my bubba Vinny born 23.10.10
So as many of you already know I went 8 days over with my first little man. Waiting was horrible haha. My labour was very long and exhausting but in the end he came out with a rush haha. According to my discharge summary labour was '13 hours' however I personally believe it was more along the lines of 50+ hours.. and so much for my drug free, active birth plan. LOL
Tuesday 19th: Had an appointment with midwife and obstetrician. First internal check, I was 1-2cm dilated and they performed a stretch and sweep. Had been on the ctg monitor (routine for post dates) earlier and it was picking up a few braxton hicks. They continued all day.
Wednesday 20th: Started losing bits of my plug during the day. Braxton hicks continued all day. Went for a long walk about an hour or more with mum at the cemetery (we were looking for a certain headstone - family history). Felt a few niggly pains that evening. Had my full bloody show in the afternoon.
Thursday 21st: Niggly pains had gone away. Jumped on the cross trainer at mums for some light exercise and then had a nap. Awoke from nap with first painful contraction at around 1pm. Irregular at this stage but enough to know that it was the start of the real deal. Continued all night and kept me awake. Early friday morning I had a shower and they settled down for me to get an hours sleep or so.
Friday 22nd: Was already booked for a post dates u/sound and ctg monitoring for the afternoon, and when mum woke I told her I was having painful contractions all night and we should go to bendigo earlier in the day (an hours drive to my hospital) just in case. We did a ctg monitor about lunch time and it showed mild contractions averaging 6-8 mins apart. Went to my sisters for a while. Came back for u/sound and second lot of monitoring after that as they were worried about his heart rate earlier. Baby very active wouldn't stay still. LOL.
Mum and I went out for tea at 6pm and I was starting to have more painful ones about 5 minutes apart. We were booked into a motel for the night so as to not be labouring at my sisters house, and I utilised the shower several times after dinner for pain relief, it worked quite well. By 10pm I was up at the hospital to be checked out. Cervix was 3cm dilated. Contractions coming regularly.
They kept me there and were going to admit me, until an internal at 230am saturday morning showed I was still at 3cm. They sent me back to the motel with 2 temaz and 2 panadeine to 'take the edge off' so i could rest. There was apparently an obstetrician staying in the same motel so I wasn't worried if anything should happen.
Saturday 23rd: After leaving hospital at 3am I had a shower and jumped into bed to relax. Hoping the tablets would help. I slept for perhaps 30 minutes before I woke with a strong pain that brought me to tears. At 4am they started being regularly 4 minutes apart and increased in intensity (this is the time my summary has me down as beginning labour). Didn't get a wink of sleep. Returned to the hospital just on 8am as was increasingly uncomfortable. Internal at 10am showed no change, still sitting at 3cm after all those hours of pains!! I was frustrated. Midwife opted to rupture membranes at this point and I was already over it and asked for a peth injection to take the edge off so I could get a bit of rest.
The peth helped me a lot. I relaxed heaps but still got no sleep. They decided not to start a syntocinon drip at this point and let my body do what it had to. At 1pm or there abouts I was in agony. I was still only 5cm. They started the drip and some gas. I hated the gas it made me see double of everything, tasted awful and did nothing for my pain. Against my original plan I then asked for an epidural. It was all going ahead and being prepped when the anaesthesiologist discovered that I had a fever, and nobody had documented it. Unfortunately for me this meant no epidural. I was crying and hysterical and so upset by now. My pains were still around 4 minutes apart, but there was no peak and trough, it was peak every 4 minutes and in between constantly still contracted at around half the intensity. It was awful, I was unable to get any rest. Nobody believed me until the med student (who was fantastic!) felt and timed them and said 'she is right, they just don't stop'.
By around 3pm I was getting there, 7cm dilated and now on a pca of fentanyl that I could press and get a dose of every 5 minutes. I kept saying it wasn't working, but it must have taken the edge off because what happened in the last while was a great haze.. Until I started to feel the urge to push.
The obstetrician who was the same one staying in our motel LOL (and very very wonderful) came in at 4:50 and checked and announced that I was fully dilated. I had been already telling the midwife for at least 20 minutes that I was feeling like I needed to push and she told me not to, but I couldn't help it a few times a little bit.
God knows where the surge of energy came from but the adrenalin was intense. I pushed out my big boy (8lb 5) in just 27 minutes and he FINALLY arrived safely at 17:17 with no assistance.
My sister cut the cord. I ended up with some minor 2nd degree tearing and a few stitches but that doesn't bother me at all.
It was the most amazing experience of my life, although not quite to plan. My midwife and the student dr and the obstetrician were all absolutely brilliant. My sister and my mum were my support people and I've gotta hand it to them for putting up with my crap during the middle stages of the day. They were wonderful.
On review I believe strongly that my unexplained fever during labour was a reaction to the pethidine. But I am actually very glad I didn't get the epidural in the end because the pushing stage was the most fantastic feeling.
Vincent is now entering his 3rd day of life and I am soooooooooooo in love with him :D
