Hello all! Haven't had time to catch up properly on all your news, and this will be a long one I'm afraid!
The headline news is that baby Beatrice Elizabeth Mary was born yesterday afternoon, weighing a titchy 5lb 15oz!
Contractions started very quickly after the pessary went in, and they were rapid and painful. After about an hour and a half, the pessary actually fell out! They didn't put another one in because by then I was contracting 5 or 6 times in 10 minutes! I was examined at 9pm (genuinely agonising) and the doctor managed to break the forewaters and stretch me to about 3cm.
I was given an injection of something to slow the contractions down so baby wouldn't get distressed. I then later ended up on the syntocin drip because they had slowed down too much! I was also put on a saline drip, and then an insulin drip to control my blood sugars. So there I was on the flipping birthing ball, with a drip in each arm! This went on all night with just gas and air.
I was examined again at half six, and hadn't progressed at all. I think that's when I asked for an epidural, but the timeline is hazy. Epidural goes in. Initially great. Then it becomes apparent it isn't actually working very well, and I'm still in a fair bit of pain. Examined again at 11am. Still no further dilation. Was persuaded to try to go on for another couple of hours. At 1pm, it became apparent that dilation was just never going to happen, so off we went to theatre for an EMCS, and she was born at about ten to two.
So it was a long way from the birth that I had "planned"! It turns out that, far from my cervical pre-cancer treatments leaving my cervix dangerously fragile, as we'd feared in my second trimester, they'd scarred it so much that it can't dilate effectively!
I'm knackered, but not disappointed. I got a healthy baby, and the c-section was a fairly positive experience anyway.
Hope you are all doing well!