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Announcing Miss Brandybuck's eventual arrival (sorry epic)

4 replies

MsBrandybuck · 16/10/2009 02:32

Went in at 7am on 3 October to be induced at 10 days past my due date. After chatting on here I had decided to see how favourable I was before possibly asking to go home to wait a couple more days. Now extremely glad that I didn't.

Was examined and the MW seemed to think she could feel the baby's head through my cervix. She reckoned that my waters could be broken but that it might be very uncomfortable so suggested popping in a pessary to which I agreed. Had to be monitored then was allowed to do my own thing for a few hours before returning to the ward with the idea of being sent to the labour ward as soon as a bed was available to have waters broken.

DH was talked into staying as we live an hour away from the hospital and my labour with DS had been very quick. By midnight I was getting contractions every 2 minutes and so painful I started to think I would be giving birth on the induction ward! I was examined and found to be 4cm with a Bishop score of 9 although this was queried later on. Despite no contractions ever showing on the trace, thankfully I was believed and got a diamorphine shot which enabled me to sleep for a few hours (albeit with some very strange dreams). Have to recommend that stuff - could still feel the pain but really couldn't give a sh*t!

So woke up and the contractions had stopped. Was told a bed on the labour ward was unlikely until the afternoon. Had lunch at 12 noon and almost immediately was told time to go.

Up on the labour ward I was quite excited to be in a delivery room where I assumed I would soon be giving birth to my baby. A MW examined me once more and clearly there was something wrong. I was high on gas & air by then, I'd been looking forward to that bit but was very silly and giggly when MW1 said that she wanted someone with longer fingers to examine me. MW2 was summoned and didn't lie when she warned me that she wasn?t as gentle as MW1. Ouch!! She then explained that although my outer cervix was 3-4cm dilated it was actually closed on the inside. I'm afraid I got very emotional and poor MW2 thought she'd really hurt me but it was a combination of fear, disappointment and lack of sleep.

A doctor was called who decided to scan me. This showed that possibly the placenta was too low and was blocking the baby's exit. The doctor decided to call the on-call consultant to ask his advice. Bearing in mind this was Sunday afternoon, DH was cracking jokes about him being on the golf course .

Eventually he was contacted. The doctor explained that because I had laboured before my body was likely to overreact to a prostin pessary and (this was probably what had happened during the previous night) therefore it was unsafe to give me a second one. They couldn't break my waters so I was given the choice of 4 hours on a syntocinon drip followed by a c-section if that didn't work or go straight for the caesarian. I had a real fear of being on the drip after my labour with DS. I had (unnecessarily it turned out) been put on syntocinon to speed things up but had not had time for an epidural and had been traumatised by the experience and my son's extremely speedy arrival.

So no-one was surprised that I opted to go straight for the 'slice & dice' as DH helpfully called it

I have to say it was an amazing experience overall. Apart from the bit when I rediscovered that local anaesthetics don't really work that well on me that is - I was told off for jumping when the spinal was being put in.

Our baby daughter Nancy was delivered at 8.02pm but despite being 11 days late she weighed in at only 6lb 5oz. However, we know there was no mistake with the dates and she looked very 'overcooked' ie wrinkled and her skin starting to peel off.
Oh, and the placenta was found to be low and I had a large number of fibroids which were possibly blocking her way out.

Nancy was a little jaundiced and we had to stay in hospital for a couple of days for her to have blood tests but she is thought to be ok. Once home I became quite ill with an infection in my scar but I am recovering well now and Nancy amazingly regained her birth weight plus 4oz by 8 days old.

I can't believe how wonderful my DD's delivery was especially in comparison with DS's 'natural' birth. And the best bit is that when we got married 5 years ago we were almost certain that we would be unable to have children. Now we feel so incredibly lucky ...