Hi viroids! Sorry for being awol. Been bit mental here with going back into hospital. B had an infection, but he's fine now and we are home and enjoying him finally.
Love to would, tea and anyone else who needs a hug. 5hell have they finally got you into EPU? I really hope so!
niff congrats on team pink!
OK so I promised I would write my birth story and here it is. I'm sorry, it's epic. Took me bloody ages to write over many snatched five minutes here and there.
Please please please don't be frightened by it. These things happen and you could just as likely have a sneeze birth like fleur as one like this.
Ok so La's birth story. Bear in mind viroids that this isn't common and I just had really bloody bad luck that pretty much everything went a bit awry. I am absolutely fine and DS is a lovely bouncy chubby overcooked newborn.
So you followed my live posting up to induction...
A wee recap.
I was 42 weeks when I had him. In the lead up to birth from EDD I got awfully stressed because everyone I knew was having their babies and my baby wasn't making an appearance. It's stupid because before the EDD I had been sure he'd be late and I didn't give a shit. But then the mw started saying 'ooh, you're engaged, he might come early' and I started getting all these birth announcements from folk due 10 days after me and it was sweltering hot and I was massive and basically I just rolled it all up in a big stressy ball and got stressed.
I had FIVE sweeps altogether. Personally if I was to go back in time I would scrap the sweeps. They did fuck all and all they did was raise expectation and put me through even more intervention. Babies come when they are ready. The first two sweeps they couldn't even reach the cervix, so clearly baby wasn't even slightly ready. I think if I'd not had the sweeps I wouldn't have been half so wound up and tired by the time I had him. They offered me a sweep at 40+1 then every other day, which is ridiculous when at 40+1 I was only one day over the estimated due date. I also got handed my induction booking at my 40 week appointment, which I think is completely wrong - it meant I started panicking about induction date and felt desperate to go naturally before that date. Considering that labour starts based on production of oxytocin and is inhibited by adrenaline then getting stressed is completely useless to the end goal.
I also had two lots of acupuncture, which I found really interesting but clearly did fuck all.
So...up to the birth I had already started mild contractions 10 days beforehand, which made me excited for something starting and unfortunately put the pressure my anxious brain even more. The contractions would come and go and I would just start to time them, then they would vanish. Meanwhile me and dh had 5 hot curries, sex twice a day, ate pineapple til it came out of my ears, drank copious cups of RLT, had acupuncture, five sweeps and I bounced on that fucking ball so hard you'd think I was doing a space hopper derby. So - viroids, old wives tales DON'T WORK! Baby will come when ready.
So my induction date arrived and me and dh set out for the hospital with our hospital bag, excited that 'we're going to have a baby today!' (rookie mistake - he didn't arrive for another two days)
I was examined and was found to be 2cm dilated then I, along with another two women, were given the pessary and told to start walking around the hospital. Within half an hour I felt like my foof was on fire and I could hardly walk due to contractions. Meanwhile the two other women looked cool as cucumbers and were sent home for 24 hours.
It turned out I was one of 'those rare people' who go into hyper contraction. I was having 7 contractions in 10 minutes. Ouch. The Daisy Birthing breathing was brilliant and really helped as the contractions were very painful but not full blown contractions. I spent the whole day like that in the induction ward. At 9pm they examined me again and broke the news that I was still only 2cm dilated - fuuuuuuuuck. So Id gone the whole day in labour for nothing. They took the pessary out and the contractions all but stopped. We were told though that we needed to stay in because technically labour was progressing as I was still contracting somewhat and they needed to monitor baby. I had a bed but poor dh spent the night in a chair - he was recommended not to go home in case labour started, but didn't get any sleep at all because of the chair not being very comfy. There was also a couple in the room who decided to whisper loudly to each other all night and kept us awake.
As a result the next morning we were both shattered. I was examined again and they managed to break my waters - boom, I was in labour! I started to contract and they told me to go walking to try to kick start things. I asked if I could still have my water birth and they said yes, if labour picked up naturally. So I stomped and stomped around the hospital, with contractions picking up.
Got back to induction ward and was told they were moving us to delivery. We were very excited 'we're going to have our baby today!' (nope!). Got to birthing centre and were shown to our room. This is when it all went a bit rubbish.
Firstly, having been told I might be allowed water birth still I was met with a blank 'no they shouldn't have told you that' by the midwife.
She then told me I was going to be hooked up to the drip and could possibly move around a bit, but as I needed to be on foetal monitor I would have to lie on bed mostly. So I did.
I was very tired and still contracting - midwife told me I needed to sleep an hour before they would start drip. Just settled down to sleep and door opened - a doctor came striding in saying she needed to examine me so could we have the lights on please. I said I was sore and she said 'right we'll get you epidural then'. I said no I don't want epidural, but it felt like no one was actually listening.
They then decided to scrap my sleep :( and go ahead with the drip, which they did. Half an hour later I was back contracting 4 in 10 and it was agony. Because I couldn't use my planned paint relief methods of water pool or movement to get rid of pain I was just stuck on my back contracting and it was very painful. So I said ok give me the epidural.
Epidural was fine going in - not half as scary as I'd imagined (and the anaesthetist was smoking hot!). Once it was in I felt nothing and contracted all the way to fully dilated in 5 hours without noticing.
