i wasn't progressing and asked for an epidural. She said she can get me one but she thought i could do it without one as we were so close. I decided to break the waters and see what happened.
I got out of the bath which was the worst thing ever and got on the bed. She broke my waters and bubs heart rate plummeted. Within 5 seconds I had a room full on people and monitors thrust on me. My waters were mec stained so i had to transfer out of the birth centre. Bubs heart rate went back up and we transfered into labour and delivery. The ob checked bubs position and he had turned posterior which explained why i had an early urge to push and that i hadn't progressed.
At this stage i said i wanted a epidural so they called for one. They told me it was about half an hour away so i sucked on my gas and waited. 45 minutes came and went and they called again and still it was 15 minutes away. At this stage the ob came into the room and said that she wasn't happy and bub was in distress and it was time to get him out. I got up on the bed and they found i was fully dialated and i had been sitting there fighting the urge to push as i had in my mind that i was going to get that epidural.
They put the ventouse on bubs head and as i pushed they pulled. They needed to give me a episiotomy as at this stage i was completely scared and had no idea what i was doing and bubs was in distress. He was out in about 2 pushes and screamed his lungs out just like his big brother. He entered the world posterior as he didn't turn back in time to be born.
As i stared in awe at my baby that had just been born i haemmoraged and lost about 2 liters of blood. I had no idea what was happening but all of a sudden I had everyone sticking needles into me and pumping me full of drugs to try and stop the bleeding whilst trying to pull the placenta out. The took DS2 from me and took him to the neonatal unit to check him out as he was in a bit of shock. Eventually they go the bleed under control and I needed to have a blood transfusion.
They bought DS back to me about 2 hours later. He was fine and i was stable so we spent our first night together with me being pretty useless as i was very anemic after losing so much blood.
William Peter was born at 5pm on the 9/10/2010. He was 4.66kg (or 10 pound 4 ounces) and 55 centimeters. In the end i did it with nothing more than some gas. He was readmitted to the neonatal unit on day two and stayed there for four days as there were concerns about his health. After many tests he was been given a clean bill of health and was sent home.
Thanks for reading my story.
