Izabella's Arrival

My main reason for writing my birthing story is for the women, like me who are up at 3am in the morning and not able to get to sleep. There were many nights that I suffered from aches and pains and just plain insomnia during my pregnancy and was on this forum reading birthing stories. Especially on the day when I went into pre-labour, I spent several hours looking for stories where women had experienced pre-labour like mine.

It was my third pregnancy and even though it was my third time round, there was a 7 year gap. So it actually felt like my first, I was slightly worried that my body would of forgotten what to do. Plus this time round it was a different partner. I had an ok pregnancy without too many implications. I suffered from osteitis pubis from 20 weeks onwards and by the time I got to 38 weeks I was desperately looking for ways to bring on labour so I could relieve myself from the discomfort that I constantly felt. At our 20 week ultrasound we wanted to find out the sex but the baby was not in the right position. So not knowing the sex made it feel like the wait was so much longer.

At about 37 weeks I had a strong bout of Braxton Hicks contractions that were quite regular that kept me up from 12-3am. I actually rang the hospital at 1am and they advised me stay put for a little while longer and within two hours after that all contractions disappeared. I was quite devastated.

Then a few days before my 39 week mark while we were watching the V8 Super cars race on TV I had a show, and lost my plug. That actually got my hopes up and me and my husband had sex like 2 times a day, just so we could speed up the process. So for the next three days we were having sex at every chance we would, it was the most unco sex I ever had, but I was determined.

Three days after I lost my plug and when I was exactly 39 weeks pregnant I begun to get irregular but uncomfortable contractions at about 1am. They would come 5 mins apart lasting 30 sec each, continue like that for an hour then disappear then re-appear again 5 mins apart, one strong contraction one not so strong. I was up all night walking around my house. I tried to sleep but I was so excited. I read nearly all the birthing stories on bellybelly hoping to find a similar story. At 6 am we decided to go to the hospital and see what stage we were at. When we got there we had an internal and were advised that we weren?t dilated at all and that I was in pre-labour. I was drugged up and sent home. When I got home I had a few hours sleep and throughout the day my contractions remained irregular. Some were very intense and some were mild, but they just weren?t regular. They were all over the place, which wasn?t good. The midwife explained to me that when they are regular that?s when it is time to get excited. I was actually quite upset that I was sent home it just felt like the wait was forever. I just wanted to meet my baby.

I spent all day at home, doing my dishes, tidying my house, working through my contractions. My husband had taken the day off so he was at home with me, asking me every 10 mins ?are they regular yet? which was very irritating! So at 6pm we decided to go to the hospital again. We got there where they put us in a small room, which wasn?t the birthing suite, just an examination room. A midwife stayed with me timing my contractions and they were still irregular even though they were getting more and more intense. At 8pm she stated she needed to do another examination and if I wasn?t dilating I would be sent home again. I so didn?t want to go home, not while I was experiencing intense contractions. Anyhow after the examination we discovered that I was only 4cm dilated. So after being in 12 hours of pre-labour I was still only dilated 4cm?s. Knowing that made me worry I thought it was going to be longer and more painful than I expected.

But to my surprise after the internal examination everything sped up. The contractions got more intense and very regular. The midwife said that I wouldn?t be going home and I was transferred into the birthing suite. Within the hour the contractions were so intense that I was requesting more drugs. Up until then I was working through the contractions with the gas, but I felt that it wasn?t working sufficiently enough. I requested Pethidine and lay down on the bed on my side. Half asleep with one hand on the bed rail and the other holding my husbands hand I worked through the contractions. The Pethidine made me sleep and I had very vivid dreams where I actually thought I was in another place during my dream. I enjoyed it, I felt that it broke up the labour process, I was travelling back and forth from my fantasy land to the hospital room. Each time I got a contraction I would wake up, then immediately fall back asleep returning to my happy place. The gas and pethidine together was great the only negative thing was that the gas made my throat very dry and between every contraction I was asking for sips of water that my husband was feeding to me via a straw.(which he later complained about):lol:

At about 1am I felt the urge to push and with my first push my water?s broke which kind of splattered all over my husband.(he complained about that too):lol:
He then went to clean himself up in the bathroom and by the time he got back the nurse was telling him she could see the head. With two more pushes Izabella was born at 1.12am.