My birth story:
I should start by saying that I have always had a pathological fear of pain and an extremely low pain threshold (I have been known to faint when removing a plaster - and I'm not kidding ), so childbirth was always going to be a bit of a challenge to me. However, I decided that after the medical process of IVF to conceive our little man, it was very important to me to labour and birth naturally so I decided to read up and prepare for coping with something that could potentially be the most pain I had ever had to contend with.
I read all the books, signed up to ante-natal yoga, chose to have a water birth because I felt this would help, read up on internet sites like this one about others' experiences (postive ones only!) and listened to my hypnobirthing CDs. I felt prepared. My little one, of course, had other ideas.
My waters broke on Thursday 12th, 10 days before offical due date. They broke at 2.30am - not a lot of water but I knew that it was important to inform the hospital anyway and phoned them straight away. They said to wait an hour or so and see if anything else happened. I lost quite a bit more water in that hour and phoned back to be told to come in. Luckily my mum was staying with us anyway, so dh, mum and me all headed into the hospital to be checked out. There was no sign of labour being imminent so I was sent home and told to come back in 48hrs if nothing had happened.
It was quite a stressful 48hrs cos I was very aware that induction wasn't pleasant and really wanted to start my labour naturally - I could see all my wonderful plans flying out of the window already. I walked as much as possible, stayed on my feet, bounced on my birthing ball, but to no avail and 8am Saturday morning we were back in the hospital.
I was hooked up to the contraction monitor and fetal monitor and then at 10am the MW came to do an exam and put in the gel to induce labour. She started to examine me and went to put in the gel and I climbed the walls - I was screaming and writhing and in total agony, I couldn't believe it. This was just the exam ffs! I ended up having to take G&A just to get through the gel being put in. This was not a good start and sent me into a tail spin - how on earth was I going to cope with labour if I couldn't cope with a simple internal?
I wasn't due to be examined again til 4pm so mum, dh and me spent the next 6 hrs wondering around the hospital, walking and walking and walking and trying to start things off. Nothing happened. I had one small contraction at about 3pm and that was it.
So by 5pm the MW came back to examine me - this time we had the G&A ready . She started to examine me, I sucked on the gas, but even that didn't take the edge off the pain - it was horrendous. I was beside myself. She didn't even reach my cervix because she was so concerned at my reaction. She gave up and left the room to get the senior MW to do the exam instead. She was out of the room for no more than 10 mins - by the time she returned I was in full blown labour . Contractions coming every couple of minutes and extremely intense - I was sucking on the G&A constantly (in fact too much, my mum was trying to talk me through breathing through the contractions and not constantly sucking on the gas as she was concerned I was going to make myself ill). I was watching the contraction monitor and every time I saw the contraction build up I tensed and cried and sucked on the gas. Exactly not what you're supposed to do - I know tension would make them worse but by this time I was incoherent with pain and couldn't do anything that I was supposed to do.
By 5.10pm my pg notes record that I was "exhausted and distressed" and by 5.20pm I was begging for an epidural. So I managed an impressive 20 minutes of labour - pretty sure I must win the prize for being the biggest wimp on the planet.
The anaesthetist took about 40 minutes to arrive and that was the longest 40 mins of my life - the pain was excrutiating and I just didn't know how I was going to get through it. When she arrived, she quickly put a canula in and then I was hauled off my back and into a sitting position to have the epidural administered. My waters broke at this point in spectacular style and went everywhere.
The anaesthetist then put the needle in and I bit dh cos it hurt so much - I then remember saying, "thank god that's done", only to be told that I'd only had the LA and not the epidural. The epidural needle was unbearable - total and utter agony. I was still having contractions every couples of mins so was having to stop for that anyway - I then had shooting pains down my right leg, coupled with the agony in my back, I just could not sit still. The anaesthetist then said "I can't do this, I will have to abandon the procedure" and I went into total meltdown. I couldn't see how I could possibly bear the pain and was just about to beg for a GA and CS when she said she would have one more go so I summoned up all my strength to stay still and she managed to get the needle in.
The epidural slowly got to work and by 7.30pm I no longer needed any G&A to cope with the contractions. I had a top-up on the epidural that dh was in charge of and he topped me up every 15 mins so I was completely numb. They put me on the syntocin drip at 8pm to speed up my contractions.
I was then left to labour until midnight - we had such a lovely MW who stayed with us the whole time and took such good care of me and my dh and mum. She knew that I was extremely distressed by how the labour was progressing and kept on reassuring me as to how well I was doing. By midnight I had another exam, which of course was painless, and I was amazingly fully dilated. I then laboured for another couple of hours before the MW decided I should try pushing - not easy when you're lying down and totally numb, but I pushed for an hour anyway.
By 3.30am, baby was very low down and the MW felt sure that I could deliver him naturally with a bit of extra help. She said she would set up stirrups and get the help of another MW to position me slightly differently so I could push LO out. However, because I had been labouring for over an hour she had to get approval of the registrar - and that's when all hell broke loose. He came and examined me and asked me to push while he had his hand inside me - he told me my pushing was completely ineffective (if I hadn't been numb at this stage I would have kicked him in the face - cheeky bastard!). He wasn't happy about me labouring any more and wanted me in theatre for an instruments delivery and prepped for a section.
Suddenly our serence calm labour room was filled with people - one particular officious midwife who barked orders at everyone and seemed to be loving the drama of it all, an anaesthetist and loads of other people rushing around. Dh and me both became very scared - but LO was showing no signs of distress so what was the need for all the drama? We could have calmly prepared for theatre and still been fine - it just felt unnecessarily melodramatic.
I was taken down to theatre and hooked up to all the machines. I had a panic that dh hadn't come with me but they sat him next to me and he held my hand. My BP went through the roof and I was violently sick. They then tried a ventouse but it didn't work so they got out the forceps. I was told to push but was so exhausted and distressed by this point I couldn't really make any effort and my first push was nothing. One of the midwives then turned to me and said, "you have 3 chances to do this or we will have to do a section". It was just the kind of verbal slap I needed and the next push Alex was born.
Dh was able to go and be with him and I lay there and begged to hold him. They had to check him out though so it seemed like ages before I got to hold him. He was then whisked away for more checks. At this point I lay back on the bed and rested and then noticed reflected in the light in the ceiling a completely bloody mess that the doctor was stitching up with a needle that looked about a foot long. It took me about a minute to register that the bloody mess I was looking at was me. I pointed to the ceiling and said "look they're stitching me up", it was only then that the staff realised I was looking and quickly moved the light. I had a 2nd degree tear.
Well, that was a very long post . But that was about it - my plan was to labour at home for as long as possible, go into hospital as late as I could and then labour and birth in the water with nothing but G&A for pain relief. The best laid plans . . .