Welcome to the world Ashleigh.
Well things started happening on Friday 15th, was getting mild contractions all night, had a bloody show but then early sat morn things stopped, sat night started up again, all night then stopped sun morn. Was getting quite ****ed off at this stage, not only that things were stopping and starting but that it was all night so was very tired and labour hadn't even started!
Sunday 17th I thought my waters had broken, felt a big gush and was all wet but then had no further leakage. The midwives told me to come in anyway for a check. The Ob on call did a stretch and sweep and sent me on my way, he told me I was 1.5cm dilated.
All day Sunday I kept getting stronger contractions coming at 10-15 mins, they kept getting stronger and by 2 am I couldn't cope with the pain anymore, and they were coming 5-10 mins apart.
Got to the hospital and started sucking on the gas and they gave me a lovely shot of pethidine. The midwife checked how dilated I was and it still hadn't changed from earlier in the day. I started bawling at hearing this, all I could think was all those contractions and pain for nothing. The drugs started kicking in and I started feeling relaxed, they felt good!
All that night the contractions stayed the same 5-6 mins apart not getting any stronger. Was very annoying. the Ob came around bout 9 am that Mon morn and told me i was 3-4 cm dilated, at least that was something, but couldn't break my waters or anything yet cause they already had 2 woman being induced! So waited another few hours and the contractions actually slowed down. I was getting very frustrated by this stage as things had just been going for hours with no progression.
12:15 the Ob came back and broke my waters, here is where things picked up. By 1 the pain was getting so intense and getting stronger and stronger, i was sucking on that gas like there was no tommorow. they gave me another shot of pethidine which just made me even more drowsy on top of feeling totally exhausted by this stage. Eventually it got to the point where the gas wasn't even touching the pain and i was all out of it, would wake up every time a contraction hit and then be out of it as soon as it ended, by 3:15, i was begging for an epidural and luckily it only took 15 mins for the anethitist to come down. i was 6-7 cm dilated by this stage. I think my Df and my sister were also glad to see the anethitist by this stage, they just felt totally useless and were getting upset at seeing me in so much pain.
Took another 5+ hours til Ashleigh was actually born, i don't know how i would've got through that without the epidural! At 6:15 they told me I was fully dilated but didn't want to start the pushing yet as she needed to drop a bit further down, so we waited an hour, they didn't want to leave it any longer and it was time to start pushing. i pushed all i could but still wasn't enough, ended up having to have an episotomy and vacuum extraction.
Finally at 8:46 pm after more than 20 hours of labour, Ashleigh entered the world. Weighing: 7 pound 7 (3.37kg), length:50.5cm, head:36cm. Df who hates hospitals and blood flew out of his chair in excitement, the whole pushing stage he'd been sitting just behind my head and used to say he wouldn't look til bubs was all cleaned up. Well i told him he wouldn't mean that and I was right. He was all emotional his little girl was here!
As happy as I was in some way i feel bit dissapointed with the whole thing. I can't remember all that clearly when i think about it cause i was just so out of it.
Plus i didn't feel as excited as I thought i would which makes me feel a little guilty. I more felt relieved that that part was over and finally i can rest! I totally hated the labour and hope that I do eventually block it out or i'll never have anymore kids!
On top of that I suddenly felt really overwhelmed and scared. It suddenly hit me I was responsible for this little human being. It just felt all too surreal, it took me a few days to really believe she was here.
Now she is 8 days old and I love her to bits. It still hard at times to believe she is actually here. She is just so gorgeous.
