Oh Mel, I hope your little man gets the idea that he needs to sleep and give him mummy a well earned rest. It's really hard to function when you're running on low batteries huh?
Debbie - Thank you for sharing your birth story. You're a very brave girl. I don't think I would have coped as well as you did. Well done!
Caeleb's birth was quite straight forward I guess. My water broke at 5:15pm the day before. DH was out shopping (so glad I decided not to go with that day). He'd forgotten his mobile phone, so after an hour, I was on the phone to Coles asking them to do a call out. He turned up about five minutes later thank goodness. As soon as he got out the car, I told him that my waters had broke. He had the cutest grin on his face. I rang the hospital and told them my waters had broke and that I'd call when contractions started. They said they wanted to do an internal and wanted me to come in. Okay, fair enough.
On the way to the hospital, I started to get a sore back. I didn't even realise that it was the beginning of labour (how bad is that?!?). The hospital is only five minutes away from our house. As soon as I arrived, they did an internal and hooked up the ECG. The ECG showed that I was having regular contractions, so they wouldn't let me go home.
DH and I were settled into our room and since I wasn't into "established labour", we were left for about four hours on our own, so we walked up and down the halls to bring on labour. At about 12pm, I decided the pain was getting stronger and I went into the labour ward and had a shower. That did nothing, so the midwife gave me some capadex.
A few hours later, when the pain was getting too much, they offered me a shot of pethadine, which was very welcome. This went on for about six hours, but they could only offer me pethadine every four hours. So, after the second shot, they said that all they could offer was gas.
It was about 8am. I sucked on that stuff for three hours straight, as I was having contractions every minute. DH was rubbing my back and my Mum was rubbing my hands and talking me through the contractions. Another contraction would come on and I'd say "RUB MY BACK!!!" DH would reply "But, you've got blisters...". My reply... "I DON'T CARE!!! RUB HARDER!!!"
After 18 hours, they did an internal examination and said... "Congratulations... you've dialated 2cm". WTF?!? "You're joking!!!" DH and I couldn't believe it. They explained that since it had almost been 24 hours since my waters broke, they wanted to give me anti-biotics and they didn't think my contractions were strong enough, so they were going to give me an epi and bring the baby on.
A lovely doctor (who happened to look like my GP) turned up to do the epi. I was off with the fairies, and thought it was my GP. I was SO happy that he'd come to visit me during my labour. DH had to explain to me very quickly that it wasn't Dr Brown. DH and my parents said I was absolutely hilarious, offering everyone who came into the room a suck on the gas. LOL
Anyway, the doctor did the epi, but I didn't have to roll up into a ball. He just said to relax and lean forward onto my Mum. Other than a slight sting from the local, I didn't feel a thing.
Three hours later, I still hadn't had Caeleb. They asked me to push, which I did, but as I did, I could feel him dragging across my pelvic bone. They didn't tell me at the time, but he was stuck. They called in an Ob. She said she'd have to use a ventouse, which was fine. I was cut, but didn't feel it. She asked me to push again, but he was still stuck. She managed (with great force) to get his head out, but had to manually turn his body. They asked me to push again, but wanted me to stop shortly after. I didn't hear that bit, so I tore. But, I didn't care, I had my baby looking down at me from my belly.
The past 21 hours had all become a blur as I bawled and bawled, as this precious little boy just stared down at me, so calm and peaceful.
It's been 3 weeks since he was born and I really struggle to remember what life was like without him... although I do recall I had a lot more sleep!
Celsie. xoxox
Last edited by Celsie; July 10th, 2007 at 12:45 PM.
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