At full dilation they again told me I needed to sleep before pushing, as by now I'd been up nearly two days (it was 8pm). I had about 20 mins sleep then realised I could feel pain again and had to tell them. Turned out my epidural had come disconnected but no one had noticed. Anaesthetist was not pleased and had a right go at them all. All this time the shifts had been changing over, so I was on my third midwife and third consultant. Each time they would start talking about stuff and it was clear they hadn't read my notes properly, so I was getting properly upset and scared.
The latest midwife was lovely though - me and dh asked her to read my birth plan and notes and she seemed to be on the ball.
They told me it was time to start pushing, then she started to get the stirrups out on the bed.
I was furious! I told them you should know from my notes that I've got hip dysplasia and can't have my legs in stirrups, as if my hip pops out who's going to know when I'm under epidural? So then there was the debate of how we are going to manage the pushing.
I told them if they could help me up into position I would hang over the back of the bed by my arms with help of dh, which meant I was on all fours (sort of - as my legs were bit wobbly) and could push down with gravity to help. Problem was I could only do that for 10 mins at a time and it was exhausting and I was already shattered.
So I was made to do a fair amount of purple pushing on my back - exactly what I'd said from the start I didn't want to do!
After a couple of hours it was clear B wasn't coming out - he was coming down with each push but then going back up.
So doctor decided that I needed to go to theatre for forceps to be used. They prepped me with top up of epidural and gave dh a gown and we were off. I was a bit scared because I don't like surgery/needles but by then it was midnight on the second day of labour and I just didn't care, I wanted baby out. We then did about 15 mins of me pushing hard (apparently - I couldn't feel it of course!) whilst they tried to pull him out with forceps.
It didn't work so they told me they were going to do an emergency CS. They prepped me and next thing I knew I was shaking uncontrollably from the anaethestic and baby was being carried past me to my dh. My first thought was 'oh my god he is MASSIVE!' - he was 9lb 10oz! He was born at 1:02am on 28th July.
Unfortunately I wasnt feel very good as I'd lost 1.5 litres of blood and wasn't responding well to anaesthetic, so I was shaking madly and started to be sick, which was a bit rubbish as I was lying on my back and so I kept having to be sick and spit it sideways. They were trying to put baby on my chest but I told them not to because I was scared I would pass out and he would fall off.
Took about half an hour to stitch me up and we were wheeled into a recovery room. DS was pretty bashed up - his face and ear were all bruised from the forceps and he was screaming. The midwife said she would be back in a bit with a cot and to take us to the postnatal ward. But she didn't come back for hours. Dh and I just huddled with DS and waited and waited. I was on IV fluids to try to combat the amount I'd lost and I was very confused, I don't remember a lot about it. My speech was slurred and I couldnt move.
Eventually they came to get us and took us to the birthing suite to a private room. They told us to rest and that they would be back, but again we were left for ages. Apparently a load of emergencies came in right at that point - our midwife apologised to us later for leaving us.
So me, dh and DS were in this room, completely confused and not knowing what was happening and not knowing how to feed DS who was still screaming. I just tucked him down inside the blanket with me and thankfully he calmed down. But there was a machine that was bleeping in the room and despite us asking three people to turn it off no one knew how. So again we never got any sleep.
I told dh to go home (this was about 6am) because at least then one of us would get sleep.
Over the next few hours I tried to sleep but there was a succession of folk coming into my room, from janitors, to breakfast lady, to doctors, to midwives, and even at one point someone looking for a pen! Each time they'd put the light on and I'd wake up.
My midwife eventually came in and apologised for having disappeared on us. She then showed me some positions for feeding DS and he latched on like a pro. He's continued to be a good feeder ever since. Poor boy would scream every time I moved his head though, due to the bruising from the forceps :( They had to keep pumping him full of paracetamol.
We were moved to the postnatal ward. Crowded, noisy, boiling hot. I spent the next night there with DS in a lightbox because he had jaundice. My mum and dh sat next to me in shifts to keep me awake, because DS wouldn't sleep in the cot so they had to turn me into a lightbox with him on me. Meant I had to be very careful not to fall asleep and smother him.
Next day his bilirubin levels were still bad and they said they needed to give him triple photo therapy. This involved another lightbox. Once they'd plugged everything in around my bed we realised that I could no longer move my bed up and down, because there weren't enough plugs to keep it plugged in. As Id had CS I couldn't sit up by myself (ouchy!) so needed the bed to move.
So we got moved to a private room for free, where we stayed for another two nights. It was so much nicer being away from all the noise, but still so very hot.
After a day of triple photo therapy he was much better and we were given the go-ahead to leave and go home. Phew! By this time though I'd still had no sleep since the Saturday night before (this was now Friday) as he had to be fed every 3 hours for the jaundice and each time I got him settled enough that I could sleep someone would come into the room to do something to one of us.
I think the hospital didn't manage my birth very well. If they'd just left my birth experience as it was then in my head then I had written it up to just a bad experience, 'these things happen'. Sometimes (probably often!) births don't go to plan and that's just par for the course. I had never been strict with my birth plan, and knew I needed to be flexible. But unfortunately on the postnatal ward every single member of staff who came to see us said something like 'I heard what happened to you' or 'you're the lady who all the bad stuff happened to' and it really started to make me feel like something bad had happened to me and that it was unusual and scary and awful. They offered me counselling and also a debrief on the birth.