Aubree-Rose's Arrival (WARNING VERY LONG)
Aubree-Rose’s Birth Story
After a long journey of numerous doctor appointments with my GP, appointments with the Fertility specialist, natural therapy treatments, numerous tests, ultrasounds, hormone treatments, a go on Metformin, and 2 rounds of Clomid, I am finally holding my miracle baby...
My pregnancy wasn’t the easiest of pregnancies, just getting pregnant was difficult. At 14 weeks I had a sub chronic haemorrhage and had a 50/50 chance of making it past 20 weeks. 3 weeks bed rest and 4 ultrasounds later, the haemorrhage had healed. Then at 28 weeks I was told I had gestational diabetes – Not the end of the world, but given the trauma of the haemorrhage it was something I was hoping to avoid.
Friday 1:40am - I wake up with some serious tightenings and back pain, and they are coming pretty frequently so I decide to get the contraction timer going on my phone. The pains are about 5-7 minutes apart and lasting 30-60 seconds. I put up with the pain until 7am, after 3 showers, some panadol and pacing around the house, I call the hospital and they tell me to come into to get checked out.
We arrive at the hospital and I am greeted by a lovely midwife, Vicky – On to the CTG monitor I go. Bub is happy and moving around, and the tightenings have become irregular and less painful. Vicky offers to do an examination to see whether I am dilated at all. So I have an exam done, and Vicky tells me she thinks that I may be 1cm, but would like to get a second opinion because my cervix is quite soft. Midwife number 2 (who for the life of me I cant remember her name) does the examination – Yes my cervix is very soft, and I am about 3-4cm dilated! The midwives tell me that I can go home and relax, and I would probably be back within 24 hours having a baby. Vicky, the lovely midwife tells me she is on shift tomorrow (Saturday) at 12:00pm and to come in to have a baby then.
Home again home again – So Scott and I trundle off home. After no sleep, I park myself on the couch with my heat pack and try and sleep for a while. I managed to get an hour of sleep before I woke up and decided to move around the house and try and get things going again....
Saturday, 2:00am - BAM! Im awake with horrible tightenings, back pain, and this horrible ache running down my legs. The pains are 5 minutes apart and lasting for about a minute (gotta love the contraction timer application) My first thought – Yes this is it! Im going to have my baby!! And then the realization set in that it could all stop again and I would be sitting at home for another day waiting.
4:30am rolled around, and I called the hospital, the cramps were becoming unbearable, and I was so tired from not having any sleep the night before. I spoke to a lovely midwife on the phone named Margaret she told me to have some panadol, and a nice warm shower. In the shower I hop, and reluctantly I take some panadol (not a big fan of pain medication). The shower feels amazing but the pain is still there and isn’t getting any better.
6:30am I called the hospital again and explain to them what is happening. (I was booked in at 11:30am to have monitoring done, as the last couple of weeks my anxiety levels had sky rocketed and I nothing I seemed to be doing was helping me cope with that anxiety except for having the CTG hooked up and hearing that heart beat). Because Bub’s movement was quite minimal my anxiety was starting to get the better of me, so Monique the midwife I spoke to on the phone told me to have some breakfast, and come on in. I also had my bloody show – Disgusting, I wiped and it just kept coming and coming and coming... (I even got some on my hand)
8:30am Scott and I arrive at the hospital and are greeted by Monique and a student midwife Kellie – Both of which I had seen before. Monique signed me into the Ante Natal Clinic and I had seen Kellie on one of my previous monitoring visits.
Up on the bed, CTG strapped on, and Bub is perfectly fine... Tightenings and pain lessen and are coming every 15 to 20 minutes. I thought you have to be kidding me!! I was so tired, I thought Im not going to be able to do this much longer. Monique gave me an examination, which showed that I was still only 4cm dilated and my waters were still intact. After a long conversation with Monique, its decided that I am going to have some Panadine and a sleeping tablet so that I can get some rest and hopefully once I have had some sleep, I will wake up in full blown labour.
