On Friday 10th April I noticed that my ?Braxton Hicks? were getting quite regular and getting more painful. By 1pm I decided for fun that I would time them. This was when I discovered that they were every 4 minutes lasting for a minute. As I was managing them ok I decided that I didn?t need to do anything and they continued like this well into the night. I had an hours sleep and contractions were every 12 minutes by morning. Sat afternoon the contractions stopped and to get things moving I walked into town, on my return I had a ?show? and that evening contractions started again although they were not as painful as previous ones had been. I managed 3 hours sleep and by Sunday the painful contractions had returned but were now 10-15 minutes long.
These contractions continued in this manner until Tuesday, so for four nights I had had no sleep (well a whole 4 hours) and I was getting pretty fed up. So I sent my husband out to tempt fate and at 1.10pm that Tuesday my waters broke, 10 minutes after he left!
I rang our central delivery suite and they told me to come in in the next couple of hours so we set off.
By this time my contractions were increasing in intensity and I had to have my TENs machine on. The journey to the hospital was like torture! Absolutely horrific, I just didn?t know what to do with myself! Finally we arrived at the hospital and we couldn?t find a parking space. I thought I was going to explode! I didn?t want to get out without my DH though so I waited until we had found a space and then we very slowly made our way to the central delivery suite. We were shown to a room with a midwife and were told that as my waters had broken we had to make the choice as to whether I wanted to be examined or not. This was because if I was less than 4cm dilated then the risk of infection would be too high and I would have to be hooked up to a drip and made to have contractions etc, but if over 4cm then I would be fine to continue there.
As I am a first timer, I didn?t have a clue how far along I was but I really didn?t want to be hooked up to a drip so I made the decision that I wouldn?t be examined so we returned home. The journey home was awful and when we got home my husband had to run me a bath by boiling kettles and pans of water as our boiler was broken. It took him an hour! By this point I was throwing myself about with my TENS on and managed to knock it and electrocuted myself which sent me into a fury and I threw it across the room. Then I got in the bath and it gave me relief for about 2 minutes and then I started throwing myself about again and proceeded to lose control and went under the water. Spluttering as I came up I told my poor DH who had spent an hour running the bath that I needed to go to hospital as this wasn?t right. Then I started flailing around demanding an ambulance as I couldn?t move. We got me out the bath, soaking wet and naked and I collapsed on the bed. This was when I announced to my DH that I was ready to push and started to push. Making the most satanic noises! My DH rang central delivery as these noises were erupting out of me and the midwife asked to speak to me. She said ?Do you feel like you need to push?? and I said ?Yes I am pushing and I?m wailing like a banshee!?
Within 2 minutes we had 3 paramedics in our bedroom and then a couple more minutes later two midwifes arrived. After a failed examination they decided to blue light me to hospital as it was only 10-15 minutes away. Unfortunately we live on 3rd floor with no lift so they wrapped me in blankets and put me on this chair carry thing and carried me down the stairs with me tightly holding on to the gas and air! Then I was transferred to the bed in the ambulance and within 10 minutes was in central delivery suite with midwife.
They examined me and I was 7cm dilated. They were trying to discourage me from pushing but my body took over. I managed to hold back sometimes but some were just too strong. We came in at 7pm, a few hours passed and I was still in the same state. Pushing, contractions every two mins and no baby appearing. They examined me and I was 10 cm. I kept on pushing for another hour or so and baby was not coming. Then we tried an hour of intensive directive pushing where two midwifes hold you, one on each foot, my legs were in stirrup type things and I had to bear down 3 times for every contraction for an hour. After a four day latent phase with no sleep and no food since 2pm I was exhausted, surviving on glucose tablets and lucozade.
Finally after the hour of directive pushing, lots of blood but no baby the doctors were called in. On examination they concluded that the baby had not descended into the pelvis. It was decided I would have a spinal block and they would then try forceps, if that failed I would have emergency c-section. So by this time contractions were every minute, I was prepared for c section and given the spinal which was terrible as had to keep still which was so hard. Forceps was attempted, the force they were using made the table I was on rock back and forth so vigorously but still baby would not come. I think it was at this point they realised that baby had engaged with the head right back, face down as opposed to chin to chest and he had got stuck in my pelvis. So quickly, the section was done and then they had to drag baby out of the pelvis the other way and the doctors elbows were coming through the screen into my face with the force she was using to get baby out. Finally the screen was dropped and all I could see were chubby legs and a big willy! (we were were told at 20 week scan we were having a girl). But I was overjoyed!
Zachary John Graham was born at 6.02am, Wed 15th April. He had feeding problems to start with, blood sugar went very low and he was very shaky. Then he got a temperature and had to have antibiotics so had an IV in his hand with a big splint on his arm. Finally by Sunday 19th we were both fit and well and came home! It?s been traumatic but Zach has settled at home and is sleeping and feeding well!
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GruffaloSoldier · 01/05/2009 14:52
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