Before I begin, I just want to say that I know my labour was nowhere near as traumatic as many others. It has been playing on my mind and I just want to understand what happened.
I arrived at the hospital early, this was planned because the hospital is an hours drive away so I went with the logic that I'd rather be too early than too late.
I was 3cm at 8am and was having regular contractions that were very mild in terms of pain.
They carried on like this, minimal pain until just before 10am when I asked for some paracetamol. The pains went from naught to a million in moments. By the time they brought the paracetamol, i needed gas & air. The pain was in my back as well as stomach. By around 10.30 I was begging to be examined. They refused. They told me they were the experts and knew when the time was right. I became very emotional, cried actually. They came over to check the babies heartbeat but they couldn't find it and called for the senior midwife. They helped me onto the bed for her to check what was going on and at that moment my waters broke and my daughter was born 6 minutes (2 pushes) later.
This was my second labour so I have a comparison and I understand every labour is different and the pain is immense, but the pain this time was like nothing I could have prepared for. That 40 minutes were like hell and to be told that the midwives knew best made me feel like I had no control over the situation.
This is coming from someone who got to 8cm at home with my first labour and when I walked into the labour ward they told me to prepare to go home before examining me and being in shock at how far into labour I was. I know I have a good pain threshold and that's why this all took me by surprise so much.
Could the severe pain have been a result of the fact my waters hadn't broken but my baby was right there, ready to be born? If they had broken my waters half an hour before, could that have all been avoided?
I would love to have a 3rd child and I've always been anxious about taking any more pain relief than g&a but there is no way I could go through that pain ever again.
Please help. Thank you.
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Childbirth
Help me understand my traumatic labour. Any midwives on here?
Cheeseandpickle2 · 25/02/2017 20:16
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