My birth story (long sorry!)

[Cannotbelieveit]

Here's my birth story for Ryder.

I was booked in for an induction on May 2nd at 8am at Warwick hospital.

Was monitored firstly to check all was ok and the pessary was put in at 9.42am. It's usually given 6 hours to see if it will work and we walked around the hospital, to a shop nearby and on the antenatal ward I bounced on a gym ball. It was deemed later that day that it hadn't done much but that I would stay in and be assessed the next morning to see if they could break my waters or if I would go straight to a csection. I told Dom to go home to be with Hunter and he would return in the morning.

An hour or so before Dom was going (about 7pm) I had period like pains that were coming and going but weren't too painful. Dom went home. These pains kept on and were getting stronger. One of the midwives on the ward could hear my breathing (earlier she had said they were probably just tightenings and not contractions), and I was assessed closed to 11.20pm and there were actually contractions and I was 4-5cm dilated! I was moved to a labour room and I called Dom to come back.

I decided to go ahead with an epidural and we waited for an anaesthetist and after the epidural was in site I had my waters broken at 1.42am (still 4-5cm). Contractions continued and I was assessed again around 5am and no change. It was by this time I had to have the drip to try and speed things along. The morning staff came on and still no change. However with each contraction I could feel pressure in my bum and they were hurting a lot more so the epidural was topped up several times and then re sited. However it was working very bizarrely on me and not blocking pain where it should and it was affecting my breathing. I was totally in another world by then I felt like I was looking down on myself and the scenario and for a minute I thought I could hear Dom and the midwife saying Ryder didn't have a heartbeat anymore but they were actually talking about me saying i couldn't have any more pain relief as I was struggling to breathe.

I was assessed again near 9.30am and was 8cm and do remember the midwife saying it was too late for a section and she believed I could do it.

I got to 10cm not long after. Pushing stage was 27 minutes and Ryder shot out all in one go once his head was out and was placed on me straight away. Dom cut his cord and was so emotional and crying. I to be honest was still out of it! But was cuddling Ryder. He had a bit of mucous on his chest so the paeds had a quick look and he was fine.

3rd stage was tricky as placenta didn't not want to come and the cord was very thin. At one point I was going to have to go to theatre to get it out but the midwife managed it in the end. The placenta was much bigger than usual and had a massive blood clot on it. I had many big clots removed from me and lost a lot of blood. I ended up with a bad 2nd degree tear and due to where some of the tears were I had I go to theatre to have a spinal to have the stitched.

Due to the extreme blood loss, my iron is extremely low but I opted to have medication rather than a transfusion as I just wanted to be home! That's it I think! Sorry it's so long!

[AndIFeedEmGunpowder]

I love birth stories. Congratulations.