I had a post-mature appointment at the hospital at 12 days overdue. Since about 36 weeks the baby had been trying to engage and coming free again and was now not engaged at all. The consultant remarked that he thought I was carrying a lot of amniotic fluid and that this could cause problems with induced labours, the main one being the risk of the cord prolapsing if my waters broke. I had to go in as planned for my induction on the Saturday night and it would be monitored more closely than usual. I was told to throw any birth plan out of the window and my delivery would be medically managed throughout. Both disappointing and reassuring!
I was admitted Saturday night but the delivery suite went mental so I didn?t get my first dose of prostin til 2.30pm on the Sunday afternoon! Everyone was reluctant to start things off until consultant gave the go ahead. I was then periodically monitored as they were worried about the risk of cord prolapse (and subsequent crash section under GA).
On the Monday morning everyone was talking about prepping for a section but then the consultant swept in on her rounds and said try yet one more prostin and then controlled ARM - waters breaking - at 5pm that night.
When they eventually broke my waters an absolute lake let go but his head still didn?t come down. I then spent 12 hours on the Syntocinon drip strapped to the bed with continuous fetal monitoring. They cranked it up to the max allowed for the last 6 hours but it never established proper contractions - I just had severe backache. I had had nil by mouth al day as well because they initially thought I was going for the section. I hated this bit - it was like the longest night of our lives!
Eventually the on duty registrar agreed to do the section. He examined me and could still push the baby?s head up - it was not engaged at all and still in a lot of fluid. He mentioned the strong possibility of CPD at this point (large baby, small pelvis). Although it was the lowest category of emergency section I still felt extremely anxious about having a surgical procedure.
When our son was born the staff all shouted that he was a very big baby to us straight away - he weighed 10 lb 14 oz. They gave him to my husband to cuddle and they went off to recovery because I started to feel really sick and dizzy, so they gave me an additional narcotic to the morphine (not sure what!) which sent me extremely out of it for about half an hour. I then actually had a larger than normal bleed from the placenta removal. All I remember is the horrible sensations - that it was quite violent getting Aleksander out and then even worse when they were massaging my uterus to get it to contract down - like being punched in the stomach. I also felt them insert something up my back passage to help stop the bleed.
I had nightmarish visions of the section afterwards and when doctors and midwives tried to talk to me about it I would get very upset. This has gotten a lot better now.
I?ve been told Aleksander was macrosomic (although his blood sugars were fine) and I had polyhydramnios (excess fluid). None of this was picked up in my ante natal care although I had high urine sugar for ages, I never tested positive for gestational diabetes which is the most common cause of the above conditions. Also they will confirm that I have cephalo pelvic disproportion at my debriefing at 6 weeks. I was told I will have to have an elective c section if we have another child and at first I found that thought terrifying but getting better about that idea now! None of this is what you read about in Dr Miriam?s childbirth book either!
The 24 hours in recovery and 3 days on the ward afterwards were horrible but I have a gorgeous big strong baby boy who was never in any danger and DH and I adore him. I am disappointed I never had and never will have a ?normal? birth and that it was all so ?medical? though. I know these things don't happen in the majority of cases but wanted to share my story because I think it may be useful to others, if only to say make sure you prepare yourselves for all eventualities!