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Childbirth

What happened?

33 replies

Nunyabiz · 30/04/2014 20:07

Sorry this is going to be a bit of a drip feed as I need to figure out what happened in my last labour, and am including all the information in case anything is relevant. Will also try not to add to much emotion and stay as factual as I can. I have sent away for my medical notes but they were sent to wrong address and now they are having trouble tracking them I'm due with DD2 imminently so want to run this by hopefully someone who is clued up about this (a MW?) and can avoid it or similar happening again.
Also please if you are nervous about birth and trying to avoid horror stories this is not the thread for you.

So 3 years ago at 40 weeks + 4 days I went into labour with DD1. Normal healthy pregnancy, nothing out of the ordinary. Due to this I opted to give birth at a midwife lead birthing unit.
At 1.37am my waters broke. No prior contractions/Braxton hicks/tightenings nothing.
After my waters broke I had my first INTENSE contraction. They were regular and lasted a long time so all was going well and progressing perfectly. Text book.
I stayed at home and laboured in the bath until 5am. I then asked DH to drive me to the MW unit.
On arrival the midwife checked and I was only 2-3cm dilated. She helped 'break my waters' a bit more (just released some pressure).
We drove home.
I got back in the bath and laboured a further 2 hours.
At 7am I told DH I wouldn't be able to move if we did not make the journey again.
On arrival I was pleased to hear I was 5-6cm and would be able to move onto the birthing suite.
The MW immediately filled the tub and I laboured about another hour in the bath. I was offered gas and air but I didn't like it.
By about 8.30/9am i was 10cm and felt the urge to push.
At this point my contractions died off a bit. Her head was crowning but I couldn't push her out because the contractions weren't strong enough. I was advised to get out if the pool. I knelt over a ottoman style couch thing and continued to push... And push...and push. The MW I had in the room called in another midwife to assist her. At around 10.30am her head came out! Finally! I was told just a couple more pushes, but nothing happened. 5, 6, 7... It felt like eternity. The midwife flipped my on my back and reached in and hooked under her shoulders and pulled her out. She was born at 11.07am the same day weight 4.7kg (10lbs 4oz).

I held her for a brief moment before they took her. The MW said I was bleeding a lot and she was giving me a synto shot to expel the placenta.
They waited a few moments and the placenta wasn't dislodging so they said they would try another shot of synto (I was in agony at this point- far far worse than normal contractions).
The second MW said she would going to give the chord a 'little tug' to see if it would dislodge the placenta.
It didn't.
The chord snapped.
The placenta was still lodged inside.
The room filled with people very quickly.
They told me that I needed to go to theatre but there was no anaesthetist available.
They were going to attempt to manually remove it.
Attempt 1.
Attempt 2.
Attempt 3 and ANOTHER shot of synto.
I was taken upstairs to 'wait' until I could go to theatre.
Meanwhile I had more new people attempting manual removal. They actually had their hands up me - up to elbows, reeding around.
I was screaming in pain and DH told them to leave me alone now.
Finally at around 12.30 i was taken to theatre. They forced the gas and air on my fave even when I told them I didn't want it. They gave me pathadine (sp?) and an immobile epidural.
The surgeon removed the placenta in tact.
He commented in the size.

So when I went through this with my new MW she told me it wasn't a retained placenta.

Can someone please explain to me what it was then???

Thanks if you got this far!

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Spinaroo · 30/04/2014 20:11

Well I think she is just being medically correct. i think a retained placenta usually refers to part of the placenta which has broken off and remained- leading to profuse bleeding. In your case, it was intact- although the cord had broken. Sounds horrific, sorry you had to go through that.