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At my routine 39 week obstetrician appointment I was sent straight to hospital with high blood pressure and diagnosed with pregnancy induced hypertension. The obstetrician intended to induce me the following day if my blood pressure didn’t lower itself with bed rest. 3 days later my blood pressure was better than ever and I was allowed home, but would be back in a few days to be induced on my due date due to gestational diabetes and a large baby. My baby had other plans!

3am on Saturday morning (I was due Sunday), my waters broke while I was sleeping and woke me up. There was blood in my waters so I called the hospital and they told me to come straight in. The obstetrician had already told me that my cervix was unfavorable and there was little chance I would deliver naturally, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try!

Baby was posterior and hadn’t moved despite all my efforts, and also hadn’t engaged, which they said was unusual for a first time mum.

When I arrived at the birthing suite, they got me into a room and checked the blood loss. I remember the nurse saying “there’s a bit more blood than we would like to see”. My obstetrician was on 24 hours leave so I had a replacement doctor, who checked me and said I was only about 1 centimeter dilated. He wanted an ultrasound to check the bleeding and I remember him telling me that I had antepartum hemorrhage and the placenta had calcified. They needed to start baby moving so started the pitocin drip. The contractions started coming one on top of each other. I had my eyes closed nearly the whole time – just couldn’t focus on anything with my eyes open. After lab outing over the bed and walking around for close to 5 hours the midwife ran me a bath which took the pain level down immensely. That lasted for about an hour before the contractions intensified and I started using the gas, until I needed to get out of the bath. I had intended to not use any pain relief but by this time I asked for an epidural. There was still a 50% chance I would end up having a caesarean so having the epidural in would help that process if needed. After about an hour of no pain, the epidural stopped working and I was having strong contractions with no breaks between them. The obstetrician checked me and I was only 5cm dilated after 15 hours of labouring with intense contractions. Baby still hadn’t engaged and was floating every time doctor checked. They had to put a heart monitor on baby’s scalp because they kept losing his heart beat. Eventually, we made the call to go for an emergency Caesarean. With baby not engaging, the epidural not working and my pain increasing, along with the antepartum haemmorhage, it was getting too risky for baby and me. Within a few minutes of them making the decision for a caesarean we were on our way to theatre.

My husband was with me the whole time, being my rock, so supportive.

As the epidural had stopped working they had topped it up and then increased it for the caesarean, which resulted in me not being able to feel from my eyes down – I felt like I couldn’t breathe and like I was choking because I couldn’t swallow – the anaethetist sat with me trying to calm me during the caesarean. I remember thrashing my head from side to side whenever I could because I felt if I went to sleep, I would not wake up again. I remember the fear of thinking I would never know whether my baby was a boy or a girl And I would never see my husband again or meet my baby because I wouldn’t survive the surgery.

At 7.33pm my beautiful son emerged into the world. It was a surprise when they said we had a boy – he is the first boy in the family since my husband. I alto remembered hearing the obstetrician saying the cord was around the neck twice. After they checked my baby boy they brought him to have skin on skin with me, keeping my wishes. After two hours in recovery, where they wouldn’t let my husband or baby in until I was stable, I finally held my baby again and even though i still couldn’t feel my body, the wonderful midwife latched my baby on to allow me to give him his first breast feed. I’m so thankful for my beautiful miracle baby. If I had continued with my plan of natural birth, he wouldn’t be here, so I’m thankful that I get to hold him in my arms.

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Posted by kp7184, 25th June 2013