First baby, did you manage to stay home for as long as you thought before going to the hospital?

[JimmyChoo17]

hi

For everyone who had their FIRST baby, if you had planned to stay home as long as possible before going in......did you really stick to this plan?

Considering you have no idea of how u will react for your first and also that unknown without baby monitoring - is everything ok with baby, is this normal and also for more pain relief.....

My plan is to stay at home as long as possible before going into midwife unit for water birth. I'm thinking of ordering a tens machine to use whilst I'm at home but wondering how realistic it is to think that I will stay at home long enough to use it? Considering it's first birth you see?

I'm a low risk birth and only 5 mins from hospital.

Would love to hear how other mums dealt with their first birth BEFORE going into hospital.

Cheers.

Started feeling uncomfortable at about 7pm, sat on gym ball and walked around a lot. Rang hospital at 5 mins apart at about 9.30pm, they told me to take paracetamol and have a warm bath. Was told to come in when my contractions were 2 mins apart at about 12am. Was fairly painful at this point.

Was 5cms dilated on arrival at about 1am but DS didn't arrive until 8.07am as I had a long second stage.

Like some of the others I was calm when I realised it was the real thing as I had been worried about when it would start. I thought idle sent home when I got to hospital and was shocked I was so far along.

My waters broke as soon as my contractions started (and I had very regular every 3/4mins contractions straight away too) so I had to go straight in. (It was a quick labour - DD arrived 8 hours later)

However, I probably would have gone in straight away anyway, I was really taken aback by the pain and not in control at all.

I'm pregnant with my second baby now and reading juju sundin's book Birth Skills makes me really aware of how much I didn't really know before I went into labour, and I hope that this time I will be able to stay in control better.

If you want to have a look at the book - I can confirm that it is really honest about the fact that contractions do and will hurt, but it seems to have a lot of good advice about how to deal with that and stay in control when you're instinct is telling you to try and run away!

I stayed at home for as long as I could but it wasn't long enough as I was only 1cm dilated when I got to hospital. Went home after something like 36 hours only cm dilated. Went back 36 hours later only 3 cm dilated. I wasn't in massive unbearable pain but I had developed a urine infection and by the time I went in the second time I was unable to sleep and hadn't done for nights so I was absolutely knackered.

Basically I went in on 18th (I think) and gave birth early hours of 22nd. I did go from 3 to 6 very quickly and then from 6 to 10 even more quickly (less than hours I think) so they actually told me my labour was very short but I think I had a very long pre-labour. Also my waters didn't break, they had to break them for me at 6 cm.

I stayed for as long as my friend would let me! i couldve happily stayed in the bath for the whole birth but she made me go in despite the midwife telling us not to. turns out she was right as i was 6cm when we arrived and dd was born 1 hour later!

I had DD at home, so stayed as log as I had planned! I found it really useful to think, I weill stay at home as long as possible, call the MW out to assess me, and then make a decision from there. As I was convinced birht was imminent at 7am, I called a MW out, who examined me at home, and I was only 2cm. I then refused to call them back until I was sure I was dilating - resulting in MW only arriving in time for transition, DD born fairly quickly after her arrival. I couldn't have got in a car and gone to hospital at that point if you'd paid me!

FWIW I think your body will tell you the right time to go in. I laboured mostly at home - got to a certain point where I thought hmm yes will want some pain relief soon and then called DH to come home and went straight to hospital then. Contractions in car = not fun, poor DH Was 8cm when I arrived at 18.30, DD born just past midnight.

My friend from antenatal class went in and was only 3cm but it turned out there was a very serious problem - BUT because she had gone in when she felt the time was right it was picked up and dealt with, and both she and her
(perfect, healthy) DS are fine.

Go in when you feel you need to go, and stay as upright and mobile as you can during labour and take lucozade sports-cap bottles with you for energy. Good luck!

Hi, not read whole thread but noticed you want a birth pool. It's worth checking how long these take to fill and when they will let you into the pool. This might have some bearing on when you go to hospital.

I had a HB with first (and only) child. I was 3 cm dilated as contractions started and used TENS machine alone for about 5 or 6 hours (I think - not entirely sure about timings for obvious reasons). Then had gas and air as well until I had to push. It was about 14 hours in total and at no point did I think I needed to go to hospital. It did get to one point when I was about 8cm when I wondered if I could cope but knew it was too late for epidural probably even if I had been in hospital. I got in to the bath instead and coped until I was fully dilated.

I live about 15 minutes from hospital and knew there would be plenty of time to get to hospital if need be. For what it's worth, my friends who did go to hospital and stayed at home as long as possible, report that the journey was VERY uncomfortable.

