Here is my birth story now... haven't caught up with thread yet but congratulations to everyone who's popped since Monday!
So as previously reported, waters broke then I was waiting for contractions to kick in properly - they were only coming on and off. PIL arrived around 4am so went to hospital to get checked out as they had told us to do, and unsurprisingly, got sent home again to wait for things to move along a bit. Tried to get some sleep but couldn't, then went to the loo around 6am to find meconium in my waters. Quite a lot of it. Phoned hospital again and they said to come in again. Contractions were still not regular although when they did happen they were quite close and also fairly painful, but I kept having long periods of no pain at all. I was told I'd have to stay and get monitored until the doctor could see me to discuss what we'd do, so they hooked me up and I bounced on the birthing ball for a while and got DH to buy me some breakfast. Eventually, MW said she'd do an internal in preparation for doc's consultation. She found me 3-4 cm dilated but said she could feel 'the head and something else' - maybe a hand on top of the head, or the baby was facing the exit rather than having her head tucked in like she was supposed to. They decided to move me to the normal delivery suite and at 9am I was finally seen by doc who did an ultrasound. As soon as she looked at the screen, she said 'it's breech'.
Cue me thinking lots of nasty swear words mostly directed at all the people who had prodded my tummy in the past few weeks and all said the head was down...
Cue me also thinking that this would end in a CS. Doc pretty much confirmed this and said I could try for a vaginal breech delivery if I really wanted to, but hinted that it wasn't a good idea in her opinion. I had to agree because things just weren't moving along and at the rate my contractions were coming (or not!) I could see myself still be there the next day if I tried for VB. I did have a good cry and asked for someone to talk me through all the details, but felt that I had no choice but to go for the CS so at 11am signed consent form. They said they could fit me in at 2pm and until then I was left to just happily labour away.
This is where things started getting difficult. I simply wasn't mentally prepared for anything other than what I had had first time round, i.e. a straightforward vaginal birth. I had actually looked forward to the pain, and the pushing, and the sense of achievement that comes with it, and here I was suddenly having a CS that wasn't even planned or expected. The more I thought about it the more I was disappointed, and frustrated, and I cried an awful lot in between breathing through the contractions, which were now coming more regularly and more painfully. I had managed my first birth with just the TENS machine but this was completely different as the contractions were so completely pointless - having to endure the pain and knowing it's for nothing is quite a different thing. I kept wishing them away and at times they did subside a bit, especially while I was bouncing on the birthing ball, but all in all they kept getting stronger and closer together. This scared me because I obviously didn't want to get to the very painful final stages if I was having a CS anyway.
So 2pm came and went, and no sign of anything happening, the MW hadn't even been to give me an update. Eventually she showed up and said the CS before mine had gone wrong and all the docs were in theatre trying to sort the lady's bleeding and that they couldn't give me a time for my CS now, I'd just had to wait and see.
Around 3.30 my contractions got so bad that the TENS machine alone didn't work that well any more and I was kneeling on the bed chanting away with every one of them. When they examined me (just for fun...) I was only 5cm but I swear it felt like the very end of my first labour in terms of pain. The MWs obviously thought I was being a complete wimp because I was crying and begging them to tell me when I'd get my CS but DH thinks they later revised their opinion when they heard I'd had my first DD without any pain relief. Anyway I couldn't have cared less what they thought, I was far too confused and worried and frustrated and just hoped that the bleeding lady had been sorted at last. They THEN told me they'd had to slot ANOTHER CS in before mine and eventually I was given a new slot of 5pm, and some g&a which did bugger all other than make me speech slurred - it really didn't help with the contractions, which were something like 2 mins apart. At last the anaesthesist came in and they took me off all the monitors and I walked over to theatre, stopping several times on the way for a contraction - I had a new MW to help me and she told me I was doing really well when I breathed through one particularly bad one and it dawned on me that this was the FIRST time in 10 hours that anyone had said anything encouraging to me or recognised that I was actually in proper pain.
Anyway, we arrived in the theatre and the rest is history - not going to bore you with the actual op. I must say it's beyond me why anyone would choose to have a CS over a VB, as recovering is so much more painful and I can still hardly move because of the scar. This is certainly something I never thought would happen to me.
One last thing - on the second morning Hazel had a very bad choking incident on some mucus that had got stuck in her throat, she went all purple and stiff and the MWs had to run down the corridor with her to put her under the resuscitation unit (sp) and were really worried for a few minutes. We were then transferred to Transitional Care so they could keep an eye on us but seems everything is fine now. All in all, not the lovely quick second birth experience I was so looking forward to.
Sorry I went on a bit but I am having my tearful third day and it helps getting all this off my chest.