....as promised, here is my birth story. Many of you will know we'd been hoping for a VBAC, and had managed to get consultant to agree to minimal monitoring in labour so it was all looking good.
We had a night of contractions on Friday night which petered out in the morning, so I thought things might be on the way. After DS1 went to bed the contractions started up again, I went to bed with some paracetamol at about 9pm. We called my mum at about 2am to come and look after DS1 (and then the clocks went forward so it was 3am!) and rang the Delivery Suite.
We went in and got a lovely midwife who saw no need to do anything beyond an admission trace on the CTG, so we did that for 20 mins and then she listened in every 20 minutes or so but the baby?s heartbeat was steady as a rock. I was about 2-3 cm dilated by this time. We pottered on ? I had to be on my feet, couldn?t sit down or lie down, so it was quite tiring, but it was all going fine.
Shift change at 10am brought a lovely Italian midwife who continued the hands off approach to monitoring and examinations. We eventually examined again at around lunchtime as I was starting to find the contractions very hard work and wanted to know how we were doing, a bit disappointed to have only reached 5cm but we were still doing ok. I had a bath as the pain was getting quite overwhelming at times, still just on gas and air, breathing and TENS by this stage though.
As we got to 8-9cm it was getting to late afternoon and I was really getting exhausted, the strength of the contractions seemed to be really out of proportion with the progress being made and although I could feel the baby pressing in my lower back there didn?t seem to be much movement. My consultant and his registrar turned out to be on call so they popped in to say hello, I had just had some pethidine as I was starting to find it difficult and losing control of the contractions.
The registrar examined me and said the baby?s head was very high still, and they recommended breaking the waters which still hadn?t gone, and I was very keen on doing that as it might help the baby?s head come down. Unfortunately although it did help a little with the pressure, the contractions stayed really strong and the baby didn?t descend any more, which was a bit disappointing. I could instinctively feel that things had stalled in terms of the baby moving downwards.
I was really too tired to cope with the pain by this stage, having had two nights of almost no sleep, so asked for a mobile epidural. The registrar came back and examined me again and said he was concerned that we weren?t making progress ? I was stuck at 9cm but the baby?s head was still high and hadn?t moved despite really powerful contractions and me mobilising as much as possible, so the cervix wasn?t dilating any further and was still thick on one side. He said we could either do a c-section now or wait a while and see if we made any more progress, but that he felt the signs weren?t good for a natural delivery.
DP was out of the room at this point so I said I would talk it over with him when he came back, but by the time he got back I felt quite strongly that I didn?t have much more to give ? if we had still been progressing then I could have soldiered on, but we were stalled and the baby was starting to show signs of tiring ? his heartrate, which had been steady as a rock throughout, was starting to decelerate quite significantly with each contraction.
So we agreed to a c-section which went very smoothly. DS2 was born at 17.39 and was a whopping 10lbs 5.5 oz and completely stuck where he was ? he had quite a big head and wasn?t able to descend any further so not much chance of getting him out naturally. He had excellent Apgar scores ? 8 and 10 ? and cried as soon as he was lifted out. He?s even got a ring mark round his head where he was stuck!
So despite not getting our VBAC, we had the most fantastic care all the way along, were completely in control of the whole process and all the decisions, and felt that we really couldn?t have got him out any other way. And it has to be said that I?m quite glad in many ways that I didn?t push a 10lber out of my nether regions in the end!