My waters broke about 6pm, went in to be examined at about 8.30pm (no contractions yet) - told waters hadn't broken

Went home, contractions started about 9.30pm ish, I used Hypnobirthing breathing techniques and felt mostly ok. I paced as I felt I needed to keep mobile. Sitting down or lying down was uncomfortable.

Was sick, don't know what time, then told DH we needed to go to hospital. Contractions were pretty much constant from the word go.

Arrived at hospital 1.45am according to my maternity notes. Was 9cm dilated but DD very distressed, so within minutes I was wheeled off for a crash section. DD born at 2.26am. They kindly confirmed that my waters had gone - no shit, Sherlock .

So it was very fast for me. I didn't ever feel that my contractions were horrendous, but I did have some gas and air when I got to hospital and it was great!

I couldn't sit down in the car going to hospital though, so went on all fours in the back seat (to DH's horror).

I think it's hard to really 'plan' for this -- there's so many variables that can happen!

Perhaps most important is whether your waters break or not -- when mine did, the hospital told me to come in even though I wasn't having contractions yet. I did take my time (took a shower, which I was really glad of later!)

I had my first contractions about midnight on Tuesday and I went into hospital on Thursday lunchtime. My contractions stopped after 6 hours so I had a lot of sleep then went in for an induction as my BP was too high. Was moved to delivery suite about 6pm Thursday and DD was born at 838am on Friday morning. What a wait.

Contractions started at 3am and managed to stay at home until 10pm that night - 19 hours! Here are the reasons:

• my waters hadn't broken
• everything was happening normally
• the pain was familiar, just like bad period pain
• even though it was painful, it wasn't scary
• my partner was calm and encouraging
• I experimented with baths, massage, TENS, birthing ball and breathing

We even went to a cafe in the early afternoon (okay - it wasn't exactly fun but was just something to focus on!) and ordered pizza in the evening.

We phoned the hospital a couple of times in the early evening but the midwives encouraged me to stick it out at home for a bit longer.

Finally, by 10pm I was having three contractions within 10 minutes and we went to hospital. My daughter was born five hours later.

Not really in the sense that wanted a home birth and didn't get it but still stayed at home until relatively late.

My waters broke 48 hours before my contractions started, but only little gushes every now and then not full on deluge and they sealed back up again. Also wore my TENS machine for nearly full 48 hours before contractions started as was having a lot of back pain/period pain style cramping (DD had gone back to back, hence back pain I think) - loved my TENS and couldn't have done without it.

After contractions started they were quite intense quite fast - managed with TENS + paracetamol for a while then there came a point when I had to be in water and tore the TENS off and jumped in the bath. Laboured in the bath for a bit which was okay except wasn't really deep enough and being on my back was uncomfortable, plus had been told there weren't enough MWs for the planned home birth to go ahead so was trying to decide what to do.

Getting out of the bath to go into hospital seemed like an almost insurmountable feat. Got out, got dressed, vomited, decided to ask for epidural when we got there. I actually wonder in retrospect whether I was in transition at this stage. Journey wasn't half as bad as I was expected - think adrenalin kicked in so contractions slowed down, though started up again with a vengeance when we got there.

7 cm dilated when examined, which was good to hear :) Took 90 min with G&A to get (back to?) fully dilated, then pushing for 90 min.

So timings were: contractions started around 7 pm, into hospital at 11 pm, baby born at 3 am.

Well my original plan has gone out the window. Developed chronic spd so am being induced in the morning!!!

Oh well these things never do go to plan!

i stayed at home for 24 hours first time. i was 35+ weeks and 40 miles from hospital (wouldnt have me at the MW unit as prem) and had to drive myself there, i waited til dawn to make it a bit easier. my contractions weren't regular but were between 90secs and 5 mins apart and very painful when i set off. i could have stayed home longer but the driving thing was a decider. i was in hospital 3 days before he was born. if i'd driven back home i'd never have made it back a second time but i wish i'd not been in there til the last 12 hours. it took a lot of bottle to stay home that long tbh so i dont think it could have gone another way.

Sorry to hear that OP :( Hope everything goes well for you.

To be honest I'm so sick of the spd I would happily be delivered by a chimp at a macdonalds drive thru if it means it's all over! Lol!

Hopefully this time tomorrow I'll have a healthy happy baby jimmychoo safe in my arms :)

Thanks dita

Best of luck OP. Make sure you have a read through of the induction threads - and don't expect it to be quick (but if it is, even better!)

I've been reading the positive threads rather than freaking myself out last minute.

What will be will be :)

Add pain relief and jobs a good un