I had my 40 wk appointment, where we discovered that my blood pressure was a little higher than they would like – i was given an internal examination, where it was found that although baby was engaged, my cervix was still long and closed. Obs asked me to go have some blood tests, then onto maternity for some monitoring with a view to maybe keeping me in overnight for observation. The Obstetrician in maternity told me that they would like to keep me in overnight to keep an eye in my blood pressure, and wait for the test results – if either were abnormal we would be looking at an induction. Blood pressure came down, and blood test results were perfectly normal – so I thought I’d be going home on Thursday. Wrong.
When I got shown to my room, the nurse told me that she had to give me a cannula, and when I questioned why, she told me “so they could start my induction” I was a little confused! The Obs came to see me, and we discussed the fact that my blood pressure had been up and down and baby was “cooked” – therefore he recommended I be induced to be on the safe side. I agreed, whatever was best for our little man.
I was given another internal exam, and a tape was inserted to help ripen my cervix. Had quite a few pains Wednesday night, and managed to sleep with the help of some panadeine & sleeping tabs. We were told that Thursday morning we would be having membranes ruptured to start the actual induction. Thursday morning came and all birthing suites were full, so Obs did another internal and found that now cervix was still long (not good for birth) but it was now a finger open. We had another tape inserted and we were told that it would happen straight after lunch. By 3 in the afternoon, we had kinda guessed that it wasn’t going to be happening, sure enough the midwife came and told us that we were going to be first up Friday morning :/ had ANOTHER internal, and a dose of gel put in to work over night.
Friday morning I woke up, and relaxed in front of the tv for a while – then the midwife came and introduced herself and told me “we’re going to have a baby, be ready at 8!” I had 22 minutes before being taken to birthing suite, so I quickly rung hubby, and had a quick shower.
In birthing suite, we were introduced to the Obs on duty (his first day at this hospital) and he quickly put me on the bed and attempted to break my waters. I felt a couple of “pinching” sensations, but there was no gush of liquid. The Obs also fastened a scalp clip to Toby so we could monitor his heart rate a little better during the induction. The Obs told us that I must have already broken my waters, as there was no fluid left, I was very confused but the Obs was adamant that they were already broken.
In between when the dr tried to break my waters, and 8.30 when my drip was due to be started I began to have a few mild contractions, with one of these contractions I felt a gush… My waters had broken! I kept losing fluid every time I contracted, laughed or moved!
My drip was started, and the contractions I had been having started to intensify. I found that leaning over the bed was the best way to deal with the pain – DH was awesome, massaging my back and hips through contractions, putting heat on my back, giving me ice, reminding me to breathe and telling me how well I was doing.
I was due to be checked for dilation at 12.30 but as there were 3 other labouring women the midwife didn’t get to check me until about 2.00 – we had pretty high hopes, my contractions were coming hard and fast – lasting about a minute or so, and as little as 1 minute apart. I had asked for the gas, and the midwife set it up and explained how to use it. I tried the gas through the next contraction and it was really hard to suck. I felt like I wasn’t getting anything through the hose. I wasn’t having enough of a break in between contractions to explain to the midwife that it wasn’t working for me – so I just kept trying. The midwife checked me – only 3 cm dilated! I was so upset, the contractions were strong and almost back to back. The midwife was concerned that it wasn’t progressing as it should and went to get the Obs, who came in to the birth suite. The Obs was really rude, basically saying “well, this is labour – deal with it” he then said that he would be back to check me in 4 hours, and that we had a 40% of needing a CS as he didn’t think that I would dilate past 5 cm before the next internal. After he left I cried. I remember telling DH that I just couldn’t do it anymore, the midwife thought that if I birthed baby naturally it wouldn’t be before 10 ish that night. There was no way I could deal with the back to back contractions for another 8 hours!! I asked for an epidural, the midwife said she thought it was a good idea and called the anaesthetist. I was also given a dose of morphine. The 2 anaesthetists arrived, it was pretty clear that 1 of them was still training – the “training anaesthetist” was being walked step by step through the procedure, but it still took 3 attempts to get the needle in the right place, stopping constantly for my contractions. Once the epidural was in, it was bliss – I could feel my belly tightening, but there was no real pain.
For the next couple of hours, I dozed on and off with the midwife moving me onto my side because my blood pressure was too low. Then at about 5.30 the Dr (a different, much nicer Dr I had met before) came in to do an internal, we talked to him about how the last Dr told me we were heading for a CS and the new Dr just laughed, and told me to be positive. The internal showed that I had dilated to 7-8cm!! Not bad for 3.5 hours! The Dr reassured us that it was going well, and off he went for a while. At this point, the midwife told us that she thought we’d still he heading for delivery at 10 ish – but joked around saying that it would be nice if he arrived before her shift finished at 7.30 – but she really didn’t hold any hope. My contractions started to get painful again, and I started feeling pressure – I even asked the Midwife if I could go to the toilet, she told me no and that the pressure was a good thing as it meant the baby was moving down. The contractions really upped in intensity – and thinking we were still 4 or so hours off delivery, the midwife topped up the epidural. It didn’t help, the “pressure” was coming in waves. I asked if I could turn over onto my other side, so with DH and the midwives help I started to turn over – stopping to have several contractions with intense pressure. The midwife decided that while I was turning over, she would do a quick internal to check what was happening. Much to our surprise I was completely dilated, and she could see the baby’s head!! I got comfortable on my back, and started pushing. 20 minutes of pushing and our beautiful baby boy was placed on my chest. He was absolutely gorgeous!
At 7.05pm Toby made his surprisingly quick appearance weighing in at 7lb 7oz (3390 grams) in time to meet the midwife that had been helping his mummy all day. He had a bruise on his head from waiting for me to start pushing – but he was absolutely perfect. Toby had a big breast feed and lots of skin to skin time in the birthing suite, then slept for 8 hours!
The Dr came in to give me a stitch for a graze I had, and the new midwife told me to use the gas to help take the edge off the pain. I told her that it didn’t appear to be working well for me. The midwife checked the machine, and we discovered that it wasn’t turned on!! That explained why it didn’t work for me!
Posted by tobysmummy, 18th April 2013
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mom113055 said
- 09 Apr 2015
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pakeko said
- 31 Oct 2014
Post a comment4:15 pm
9:57 pm
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