The Birth of Cooper James 30/4/2008 (really really long)
Here goes....
After 4 months of TTC we received the news we were having a baby and we were rapt! 5 weeks into the pregnancy I had severe pain in the right side just above my hip and Dr thought it may be ectopic so blood test and internal scan later revealed baby in right spot but no heart beat, so we had a 2 week wait for another blood test and scan at 7 weeks which revealed everything was fine that was a massive relief to us both! The rest of my pregnancy was all fairly normal, nothing too out of the ordinary.
I was due on the 29th April 2008, the day came and as I expected nothing happened. That night we had dinner as usual I wasn't overly hungry but hadn't been eating much at dinner for a few weeks anyway, went to bed at about 11pm but come midnight was still tossing and turning, so I got up, I had a few crampy pains, but thought I had an upset stomach. It was a really cold night so we had the wood fire burning so I curled up next to it and put on DVD. About half way thru the DVD I noticed the "cramps" were still there but were getting stronger and more noticeable, I had never had Braxton hicks so I didn't know what a contraction felt like. I decided to start writing down how often they were coming. I didn't wake DH up as I thought if it was labour we could be in for a big day and he would need to be rested up and also I wanted to be on my own as I prepared for what was about to happen to my body, I felt calm and in control and excited! By the end of the DVD they were about 15min apart, so I warmed up my heat pack, kept rocking on my fit ball and put another movie on! By the time this DVD finished the contractions were more intense and I had to lean over my fit ball or go on all fours during them, I had very intense back pain and needed heat to make it feel better. I watched the home shopping channel for a while and then decided to have a shower. by this time it was about 5.30am so I went in to DH and told him that I was pretty sure I was in labour and that he probably wouldn't be going to work today and that I was going to have a shower. I think he was a still half asleep because he asked me if I was okay and then stayed in bed. After I'd been in the shower about ten minutes or so, DH came in looking confused and asked what I was doing in the shower and if he'd heard me correctly! He said that maybe I should just come back to bed and that I probably just had a pain in the tummy!! I explained that I hadn't really been to bed and that the contractions were getting fairly intense, he went white for a minute and then said "S*** well what do you want me to do to help you" At about 6.30am DH rang the hospital to tell them that we would be in at some stage that day they asked how I was doing and said to stay at home as long as I felt I could cope (which was my plan anyway) so we watched one of the morning show programs and had a bit of brekkie, by about 8am the contractions were about 8 minutes apart and I decided to have a bath, we rang the hospital and they said come in when they are 5 minutes apart or earlier if I felt I needed pain relief, we had about a 30minute drive to the hospital. By 9am I started to feel like I was going to wet myself with every contraction and had a lot of pressure down there so I went to the bathroom and discovered I'd had a show, the pain was really bad when I sat down so we decided to leave for the hospital while I could still bear the sitting down for the trip in the car.
When we got to the hospital DH and I argued about where to park! He wanted to park close and walk me up then come back and move the car, but me being stubborn and emotional would not let him leave me once we got inside so we parked in the public car park (which at ten am was nearly full and we had to park miles away) as I got out of the car I had another contraction with people staring at me in my pj?s! Once we got up to birth suite and settled I asked the midwife to run me a bath and while I waited I had a really warm shower to relieve the pain on my back. Once I got out of the shower and was still waiting for the bath, I had a really intense contraction and felt the urge to push but kept telling myself it was too soon another midwife was walking past my room and heard me trying NOT to push, she said to forget the bath and hop on the bed and lean over the bed head which was a comfy position for me. They hadn't done an internal at this stage but told me of my body wanted to push then to go with it, the time was about 11.15am. At about 12.30pm I was starting to get really exhausted and asked for some gas for the pain, they gave me some, had a look and told me Bub would be hear really soon! I pushed with each contraction but nothing was happening after about another 30mins I started to think bub was stuck and I was exhausted so I asked for the Dr to come in and help me. The midwife told me to keep trying and that she needed to a bit tougher before she got the Dr as the Dr would be even tougher. They got the Dr for me who basically told me if I wanted my baby I had to work for it even though it hurt and not to be so lazy. I said I could handle the pain but I felt bub was stuck, she said if the baby was stuck it would be distressed and there was no evidence of this, I said that I was very distressed but that didn?t matter to her. We were both trying to talk at the same time whilst I was having a contraction so I was sort of shouting even though I didn?t mean to be. She told me if I wasn't going to listen to her she would leave this made me really angry so I told her that is she wasn't going to help me she to get out and get me a Dr who would! Eventually my contractions started slowing down so they made me walk to another room with a bed with stirrups and got the dr who agreed to do an episiotomy and vacuum extraction, all the while I was still pushing, once I switched rooms I had no gas. They broke my waters and then let a student midwife try and do the Episiotomy with out my consent (DH told me this afterwards) but she didn't do it right so the Dr took over and with one go of the vacuum out came our gorgeous son weighing 3.850kgs at 1.40pm. He was semi posterior and had one hand over his head so apparently it was very unlikely he was going to come out on his own. Cooper didn't cry for a quite a few seconds and had a very low Apgar score but was fine in a few minutes, DH was too scared to go and see him because of all the nursing staff! They were stitching me up and the Dr was worried about bleeding but said it should settle, and they put in a drip to help my uterus contract because it had been working for so long.
After about 45min a new midwife came in and helped me with the first feed which was so special, during this feed I felt a massive gush of blood (sorry if TMI) and told the midwife she said it was probably normal but she would look anyway, she took one look and went and got the Dr who was quite concerned. At this point DH who had gone to ring family members came back and was alarmed to see all the nurses and drs back in with me. Dr said if it happened like that again I would need to theatre but she didn't think it would be necessary. About an hour later the midwife tried to get me up for a shower but when I went to get up the same thing happened again and she RAN to get the dr leaving me half in bed and half out! Within ten minutes I'd been stripped off and changed ready for theatre before DH and I really knew what was happening, poor DH was left standing in the room with Cooper in his arms wondering what was happening to me. I cried the whole way to theatre I was so scared because it all happened so fast. When I woke up they told me I had a bleed higher up that'd had been repaired and I had developed a HUGE vulval haematoma from where the local for the episiotomy went in. I tried to feed DS but couldn't due to drips being in both hands so midwives had to hand express for me and feed DS thru a syringe. Later that night I had more bleeding so they called the dr in (this was about 4am) who decided to give me two blood transfusions as I had lost nearly 2 litres of blood! I had trouble getting DS to attach whilst feeding but after 5 days in hospital we went home with him feeding on a nipple shield which I so proud of cos for a while there I thought I'd never get him to attach anyway!
I felt for weeks after wards so many mixed emotions about my birth, I was so proud to have a VB but sad that I needed intervention, I kept blaming myself for getting so worked up about it, maybe if I had of remained calm I would have been able to do it without an episiotomy. It took me weeks to stop blaming myself and be able to think about it with out being upset. It took ages to heal properly and I was in pain down there for several weeks
I am very scared about having another baby and I think next time I will try hypnobirthing and perhaps a doula to help me to remain calm. At the end of it all we have gorgeous son and it was more than worth it, DH was my rock through it all and I couldn't have done it without him he was amazing considering he can't even watch a tampon ad with out getting embarrassed lol Thanks so much for reading if you stuck with it! Hope I haven't bored you all
