i hope our June girls that ended up popping in july stay with us. We all got along so well!

A brief run down on Aidens Birth:

Arrived at hospital at 5.30pm. Straight into labour room. The midwife put me onto a monitor to monitor baby’s heart beat and the uterus movements – to check for contractions etc. Baby beating away strongly. About 9pm, obs came in, (was running late) and did an internal, declared that the cervix was still firm enough to go ahead with the inducement. If it was to soft, he would of sent me home, as inducing me then would of brought the labour on to fast.

So, he puts in a tape. Has some more technical name, but, basically, a long string, about the width of a shoe string, thin, maybe about 20cm long, that was sorta folded up and inserted. What I imagined happened is that after it was inserted, it was allowed to ‘unroll’. Obs says to me, you will have an ‘uncomfortable night’ so, have a couple panadol, and a sleeping tablet, and try and get some sleep. Obs says he will be back about 7am to do another internal, check progress, insert the drip, and break my waters. Darren went back home, with intention of returning at 6am the next morning.

So, back onto the monitor, for about 45min, till about 10am, and then at 11am, midwife checked my blood pressure etc, gives me tablets, and says she will be back at 2am to monitor baby again. Good night she says.

So, I laying in this bed, trying to get some sleep, but, I just start getting pains, cramps in my front, and really sore hips and thighs, but, nothing in my back.. So, about 12midnight, I get up, start walking around the room, pacing the corridors etc, thinking “This must be what the obs meant by uncomfortable, but, geez, how did he expect me to get some sleep!’, I wondered if I should ask the midwife if this was normal, but, I didn’t, thinking, well, this is what I choose to do, so, deal with it. That was my thinking.

Anyway, 2am comes along, midwife comes in, asks how I was going, told her cramps are really bad, and just bang bang, one after the other, been like that for about 2hours. Sometimes a few minutes gap, but, mostly just one after the other. She says, ‘hmmmm, strange’, and does an internal. Tells me I am 4 – 5 cm dilated!!!. Bugger me, those pains where contractions. How dopey was I. Goes to show what you can do hey, got that far without any help. She removes the tape, as it is bringing it on to fast. Puts the monitors on, and just as she picked up the baby’s heart beat, he dropped right down, and his heart beat dropped to about 60bpm from 130-140bpm. She panicked, (well, calmly panicked) and hit all the emergency buttons. Midwifes came racing from everywhere, but, after a couple of seconds, it picked back up, and carried on. At that stage, she wasn’t sure why it had dropped, but, she said if it does it again, then I will have a c/section. Darren was called in (did 30min trip in less then 15min – when he moved the car the next morning, he could still smell the burning brakes!), obs was called in. By this time, midwife had done another internal, where she confirmed that the drop in his heart beat was caused by him dropping down. And he was now stable.

Did I want gas – YES PLEASE!!

So, there I was 3am, fully in labour. It was not that bad. At the time, sure it felt bad, I had small dose of morphine about 4ish I guess, which took the edge off it. My midwife was very firm, and when I asked for more, she told me that I was doing good, and that I didn’t need it. At the time, I was annoyed at her, but, looking back, she was right, and I was doing ok. IYKWIM. I am glad that she was hard on me for that reason.

Whilst you’re having contractions, you want everything under the sun, and think illogically. But, when you have those breaks in between, that’s when you tend to focus on what you want, what you are doing and you think more logically about what’s happening. Midwife told me that the morphine had worked on me. During contractions, I told her the morphine was a heap of **** wasn’t doing anything, and that the gas didn’t do anything either. Between contractions, I could think straighter, and realised that it was working, and that she was right. I think the gas was more of a distraction, or security blanket thou.

Darren was really good. During antenatal classes we talked about massaging, showers etc for help with contractions. I wanted none of it. All I wanted during contractions and labour was to sit on the yoga ball thing, have him sit beside me and hold my hand. He rubbed my back with his other hand, tried 2 handed back massages, but, nope, that irritated me. I am glad now I didn’t get a TENS machine, as I don’t think I would have used it. Hated the shower as well. Being on the bed for contractions wasn’t good either. Just sitting on that ball. Midwife said to rock sideways, as it helps baby to move down, but, I wanted to bounce for some reason. So, I bounced.

