Hello everyone. I haven't had the time to look at the thread too much recently but if anyone likes birth stories, here is mine, which is quite long.
On Monday 28th Feb I was finally booked into a scan as I had been measuring big for so long. I had been told by my community midwife that my dates might be wrong and the baby would come early, but this theory was discredited by midwives at the hospital. Unfortunately this scan was later cancelled because the scanners were too busy (I later heard that they told the midwife they would only scan me if a doctor wanted it done). Incidentally, baby was back to back at this point, and would end up remaining back to back throughout.
On Wednesday 2nd March I saw a community midwife who insisted I get scanned and this time I was finally booked in for one... despite the fact that they previously claimed to not have any space this week.
On Thursday 3rd March I finally had my scan and it was revealed (not very much to my surprise) that I had polyhydramnios and was holding close to triple the average amount of fluid. They talked to me about the danger that this could cause cord prolapse, which got me very scared about my waters breaking ? they told me to ring 999 if they broke.
That night, at about midnight, I felt a small amount of fluid come out, and as I had been so freaked out by the talk of a cord prolapse, I called 999. We were diverted from my regular hospital, Pembury (3 miles away) and had to go to Maidstone (20 miles away) because Pembury were too busy. But once at Maidstone it became apparent that my waters hadn?t broken and poor old MIL had to drive over to get me at 3:30am because a taxi would have cost a fortune. The nurses did say that I could stay till a more reasonable time in the morning but it turned out very lucky that we did call MIL because...
.... almost as soon as we got home my waters broke at 6am on Friday 4th. This time they came with a MASSIVE gush of fluid that just wouldn?t stop. I got on all fours, as I had been told (to avoid cord prolapse) and just stayed there for about ten minutes as fluid poured all over the bed and ruined the mattress. DH called Pembury and this time they did have a free space there so we drove over. I continued to gush fluid all the way there. I don?t know how much there was in total but it felt like a couple of large coke bottles being emptied out from inside me. Sorry if TMI, but it was still coming out hours later. The good news though is that it didn?t cause a prolapse and ultimately didn?t really affect anything.
That Friday morning I had a gel to induce labour to bring on some contractions. I have always struggled with internal exams and have always found smear tests to be excruciatingly painful, so they let me have G&A for the gel. But sadly while my tightenings did get much stronger throughout the day, they didn?t become especially frequent. I spent that night in hospital and DH was sent home for some sleep. The next day, Saturday, was more of the same. Stronger contractions that became quite painful, but they never got more frequent than every five minutes, at best. Most of the time they were closer to ten minutes. So that night, at about 10pm, I was taken to delivery for another induction, this time with a drip, which apparently is a stronger way of inducing. I had now gone for ~32 hours without fluid, so the clock was ticking (72 hours being the max they can go for after waters breaking, I think) but baby was maintaining a good heartbeat throughout. In fact, baby never seemed to have any issues at all, she always found herself perfectly comfortable inside me, even without fluid. She was clearly not that interested in undergoing the struggle of birth and I don?t blame her.
I went into delivery and had a typically excruciating VE, using G&A. The mw was concerned that if I struggle so much with a VE I would find the contractions later more difficult, especially as baby was still back to back. So I had the epidural, then the induction drip. I then lay there and coped for the next 12 hours while we waited for me to get fully dilated.
The epidural didn?t work very well. I continued to use G&A as it wore off quite quickly, and ended up having to be continuously topped up. Baby?s heart was monitored throughout the night and various midwives constantly raised their eyebrows at it as it just wasn?t quite variable enough. But every time they raised their eyebrow, there was a small variation and they were just about satisfied. As it turned out, baby was happy and presumably just simple had quite a steady natural beat.
The second worst moment was when I was about 7cm and they wanted to triple check baby?s happiness by taking a swab of her head, and also securing a heartbeat monitor to her scalp. Even with the epidural and G&A together, this was the most painful moment of my life and became a bit of a shambles when the swab kept mucking about and had to be taken about five times, and when they spent about 20 minutes trying to find the right attachment to the scalp monitor thing.
When I finally reached 10cm I tried pushing a bit but because of the epi, I never could really tell if I was pushing in the right place. But none of my pushing made a difference so they started getting ready to go to theatre. The plan was to try a ventouse quickly and if it didn?t work, immediately go into a section.
Theatre was harrowing. My epi had almost completely worn off and I wasn?t able to take G&A with me. This led to the ridiculous scenario of an anethatist trying to put in a spinal block as I went through the worst contractions with no pain relief (other than the remnants of the epi which was very faint by now). I was in hysterics and DH was getting really upset. I was amazed at how many staff they were dedicating to me: I think I had at least two doctors, if not three, for my section, plus the aneathatist, a peadotrician to check the baby when she came out and about eight midwives hanging around, offering support. They probably spent more time comforting me than they did providing actual medical treatment. The sight of so many people all there simple to help me and baby was very touching.
The ventouse was a no go. They tried for about one minute before giving up, which was probably for the best as I have since read up on mumsnet and there are a few bad stories about ventouses, big babies, tears and so on.
Baby came out and was crying immediately, which was fantastic. I got to look into her eyes when they laid her next to me and then got to hold her back in delivery after I was stitched up. She passed all the rest of her tests with flying colours and was 8lbs 11oz which was exactly what the polyhydramnois scan predicted. I spent the next three days in hospital and was discharged yesterday. My beautiful baby Sophia is wonderful and is loved by her whole family, including five great grandparents.