Jacob Declan 30/10/08

here I go again! I actually wrote this whole thing out once already, then just as I finished I lost the whole thing!:rolleyes: so apologies it has taken this long to post!

OCT 19TH- was having contractions every 10 mins forabout an hour anda half, every third one or so was pretty painfull, this is while sitting in the tepinyaki restaurant at the hyatt with dps family, they were all getting quite worried, i was pretty sure it would amount to nothing (as it did) but was also thinking wouldnt it be just my luck if my waters broke - at the hyatt- and i had the baby on dps bday!!

OCT 22ND- A friend of mine gives me some raspberry leaf tablets, I start taking them, 2 tabs 3x a day, still getting period like pain and the occasionally painfull braxton hicks.

OCT 23RD- Have ob appt at the hospital, bp is rising (again, was always either up or down!) fundal measurement is 44cm!! I am hoping that its just fluid, by this stage in my pregnancy I have plenty of it! my hands, feet, legs and face are so bloated I am almost unrecognizable.
ob says that she doubts I will have baby anytime soon, I have another appointment for the 29th of oct, I will then be 40+1weeks, she says she will do an internal then and we will discuss induction, which will probably happen sooner rather than later due to my bp.

OCT25TH-out for dinner again and painfull bh start again, my parents are convinced that this is it and take me home to bed to sleep, at this point that is laughable, pregnancy insomnia has hit me big time and I find it hard to recall what a decent nights sleep feels like!!

Oct 26th- more of the same.....

oct 27th-I am walking around the backyard, just round and round trying to get things happening when I feel a small gush of fluid, I looked at dp and said, uh I think my waters just broke, i waddled to the loo and got dp to get me another pair of undies, then rang the hospy, they told me to put a pad on and come on down, so we did, anyway after a rather painfull internal and swab it was decided that they havent in fact broken, but was in fact mucous(ewwww) just my body getting ready to have baby.
as we were leaving the hospital I had a REALLY painfull contraction, then another in the car on the way home, dp went to bed and I started counting!!
They are really frigging painfull, and coming every 7-10 mins for at least the last 2 hrs, tried sleeping through but they wake me up and laying down is almost impossible.
im a little scared to tell the truth, I want to wake up dp but I know how how bloody tired he is, if this continues I will wake him up just before im ready to go to hospital.
lucky I slept for half the day!! This continues allllllllllll night....... at around 2am I take 2 panadeine tabs and get in the bath, this slows the contractions down and I manage to doze off for about an hour in the tub, when I get out the bath I notice lots of gelatinous stuff floating in the water and realise it must be my mucous plug coming away!

Oct 28th- still in pain, am loving the shower, but when I get out to dry myself there is blood on the towel and lots of mucous....figure this is the show or my plug, am happy things are happening but I am so buggered from being awake all night and gritting my teeth thru owchy contractions every 10mins.
dp says right thats it, lets go to hospital again, so off we go to emergency, they cant find me a wheelchair so we walk all the way to labour and delivery (on the other side of the hospital!!) with me hanging on to dp and dragging him down with every pain.
no one saw me for a while, finally an agency midwife (who was a bit of a nutter) came in and told dp to time my contractions while she tried to find a doctor so she could find out what to do with me
cx were 10mins apart and lasting a min or so, she did an internal (how f@#$ing painfull is that!) cervix is soft and ripe but only 1cm dilated, she seemed a bit surprised at the intensity of my contractions and wanted to know if id booked an early epidural, what the??? then rolled her eyes when I said I was going to try not to have one.
she then gave me 2 panadeine forte to take right then and another 2 for later, then told us to go home and not come back unless my waters break or cx are 3 mins apart.
so we came home, by that point I was completely zonked from the drugs and collapsed into bed, I think I got about 45 mins uninterrupted before cxs woke me up again, dozed on and off for another 3 hrs, then my parents came round they made us tea and mum bought me lots of massage oils (but no damn clary sage!!) and rubbed my back for me.
they left here about 11pm after it was obvious that cxs werent getting any stronger or longer yet (still anywhere from 10-5 mins apart, so painfull and exhausting....)
I popped my last 2 panadeine fortes and crashed for a good 2 hrs, but I had to get up again around 3;30 its just too painfull lying in bed.
ny this time I am hoping the contractions will either speed up and intensify or just bloody go away, im getting over this rather quickly,

