Amy Jade's Birth Story - Not to Plan!
I finished work at 38 weeks and DH decided he wanted to meet his daughter so we began a week of doing things to induce her naturally. We went to the beach, bushwalking, played mini golf, drove on bumpy dirt roads and just spent the week together (well some of the week was with the dogs).
At 39 weeks, 2:45am Sunday 3/7 I felt a little trickle in bed. I got up and started leaking and it didn’t stop for about 10 minutes. My show was at the start of my waters breaking. Luckily we had polished floorboards in our room because I wasn’t going anywhere and just had to let it come out. I rang the hospital and they said to come in but to take our time. So we burnt CD’s for labour as we hadn’t done that yet. We arrived in hospital 2 hours later and began a very long wait. Poor DH had only been in bed 1 hr. Contractions didn’t start for 1 ½ hours after my waters broke and when they did start, they didn’t hurt much. We walked and walked in the hospital and even took a walk down the road. I kept saying that this was easy and there had to more to labour than this. How right I was. We had a birth plan that was given to the midwives when we arrived. The birth plan said that I didn’t want to be induced and didn’t want to be offered drugs and would use gas if absolutely needed. Our Ob was away for the weekend and we had another Ob which was filling in. After about 12 hours of ‘fun’ labour the Ob came to see me. He had also read our birth plan and said I was about 1-2 cms only it was up to us if and when we wanted to start the syntocin (oxytocin) to move things along. He didn’t examine me because of the chance of infection. Because of the spontaneous rupture of my membranes, we were told that the risk of infection was high if I hadn’t given birth after 24 hrs of labour. DH and I kept that in mind and agreed that we would consider being augmented at 3pm. We were under no pressure from the midwives or Ob and they understood my wishes in the birth plan. I had a shower and a bath and the water seemed to slow the contractions down. I wanted an active birth and wanted to use water for pain management and I knew that was over once the drip went in. We managed three nice meals while in labour so that was a bonus because I was starving.
At 3pm we were asked again if I wanted the oxytocin but I still couldn’t do it. I chose to wait a bit longer as the contractions were now coming about 5 mins apart and were more painful. The Ob had put the bung in my hand when he visited earlier so we could start the oxytocin at any time. My Ob was back on duty and came to see me. He did an internal exam and found that I was only 3cm at the most. I still wanted to continue and was still optimistic for a natural labour. It was about 5pm when I finally agreed to start the oxytocin. This ‘fun’ labour turned into ‘real’ labour and it hurt a lot. The drip was slowly being increased and after several hours of pain I asked for gas. This helped for a while and the contractions were coming hard and fast. DH also had a few hits of the gas because we were both sitting on fit balls and his back was hurting. After about 4 hours of the oxytocin I could not cope with the pain anymore. DH had already ordered an epidural which I was unaware of because I was in such a distressed state. I finally asked for an epidural so it didn’t take long because the anesthetist was already on his way.
The anesthetist arrived and had to tell us the risks before administering the epidural. I knew the risks and told him but I was only slowing him down interrupting. He finally started putting in the epidural in between contractions. I managed to stay still even when a contraction started which was good. The pain soon stopped and it was great. I could feel a tightening and saw the contractions on the monitor. What a relief!
Sometime during the night, Amy’s heartbeat started dropping to 80 with each contraction. We knew this was not good and could tell something was wrong reading the two midwives faces. They phoned my Ob and he asked that the trace was faxed to him. My Ob came straight away and an emergency caesarean had been organised. We were never told that a Caesar was going to happen but DH finally got an answer from a midwife that it was likely.
The epidural was topped up and I was wheeled into surgery. The anesthetist was fantastic and gave us a commentary during the surgery. The caesar didn’t take long and I didn’t’ feel any pain apart from pressure on my chest, and Amy was born at 4:16am. The cord was around her neck twice and this was the reason why she was in distress. We have lots of photos of the Caesar taken by a nurse and we will put them on Amy’s website. Amy was wrapped and given to me after the paediatrician checked her over. DH tried to take her as he wanted to hand her to me but the midwife side stepped around him and bought her straight to me. Amy’s apgar score was 9 out of 10. DH went with Amy to get weighed and checked while I was being stitched up. Amy was given to me for skin to skin contact and her first breastfeed. She fed really well and it turned out to be the best breastfeed she ever had. After the feed, the epidural creeped up to almost my shoulders so I spent 2 hrs in recovery.
Because I was in a private hospital, my stay was 7 days and that gave us time to get used to looking after Amy with help if needed. We banned all visitors for the first two days because we wanted to spend the time bonding with Amy and getting to know her. We are glad we did this and everyone understood. The midwives were a great help with the breastfeeding and Amy was attaching well but it wasn’t to be. I had a breast reduction 9 years ago and the milk wasn’t there. Having an epidural and Caesar wouldn’t have helped either. Amy took to the breast sometimes so I had to hand express the colostrum which was fed to her by syringe. We weren’t sure how much she was getting so we started to comp feed her formula. We never expected this so when we were asked which brand of formula we would like to use, DH and I had no idea. We were feeding her formula with a cup as I didn’t want Amy to get nipple confusion with a teat. After a few days I changed to a teat and bottle for the formula as recommended by one of the midwives. She said that babies needed to suck and she was not sucking enough on my breast. After that, Amy was not interested in the breast so I expressed using an electric pump. I was only expressing 10-20ml each time and did this for the first three weeks. She is now on formula only and is doing really well.
So nothing went to plan but we now have a happy, healthy baby and that is the important thing. I was recovered from the Caesar after a few days and have been well since.
Here is DH’s version of Amy’s birth:
I was conceived, I was cut out and therefore I am.
The end