Midwife also did lots of monitoring of baby’s heart beat. Not strapped on, she just knelt beside me, and held the monitor on my tummy. And that was so reassuring to hear his little heart.

Anyway, apparently, about 5.30, started to need to push. Well, I didn’t think I needed to, but, midwife does internal, which by now is not the most comfortable, as she is doing it while I am having contractions, and I did hate that, and she says, right, its time to push.

For me, pushing didnt hurt. Baby coming out, didn’t hurt really. The stingy bit towards the end hurt abit, but on the whole, didn’t really hurt. The worst was the first push of each contraction, as you had to get your body back into position. And, if you push correctly, you can actually feel the difference in terms of pain etc. If pushing correctly, I don’t think you can feel the contractions as much. For me, the worst part of the pushing part was my hips. I was not laying straight on the bed, I kept twisting, which made baby moving past my hips hurt, and that hurt more then baby coming out.

I also remember wanting an epidural, a c/section, and wanting to go home all at the same time. Apparently, that’s not possible

After each contraction/pushing session, she would monitor baby’s heart. And I focused on that a lot. Each time I heard his little heart going strong, I felt good. I was disappointed when she wouldn’t get time to monitor between contractions. I seemed to have 2 close together ones, then a break, then another one, then a break, and then back to the 2 close together ones. Well, that’s how I remembered it.

Midwife kept saying just 30more minutes, baby will be here. I pushed for 2 hours, my muscles where to strong, and weren’t letting the baby thru. I could feel her massaging the perineum (which didn’t hurt at all) but, to no avail. Didn’t work. Obs came in, says if he doesn’t come out soon, will have to get forceps or vacuum. Again, during contractions, would of agreed to anything. Between contractions, I knew I didn’t want that, and I focused on the fact that the baby’s heart beat was still strong, so I knew he was still ok.

So, push push push, felt baby’s head etc, but, still nothing. Started to tear internally, at this point, obs says we need to do an episiotomy, So, a few injections (Darren says he just pumped heaps of local in) and cut. Could feel him cutting, but didn’t hurt. Just sorta felt the pulling type sensation, but, no pain. I asked the midwife (2 of them by this stage, shift changeover) if it was done, and she said yep. Darren said it was so close, but yet so far. He reckons it was frustrating in a way, cause you could see it coming, then I would stop pushing, and the head would drop back. I wonder if I had a mirror, how inspiring it would have been for me to have seen that as well. Has worked for some woman. But, then again, wouldn’t of changed the fact that I was going to tear, so perhaps better it was slower.

I think it was another push, she told me to pant while she twisted him, and then, it felt like a whole bunch of tadpoles coming out. I felt the head come thru, and I was expecting then to have to push or something to get the shoulders thru, but nope. The most amazing thing, there was this baby on my chest.

During the final stages of pushing, I said to Darren that this was going to be an only child, (and also that it had better be a rich doctor and give me all its money) as there was no way was I doing this again. When I heard Aiden cry for the first time, I said I will do this again, it was all worth it. Truly, the pain had gone. It was like it had never happened. I completely forgot about it as I looked at this little baby. (it came back to me later ) but, everyone says you forget about the pain when they give you the baby, I used to think what a crock of ****e, how could you forget something like that. But, truly, it really happens. Its amazing. No words there to describe it.

Darren says he would watch it all again. He watched everything. Its funny really, I would be so horrified if he seen pads etc during AF, but, he seen my waters break, my mucus plug come out, me poop (I am sure it was only little, it felt little) seen everything. Me walking around with blood dripping out etc. Watched this baby come out. Helped to clean up after me etc. (they very good at cleaning up, must of gone thru a bucket load of towels and those little blue mat things, always changing them) When I felt the head, was only a small hole still, and I felt the rest of the bits, and I said, “that doesn’t feel like it would look very attractive’. Funny the things you think of. At one stage, LOL, I decided I didn’t want to push anymore, as I didn’t want to get hemaroids.

Anyway, obs did my stitches, again, it hurt a little bit, could feel it pulling I just focused on Aiden.

And thats about my story. Sorry, not terribly brief, but, belive me, its edited from the original version.