Birth story - sorry quite long!
I?d had some lower back and hip pain since at least Wednesday, With both other boys this had signalled labour was close, but I was trying to ignore it as I wanted to wait until after the weekend! Contractions started about 2.30 am Saturday morning, lasting about 40 s and coming between 6 and 9 mins apart. I thought it might be happening that night, but this was just ?false labour?, and went away about 6 am after I?d called the midwife!
At about 5.30 pm on Sat I had a show. It was just a bit of mucous so I wasn?t too sure if it was a show or not, but then about 9 pm I had a definite ?bloody show? and contractions started again. They were about the same intensity and frequency as before. I was surprised by how much blood had come out, so I called the mw again, but she reassured me that sometimes there is a fair bit of blood with the show.
I didn?t want the mw to come over for another false alarm, so I didn?t call again until contractions were coming pretty frequently. Dp and I had prepared the living room, in anticipation for the baby arriving that morning. I was still managing the contractions just by leaning on a wall and breathing, with Dp rubbing my lower back. Tina arrived about 2.30 am and got her stuff ready. I was sitting on the birth ball in between contractions, and easily able to hold a conversation in between, but standing up during them, as sitting felt too painful.
Based on my previous two labours, I really thought that once the mw had arrived, things would start moving pretty quickly. I was honestly expecting that ds3 would be out within a couple of hours. But by 4 am I was still wandering round the room and wondering what was going on. (Incidentally I wish I?d hidden all the clocks in the room. It was quite disconcerting to know how long I?d been labouring.) The contractions started to get more painful. As well as my lower back I was really feeling it in my hips. The hip pain was awful, and lingered after every contraction, so I found it hard to recover in between.
The mw suggested various strategies that might help and I adopted some of them, but they all felt pretty unsuccessful. I really didn?t want to do any squatting (especially because of my spd) and even sitting on the toilet was very difficult, although I managed it for about 4 contractions. I tried some walking up and down stairs but gave up on that quickly too.
It seemed to me that the mw thought I was pretty close to pushing, and she said that if I started pushing it would probably help with the hip pain. She asked me a few times to tell her if I felt the need to push. I was finding the pain very difficult by now but I really wasn?t feeling any pushing urges. She asked if she could do an internal exam, and I said ?not really?! She asked again later and I agreed ? and she couldn?t feel any of my cervix, so reckoned it was fully dilated.
At some point she called the second midwife. After mw2 arrived, I lay on my side for some contractions as I was getting pretty tired out (and very frustrated). Most of the time, though, I was kneeling in my favourite position in front of our armchair, with my back (and bum) to everyone.
Mw1 suggested some gas and air, just to take the edge of the contractions, and went off to her car to get some. She put the mouthpiece on the arm of the chair so it was there if I wanted it. At this point I felt that it was too much of a distraction, even just thinking about when to use it. Shortly afterwards I started to push and the baby was born within 6 minutes!! It was still an effort though, and his body took more than one push to come out (my other two had slithered out one push after the head had delivered).
The baby weighed 4.03 kg (8 lb 14 oz). He took a while to breastfeed, but did so really well once attached. I had a physiological third stage ? the placenta was delivered about an hour after the baby.
My older sons slept for most of the time. Ds1 woke up about an hour before the baby was born, but didn?t want to come and see me. Dp went to check on him in between two of my contractions, and ds1 happily watched a DVD in another room, for the next hour, while I was noisily labouring!! Ds2 slept through everything, woke up after the baby was born and came and sang a song to him.
Officially labour only lasted 3 ½ hrs. The bits before about 4.30 am counted as ?pre-labour? rather than active labour. To me it felt like I?d been labouring for 10 hours, and without much sleep the day before either. Overall it was not an experience I would like to repeat. In a way, it was harder, having had such easy labours beforehand. I was definitely expecting this one to be very similar. And I wish my real first and second midwives had been there and not at Glastonbury!! However, despite the time delay between being fully dilated and actually pushing the baby out, the mws were very calm. I am thankful that I did not have ones who might class my labour as ?failing to progress?, and that no unnecessary interventions were suggested. After all, once I started to push it was very straightforward. .