Oct 29th- okay last appointmant at hospital, I am soooo over the pain and feel like the living dead from not sleeping, have dp with me to hold me up, sitting in the waiting room so heavily pregnant and in obvious pain is a bit distracting for all the other mums to be (with cute little bumps, not bloated whales like me!) would be amusing if not for the relentless pain.
ob finally calls us in, she takes one look at me and asks whats been going on, so I tell her the deatails of the last week, she gets me on the table and does an internal, then she is all business " right, you are 3cm dilated, the bub is still not engaged, youve been niggling for days now and nothings happening, youre to go upstairs from here, were going to break your water, i will give you 2 hrs to do it on your own, after that we will start the drip, after 2 hrs of that if nothings happening, you will be looking at a c section, you do know thats one big baby you have there!" I was speechless, I just looked at her, dp was getting excited, I think I was in shock!
I hesitantly asked if the drip was really necessary, "no point faffing around" I was told, calls were made then she said "congratulations you will meet your baby today, and dont be surprised if you end up with a ceasar, I really dont think this babys going to come naturally!"
dp and I went outside and I rang my parents(mum was my other support person) to come on up and explained what was happening.
I said wearily to dp that this was my worst nightmare, everything I didnt want, being induced etc, was all happening. He was too excited I think to notice how petrified I was.
we made our way to labour and delivery and were given a room, I looked at the bed in horror, the last thing I wanted to do was lay down, so I continued with my walking purposefully around the room and swaying my hips thru the contractions, until we were joined by a midwife and an ob.
they explained the ARM procedure to me and I was told to get on the bed, ctg was hooked up and then they broke my water at 2:00pm. immediately after that the contractions picked up a notch, owww, mum and dad arrived not long after, to my surprise they let my dad in too, I was happy about that. he gave great back massages, bub was posterior and I felt lots of pain in my back, mum dad and dp were all tag teaming with holding my hand or rubbing my back. I think thts when I asked for the gas, gas was my friend,:lol:
dp had the fantastic idea of mentioning to the midwife the way I had been bouncing on a yoga ball at home, she then came back with one for me to sit on- so much better than lying on the bed, I remember bouncing on that thing feeling amniotic fluid gush out with every bounce, laughing hysterically, cold flannel on my head like a hat and gas tube clenched between my teeth....what a picture!
everything is a bit fuzzy after that, gas I guess, I do recall being asked to get on the bed so they could do another internal and I warned the mw that if she hurt me I would have to hurt her, they were getting ansty as the ctg kept slipping and they couldnt get a proper reading on bubs heart. he was fine though.
another midwife came in and suggested a trace be put on his head, no way I piped up, you are not putting anything in my babys head!! she walked out and came back with an ob, he was told my history etc, by this time they wanted to start the drip, he agreed with me that the foetal trace was not needed :p and he also said to let me go for awhile longer before starting the drip, he then sat down with me and explained that the drip would make the contractions worse, had I considered an epidural? I caved at that point, if im going to end up having a ceasar anyway, go ahead.
so an anethesitist came up and did the epi, I made sure I was totally out on the gas when that happened, poor mum had to hold me up on the bed while he did it, I never felt a thing! after that I was a different woman, I lay nice and quiet on the bed with the ctg around me, and the drip in my arm, watching the ctg machine to see when I was having a contraction.I think I even dozed off at one point!The drip was turned up every 1/2 hr or so, but my contractions werent getting getting any bigger, they actually started to slow down :doh:
by 11;00pm it was a given that I was going to theatre, the new ob came in and introduced himself and explained that they would be doing the ceasar, but they would turn the drip up fully until they got the surgery team together, I could tell my midwife wasnt happy about that, I caught something about contractions on top of eachother being muttered under her breath....
anyway, at about 11:30 I was wheeled into surgery, the epidural was topped up and the screen put up but when I looked up there was a window where I could see everything reflected in the glass, I pointed this out to dp, who told me not to look but how could I help myself? I got the shakes and was freezing cold, felt nauseous and like I was going to pass out, I think I even fell asleep at one point, then dp disappeared and I heard the most fantastic thing in the world, a loud gurgling cry of disgruntledment, aparantly he was shown to me then but I dont remember it, I turned my head to the side and was able to watch dp cut his cord and the midwife clean him up, then finally they bought him to me, I burst into tears.
my beautiful little boy finally here, 30/10/08 born at 12:13am thursday morning, by (not so) emergency c section. weighing in at 9pd 11oz, he was a big boy.
I was wheeled into recovery and joined by my mum and dad, I breatfed him as soon as I could sit up.
he didnt have a name for 4 days, but dp and I eventually came to an agreement.
Jacob Declan- and now I have another true love in my life.

thankyou for reading and sorry it is so long but there is so much I have left out!!
xxx

Great story hun! What a great job you did! OMG at the agency nurse and compassionate Dr though!

Oh great job to last all those days with lack of sleep and contractions!! So was he a big baby???? Congrats!!!

oops! sorry shellbelle, I have just edited and added in his weight. :wall:

Wow, you did so well! Thanks so much for sharing your story and congrats on your little man!

BTW - he shares the same birthday as my DS1, it's a great day to be born LOL!

congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic name choice Lol

He was a big boy wasnt he............. well done.

Congratulations :D

Great story, thanks for sharing and congrats on your baby boy!

wow thanks for sharing