Hi All!
So if you have seen my previous threads here and here you will know that I have been waiting a LONG time for my little girl to arrive!!
So here is what happened...
Last Tuesday I was checked into hospital to have the induction process started. At my hospital their process is a course of up to 3 pessaries along with monitoring until your cervix dilates to 3cm, then you have your waters broken and if that doesn't bring on labour they put you on the drip.
So Tuesday afternoon at 3pm I had my first pessary and was left to see what would happen. 6 hours later I had an IE and unfortunately my cervix was still completely shut for business (at this point I heard the cervix V Turtle Neck Jumper analogy for the 1st time...) so they gave me another pessary at around 11pm and left me to it.
The pessaries were bringing on very strong contractions which looked promising and I even had to take some paracetamol to help me in the day and some tamazapan to help me sleep through them at night. At 6 in the morning I had another IE to see how things were progressing and once again my cervix was firmly shut and had not responded at all to the pessary (cue Turtle Neck Jumper analogy), however because my contractions were so strong they could not give me the third pessary until they calmed down.
I had a further IE at 2pm they gave me another IE and found that my cervix was not only not open but had actually retreated back to where it was before we started (cue Turtle Neck Sweater Analogy)
At around 6pm Wednesday my contractions had calmed down enough for me to have the third and final pessary.
I had an IE at 1am and my cervix was still firmly shut, but the contractions were coming so strongly and continuously they wanted to see how things would progress throughout the night so they gave me some paracetamol (didnt touch the sides) and left me to it.
At 4am Thursday morning I was so uncomfortable that I ran myself a nice hot bath.
At 5.10am (still in the bath) I had an almighty contraction which ejected my plug and then my waters burst (literally!).
The MW then called in my husband and birth partner and I was taken down to the delivery suite around 6am.
Once in the delivery suite we found out that I was still not dilated, the baby was back to back, had not descended far enough into my pelvis to put pressure on my cervix to open so they hooked me up to the hormone drip.
7am Drip kicks in, contractions are constant and extreme, its at this point I scream for the epidural.
8am Anesthetist turns up and tries to give me an epidural....
9am after 6 failed attempts at getting the epidural in, the head Anesthetist arrives...
9.30am After a further 2 attempts by the head Anesthetist I finally have my epidural, My midwife then gives me an IE and announces that I am a whole 3cm dilated. They then decided that they were going to wait until I was 5 cm dilated to see what way it was all going to go.
9.40am Hubby goes outside to call family during which time the babies heart rate slows down and the doctors decide that the baby needs to come out now as its looking like it could take me another 8 hours just to get to 5cm. Hubby is called back in and consent forms are signed for C-section.
9.55am We are taken to theatre.
10.15am They start the operation.
11.06am My gorgeous baby girl is born, weighing in at 8lb 15oz.
I was kept in until Saturday and have been making a steady recovery at home - I have very much been in a baby bubble since getting home and have no plans of leaving it for a while!!
Good luck to everyone else waiting for their precious ones to arrive, I look forward to hearing all about it!