Hello lovely ladies!
I'm back.... and now finally a mummy
Baby Joshua William was born on Christmas day at 8.49am. Thought I should write the birth story now while I have a minute to spare while he's (finally!) sleeping.
Things started off without the need for induction during the night of the 23rd, and my waters & heavier contractions started in the morning of the 24th at about 6am. They were pretty constant right from the start, being about 4-5min so we rang the hospital to let them know. Because the baby had still not engaged at the checkup the previous day, they asked us to go in so that they could check all was well (eg: that there was no risk of cord prolapse), then we'd most likely get sent home till we needed to be back there again. When we arrived at the hospital however, they were worried that there was a trace of meconium in the waters I'd been leaking, so they thought it best we stay anyway so that they could monitor everything. We called my mum to come and join us there as she is also a midwife & had a journey of a few hours to reach us.
So at the hospital I kept labouring in the birthing centre, using the bed or chair to lean on whenever I had a contraction. I had a checkup at about 4pm which showed that despite being in establised labour with good contractions which were about a minute long, I was still only 3-4cm dialated. Bub still wasn't engaged either, so they suggested that I should move to the delivery suite to have syntocinon to help speed things up. So we moved there and got a great room which was huge but still had a bath and double shower, both of which I used at different times for pain relief. Then at 8pm I had a checkup but despite the syntocinon was still only 4-5cm, and he'd still not properly engaged. A little bit after this I tried some gas & air but found it just made me too woozy and out of control to be able to deal with the contractions, so I gave up on that after 2 attempts. I loved the raspberry blowing technique though for getting through contractions - thank you SO much for those of you who recommended that one! I don't know if it was just my imagination, but it somehow seemed to lessen the pain or at least give something else to focus on.
At around 9.30pm I'd pretty much had enough of the labour going so slowly and was in a lot of pain, and as I was pacing around the room I noticed a tray on a trolley that said something about epidural equipment, and mid-contraction thought perhaps it would be a really good idea to have one! I had been so wanting to do everything naturally, but after 15.5hrs of contractions every 4-5mins I was just too desperate to think that I'd have to continue for so much longer with such slow dilation, so I requested for an epi and waited for the anesthetist to arrive - she was just fantastic and waited for me to be in between contractions to carry out the procedure. The change after having it was remarkable; I went from feeling so out of control and depressed that things weren't progressing, to relaxing and looking forward to the pushing stage of the labour. It was so amazing to see the contractions happening on the monitor screen, but not to feel them! I think both my mum and husband were relieved to see me out of pain, and the hospital staff brought a couple of mattresses to put on the floor so that everyone could get some sleep until I was dilated enough for them to turn down the epi for me to do some pushing.
Then at about 6. 30am on Christmas morning, a midwife did another internal and things had progressed to 8cm, but the baby still hadn't fully engaged. His head was a bit swollen too so she called a doctor to do another exam which was at about 7. 30am-ish. It was still the same (8cm), and the doctor suggested that the thought it wasn't a good sign that dilation was still a bit too slow and baby wasn't properly engaged despite quite a high dose of the syntocinon. He said that we could wait another hour or so, but that he suspected the situation would most likely still be the same and that it might be a better option to elect for a caesarean section. I asked to have a think about this, so he left and I discussed the risk factors of both options (caesarean vs waiting) with my mum & husband. In the end we all agreed that a caesarean was possibly the best solution for the health of the bub, as the meconium in the waters was still a concern, as was the prospect of having to push for up to 3hrs or more to engage & deliver the baby, which could lead to foetal distress & possibly a C/S anyway if things went wrong. So I decided that it was better to go for the slightly more known outcome of the C/S, and so the medical staff were advised I was prepped for surgery. At 8.49am Joshua was finally born on Christmas day - the best present ever! Both DH & I cried when he came out, and we got some amazing photos taken in the theatre too. He weighed 9lb 12oz with a head circumference of 37.5cm so it's just as well we went for the C/S in the end as the reason he was not engaging into the pelvis is most likely because he just wouldn't fit! I'm so glad now we didn't attempt to push him out naturally as it would have resulted in the C/S anyway and been a lot more dangerous for the health of both mum & baby.
Baby Joshua is just lovely and has his dad's curly hair, although he's a blonde at the moment (both DH & I were blondes as children though before turning brunette). We're just so thrilled to have him here with us finally, and are trying now to get feeding settled as he's a hungry boy and I seem to spend most of the time with him at my breast. Lansinoh is amazing though - I've been using it from the very beginning as a preventative and it's working well. After a lot of time going from breast to breast endlessly, we're now making sure he feeds properly by stimulating him under the chin if he starts to 'comfort suck' (no swallowing) and burping him/changing nappy when he gets too sleepy to continue to wake him enough to feed more in one session until he really can't do anything but sleep for a long period afterwards. It seems to be working for the moment, so cross your fingers for us!
Hope you are all doing really well, and best wishes for those of you still yet to have your bubs. Am looking forward to catching up with the thread once I've got a chance to read through, I don't even know if there were any other Christmas babies! I'll put up a pic too of my gorgeous boy on my profile for you all