5am on Tuesday 4th I woke up having a contraction. Having never gone into labour before (2 inductions) I laid there thinking "was that a strong BH?" - another one followed 30 mins later, then anohter so at 7am I woke DH. I told him he should still go to work as i might be a while yet - he informed me he was going nowhere . I rang my Mum who set off from Yorkshire to be babysitter and DH got the older DC off to school.
At about 11ish my contractions were 8-9 mins apart so we set off for hospital (1 hour drive away) and went straight to delivery suite. Things were going great - contracting reguarly, coping with the pain etc then decided to give the G&A a whirl. Found it really good this time (hated it before) and so carried on with that (at one point, leaning on DH and breathing the G&A in his ear with that HISS HISS noise, I growled at him "Luke I am your father" )
Anyhoo. Things seemed to be going well, but then nothing changed! Contractions still really regular but getting more painful. Decided to go in birthing pool at about 8pm but I felt cold and kept slipping around so I got out at 8.20pm! Decided I need epidural by this point, so that was put in at about 9.30 (v hazy on times, sorry). At 10.30ish I suddenly couldn't hear anything and my vision was blurred. I told DH he'd better get some help and the room was suddenly full of people - 2 bloody docs, 3 MWs and anaesthetist. BP had dropped right down. It was v scary and lasted for about 45mins. By the end of it, I had 2 drips in, BP beign taken every 5 minutes, a pulse thing on my finger, epidural in place and a clip on DS's head to monitor him - this was NOT the natural birth I'd envisioned!
At 11.30pm I suddenly felt all weird - I knew something was very wrong. Isaid to the MW "If we don't get this baby out soon, something really bad is going to happen, I don't mind if I have a CS but there is something wrong". She reasured me saying its ok, we're monitoring everything etc. Then put me on that drip that speeds up contractions - nothing. Huge doctor with hands like shovels had a hand up my fanjo, telling me to push wiht next contraction so he could feel baby. No bloody contraction came. When one did come, I pushed but he couldn't feel baby. I told him that something was wrong. Baby's heart rate started to drop a little, so they decided to do the CS. I cried a bit, but was glad as I had an awful sense of foreboding. Was wheeled down to theatre (just like on the telly!) and DH was in there with me. They injected the spinal block into my epidural thing but I could still feel everything on my right hand side so they told me they had to give me a general. DH was asked to leave, mask put on me and they said I might feel some presure on my neck - nurse pressed right down on my windpipe (God kn ows why) - it was awful. Saw the big needle loom towards teh epidural tube and had tears running down my face, then nothing until I woke up. Horrible experience really.
Turned out that DS2 (!) was back to back and had the cord wrapped around his neck 4 times and then it was in a knot - apparently even if he had moved down the birth canal we would never have delivered him naturally. Thank God he was CS - I knew something was wrong. Born at 5.52am on bonfire night (well, day)
Have staples in - looks like a zip.
Spent the day on a delivery suite with a MW working in the room. I'd lost far too much blood apparnetly and was a bit of a zombie - don't remember much about the day TBH.
On ward afterwards, huge baby not getting filled with my colostum, they kept asking me if they could top him up, I kept saying no, then one of hte MWs snapped at me "this baby is starving" so I let them - cried buckets when they took him away. Was v anaemic and had a blood transfusion whcih made me feel stronger. Transferred to MLU on Friday, they were fantastic - had a lovely side room with own loo and shower, MWs couldn't do enough for me and were v supportive. BF going better, he's currently feeding what seems like ALL Night but I'm hoping htat will settle down soon.
In a nutshell - 24 hours labour. Emergency CS under general. Huge DS2 (10lb 9oz) with lots of dark hair - gorgeous, healthy (has tongue tie - diagnosed by me thanks to reading one of marslady's threads a while back lol) but they're snipping on Thursday.
Harry James