At this stage I called my mum and told her that we were heading home from hospital. My mum met us back at our house. When I got home I had a shower and got into bed, thinking I was going to get some sleep. By the time my mum got there things were moving...
11:30am Lying in bed wasn’t working. There was no way I was going to sleep. The most comfortable spot was sitting on the toilet. All of a sudden this huge wave of nausea overcame me. Luckily I already had a bucket in there with me from the previous night. TMI but up came breakfast as well as the tablets that I had taken (my body’s way of saying ahhh you twit, you don’t take pain relief).My poor husband, copped a “Dont look at me” in the brink of one of the lovely contractions. Mum was timing my contractions – 3-4 minutes apart. “Mollie, Its time to go back to hospital” and my mum just laughed at my response when I said “I have to call the hospital first”. (We didn’t call the hospital).
12:30pm We pull up to the hospital and I couldn’t even walk up to the maternity unit. Scott ran into the Emergency department and got me a wheelchair. Scott and I got up to the maternity unit and Monique and Kellie are still on shift! (Thank god! I don’t have to explain everything to another set of people) Instead of putting my in one of the monitoring rooms, I go straight into the birthing suite. Thinking that we probably weren’t going to be staying and I was just going to get sent home again, everything was left in the car.
1:45pm Turns out Im not going home, and this baby is going to be here sometime today. Im introduce to the midwife Phoebe and the 2nd year student midwife Kai, these two ladies are going to be looking after me while they are on shift. I hadn’t had another examination since that morning, so for all I knew I was only 4cm dilated and things were moving slowly in the right direction. When it was made aware that we weren’t going home again, Scott had to run down to the car to get my Ante Natal Card, and my hospital bag (which I had honestly packed 2 days before).
2:00pm Scott came back into the birth suite after running down to the car, as soon as he walked through the door “Ah I think my waters have broken” Kai asked “What does it feel like?” Not really knowing how to explain the feeling – I just replied “Well it isn’t stopping”. I went and sat on the toilet after this and had this huge urge to push! (This is where I scared my mum – She said I sounded something like a mixture of a banshee and the female version of tarzan, this was the only huge amount of noise that I made the whole time) Monique came back in and told me sitting on the toilet was probably not the best position as the blood stops flowing properly to the cervix and can slow things down. So off the toilet I get, and I decide that I would like to lean on the bed and stand up.
Kai tells me that its probably best that I have an examination so they can see how far along I am and weather I can start pushing. Examination done – 7cms. Having to breathe through the contractions was so hard. I kept telling myself – This is one less contraction til I will be holding my baby in my arms.
It got to the stage where the urge to push was becoming unbearable and I was certain that it was time to push. Phoebe tells me that they are going to have to do another examination after the next contraction. Margaret the midwife (my saviour) came into the room as Phoebe was talking to me about doing another examination. I have no idea how she could tell, but Margaret walked around behind me just as I got another contraction, her words could not have been any better “Oh no she doesn’t need another examination – She can push” (This is where my mum does a great re-enactment of the midwives getting ready) I froze – It was like I didn’t have contractions at all. I didn’t want to be standing up and push my baby out, so I decided to get back up on the bed. I got on the bed and was kneeling on the bed... “I don’t know what to do – What am I supposed to do?” So I turned around and was sitting on the bed, and was told with the next contraction to bear down into my bottom and push.
3:30pm One push – My baby’s head and shoulders are out. One Push – And She is up on my chest. The emotion set in. Kai clamped the cord, and Scott cut it. I had this tiny little human crying while lying on my chest – “I did it... I did it” (and yes I actually said this) My mum was crying. I was crying. It was just amazing. 10 minutes later the placenta was out. After a check over after the placenta was out it showed that all I had was a small graze.
3:32pm Aubree-Rose Bryant, 3000g, 47cm, Head circumference 33.5cm.
Stage 1 (dilation) – 2hrs 14mins, Stage 2 (pushing) – 3mins, Stage 3 (placenta) – 10mins. No pain relief.
