The birth of Oscar ~ 27th July 2007
It all started on the Wednesday morning... I went for my 38wk appointment with the midwives at the hospital and they didn't have anything exciting to tell me and as I was closer to 39wks they booked me in with a Dr for 2 weeks time incase I got that far!! I got home around 10am and was a little disheartened but I jumped on BB for a little while as usual!! At around 11am I felt like I had wet my pants and went off to the toilet. I had a clear liquid trickling and knew I wasn't wetting myself!! I called the hospital and they told me to see how I went and to pop a pad on and if it was still happening to call back later that afternoon. I waited for DH to get home from work and called the hospital again and they told me to come in so they could monitor me. At 4.30pm DH and I headed into the hospital and were taken into the birthing suites. Sheridan the midwife hooked me up to a CTG for monitoring and found that the baby was was ok and that I was having a few BH contractions but that was all. The Dr came in after that and did an internal and found the my cervix 'wasn't looking favourable and was still long and closed'. She was quite sure though that I was leaking amniotic fluid though and did a swab test... after a 10 min wait for the swab to develop we found that it was amniotic fluid and that my waters had broken!! As I wasn't having contractions they told me to go home and wait and see what happened... if nothing happened I was told to come back at 7am Friday morning for an induction. So DH and I went home and waited and waited... fluid was continuously leaking and irregular contractions began happening that night. Thursday morning DH went off to work and I sat at home trying to bring on contractions... nothing seemed to work! I was having irregular contractions all day that were uncomfortable but not painful. At 2pm I decided to go for a walk up to my Mum's place, 15 mins later I arrived at Mums very puffed and my back was killing me! DH came and picked me up as there was no way I could walk back home. At around 4pm I started having irregular contractions again and these ones were more painful and were in my back. They continued through the night but weren't bad enough that I couldn't sleep. At 4am Friday morning I got up and the contractions seemed to have worsened so I got up and had a shower which seemed to relieve the pain a little. The contractions died off again and at 6.30am DH and I left for the hospital. We arrived just after 7am and were taken into our room. As we were the first to arrive (they had 4 inductions booked in that morning) they got started on me straight away, by 8am I was hooked up to the CTG and the drip was in. The Dr soon came in to do an internal and they found that I was already 4-5cm dilated! I couldn't believe I had got half way with hardly any pain. By 9am the contractions were becoming really painful but were still bearable then by 10am I was in so much pain. The midwife gave me the gas to try and I pretty much threw it away as I couldn't breathe properly with it through my contractions. I was begging for an epidural as my back was so sore but they suggested I try a shower first... I got to the bathroom and collapsed onto the toilet with another contraction. I stayed there for a couple more contractions and went back to the bed. Because I was getting uncomfortable sitting on the bed all the time they took the CTG monitor off for the baby as it kept sliding around and attached a monitor to the babys head. I still wanted an epidural but the midwife told me it was too late as I was already 7-8cm dilated. I could have killed her!! The midwife suggested pethidine if I wanted some pain relief and I agreed to it but when they bought it in and I saw the needle I told them I didn't want it anymore. At around 11am the Dr came back in and I was having 4 contractions within 10 minutes, he did an internal and found that I was 9cm dilated but had an anterior lip. He was able to push it out the way and I was nearly ready to start pushing. He checked once more before he left and found that the baby was now posterior and suggested I have an epidural! I could have kissed him! While all this was going on I was in so much pain and was sucking and crunching on ice through my contractions to try and take my mind off them a bit. The Dr bought in a ultrasound machine to check exactly where bubs was and he was definatley posterior. The anethetist came in around 12.30pm and put the epidural in, I was very in love with him after he had done it. At 1pm the Dr told me to wait an hour until I could start pushing in hope that bubs would turn, an hour came and went and the Dr returned to reassess me. He told me to wait a while longer until I started pushing. He was sure bubs wouldn't turn and decided that we would try and deliver bubs posterior so I started pushing at around 2.30pm and continued until about 3.30pm and we were getting nowhere in a hurry. The Dr then came in at 3.45pm and told me that he wanted me to go up to theatre and use the ventouse to try and get this little one out. He said if that didn't work that they would have to do a c-section. I was happy for them to try the ventouse as I was very tired and was concerned about my bubs. So at 4pm I was taken up to theatre. It took them a while to get set up, while they were doing that they topped up my epidural and made it 'stronger' too. Once they had finished getting me ready I went into theatre with DH beside me. They put a sheet up so we couldn't see what was happening... my feet were put up in stirrups and then they started doing what they had to do. At about 4.40pm they told me to start pushing and I pushed with all I had because I didn't want a c-section. After 5 big pushes I could feel bubs head had moved down and with one more big push his head was out! When they told me I started crying, I was so relieved. They told me to start pushing again and with 2 big pushes my little baby was out. They lifted our bub up so DH could see what we had had and announce that we had A BOY! I started crying (again!) and got to cuddle my little man, I was so happy. They took him away to make sure he was ok and then was brought straight back to me for skin to skin contact. He was so perfect! The Drs then started to stitch me up as I had had an episiotomy, while they were doing that I heard the radio going in the background and playing was "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas. I started crying again as all I wanted to hear when my bubs was born was this song and there it was!
I am so in love with my little man and would do it all over again in a heartbeat. My birth didn't go to plan as I wanted minimal intervention but I felt I went the right way though and am happy with my decisions and that we are both healthy.
