THE BIRTH OF BRYNACH MCLEOD
I will try not to make this too epic..
On Saturday morning while haveing a leasurely sleep in, I had a few niggly pains.. and thought.. oww have to remember that. This was around 9am. I eventually got up and had a shower and started doing some jobs around the house, and had a few more of these pains. i was really unsure as to weither they were anything as I had not experianced any BH's to compare with. at about 10am thay seemed to be coming fairly often, so I rang mum and who told me to time them, they where coming anywhere between 6 and 4 minutes apart. Mum felt fairly confident that they where the real thing and told me to go have a shower and check that they did not go away, then we would know.
So I called Craig who was at a mates place and told him what was happening.. so.. very excitedly, he headed home, incase. I jumped in the shower and sure enough the shower did not slow them at all.. so I rang the hospital to ask when they would want me in, and I was told, just to pop in when I would not handle it any more at home.. so I did a little more tidying untill they became to painful to walk through and where 3-4 minutes apart.. so we headed to the hospital, via one of Craig's workmates place, to drop off the work phone and folder as craig was on call for work over the weekend.
We arrived at the hospital around 11 am and they put me on a monitor to check that I was having real contractions, which the monitor said yes I was, so they did a quick internal and I was at 3cm. So I was told to go home.. for a few hours and come back.. So very put out, we left and went for a drive around, then to maccas, I was starving and met up with a mate to give him a lift home. The contracts started betting fairly intense and it had been 1 1/2 hours, so instead if dropping our mate off, we headed straight fot the hospital, and sent the friend on some jobs for us.. Craig had managed to forget the camera and his phone lol, so the mate went and got these for us.
So we went in for a second time and they put us straight into a delivery suite. We were told to walk around, but that was last thing I really wanted to do, so instead they popped me in the spa and I stayed there for an hour or so. Eventually i had had enough of that and was sitting up on the bed with some support from Craig. At this stage, the contractions where coming every 3 minutes still and lasting for about one. At about 3:30, the nurses came in and offered me some gas, finally! So began my addiction to the gas lol..
We continued with the gas for a little while.. then at about 5:30 i sent craig out to ask for more pain relief as I was having trouble recovering from one contraction before the next hit. (p.s. I made sure Craig tried the gas too hehehe) Iasked the nurse for something stronger and she offered to turn the gas up.. then I could try a little pethadine.. I opted for both, straight away. So the nusre reluctantly agreed to give me a small dose of pethadine and see how went. So they did an internal and I was only at 4cm. Both me and Craig where very disheartened, 6 hours and only 1cm progress. So the peth was given to me at just before 6 and things became alot better, I was able to nod off between contracts and was doing well. Craig rang my parents at this stage, as they live 15 km out of town and they had arranged to go to dinner in town then wait at a friends place till it was time.. talk about keen.
My parents stopped in arond 6.30 on their way to dinner, and we took this opportunity to send Craig to get some food, poor bugger hadn't eaten all day.. So he left and thats when the action started.. the contractions intensified and things got fairly full on. by the time Craig got back, and my parents had left, it was around 7 (apparently)and the nurse decided that i was handling the pethadine ok, but it was wearing off and could do with a bigger dose and did another internal and decide weither to give me a real shot of peth or offer an epidural. The internal showed that I was at 8cm! that was 4-8 in an hour, no wonder things had been so intense, the contractions where 90sec on and 20-25 sec off ( apparently).. So I was told it was just that gas from then on.. ow god!!
They decided to break my waters at that point. I struggled through he next 1/2 hour with just the gas and really didn't handle it as well as I would have liked, I had trouble keeping my breathing calm and needed to be coached through it quite a lot.
At 7:30 they told me that I could push if I felt like it as I was 10cm. I was very relieved to begin pushing, the contractions seemed to not hurt as much when I pushed so after 1/2 hour of pushing and just my trusty gas, Brynny was born, head and body in the one contraction.
He came out pink and sreaming with an apgar score of 9 at one minute. they gave me a shot to bring on the placenta, which still took about 40 minutes to come. During which time Craig and I got to know our lil man who came out with no misshapen head of anything due to the speed of the delivery.
they then got a dr in fairly quickly to stitch me up as I was loosing a lot of blood through tearing. I managed to get a 2nd deg tear and 4 1st deg tears. Only two of the first deg tears needed stitching, but that was still enough to need 2 doz stitches.. by this time my parents were already out the front waiting to be given a hug. They came in as soon as I was stitched up, and just in time for him to be weighed... a healthy 8 lb 3.
while I think I have a while ahead of me before I am the same 'down there' again, and have a long haul in waiting for it to mend, I am very pleased with being fortunate to have a birth that was very easy on my bub and I am quite proud that I had very little drugs.. even though that wasn't by choice lol. I am also very proud of how Craig handled everything, he did so well and seemed to know just what i needed and always knew when to pass me some ice or wet my forhead and most importantly, when to shove the gas in lol.
oops this did end up an epic
Cheers everyone
