Transition - what did you say/think?

[tootiredtomakeupagoodname]

My DS2 will be 1 this week and I can still remember his labour as clearly as if it was this morning.

Three hours before delivery I was adament that they stop the induction and let me go home. Both midwifes said this was transition but I am still sure to this day that I meant it, I really did want to stop with the ridiculously painful contractions and go back to my own bed. I often wonder how many woman are serious about something that is brushed off as transition. While I am aware it would be impossible to halt labour at this stage I wonder if they could have slowed things down a notch, turned down the drip or offered better pain relief. I was asking for an epidural and wasn't given one, however I think this was more down to 'D'H assuming I was just being dramatic

Labour with DS1 was identical in length, induction method, pain relief etc but as DS2 was back to back the pain was much worse therefore this may have impacted on transition.

Just wondered if anyone else felt that their fears/wishes were dismissed as just being normal for labour?

Only noticed it with ds4 - announced repeatedly I had had enough and was going home and that i would come back the next day to have the baby. I also got very panicked if I hadn't got the G&A in my hands.

I kept getting annoyed with myself that on every out breath with the gas and air I kept grunting (ie pushing) and the midwife kept telling me not to push, but I kept saying "I'M NOT PUSHING I JUST KEEP MAKING THIS NOISE". I was actually amazed at how the "grunts" got bigger and bigger and the pushing stronger spontaneously without me seemingly doing anything, it was just sort of happening to me. I did get really annoyed when the midwife kept telling me to breathe through it if I could but there was actually no way at all I could stop myself pushing.

I told a MW that I had put my drugs into storage

I only went through a transition stage with my first (second was with epidural, twins, 3rd was so fast never had time for it)but clearly remember saying " I can't do this, just let me go home. The next comment was " I feel sick". Ten minutes later ds1 was born. With my youngest there was no time, midwife said when the waters broke she was coming out...my only comment to that, as she pushed the emegency button for a delivery kit, was "um..the waters just went!"

I apparently said such unspeakable things DP won't tell me even now, 5 years later...

I can't remember it as g&a made me have the same effects as a couple of bottle of wine....no memory of the actual event

With DD2 asked if I was going to die, then totally freaked out husband by saying how much I loved DD1 and he was to tell her that, she was my best baby girl etc etc. Was out of it on gas and air and utterly fed up after epidural failed to work.

With DD1 said nothing, was concentrating so hard on breathing, did lie there thinking members of Al Quaeda would confess to anything if subjected to the pain I was in.

After 3 days of excruciating labour and the world's most callous and unsympathetic midwives (first time mother, but I've told my story to anyone who can bear it...), transition for me was like God had cradled my face in his hands (I'm not religious!) because after 3 full days of relentless pain and hellish treatment, including an internal exam with a bright light up my fanny in a corridor full of people, I was finally on the labour ward with a midwife I could only have dreamed of until that point.

Notwithstanding that, transition made me feel pukey, though I didn't puke. Nauseous. But excited, and after 3 days of no sleep and contractions every 40 seconds (and an induction after 40 hours from waters breaking(!) and pethidine making me feel like a hallucinating zombie) it was like blessed relief, like after all this pain something was finally happening which I could feel.

It didn't hurt a jot compared to what went before. I finally knew this was it. DD was born after 13 minutes of pushing. It was great :)

Found out later, I had a 3rd degree tear and a vagina that will never ever ever be the same again - the midwife did, at the last minute, tell me to stop pushing but I just couldn't - but for me transition was the most exhilarating bit, where emotion and adrenaline totally took over.

I'd also add that it felt like I needed the biggest poo of my life. Knew it was transition, as I'd had awful constipation all the way through pg and never felt so urgent about it.

I've never felt as proud as I did that day, and am in floods of tears typing this!

What did I say? I told the midwife I loved her and had never ever loved anybody so much. Poor DP...

What did I think? 'Thank God that's over' to all the previous stuff, and 'fuck fuck fuck I'm giving birth!!!!!!!'

Both times I lucidly thought 'if I say 'I can't do this!' that means I'll be in transition. So I'll say 'I can't do this' now.

I did, and I was 10cm each time. Weird.

dc1 - no transition or didn't notice
dc2 - (in downstairs toilet) help, i can't get out or back upstairs, baby is going to be born on the (dark, cold, tiled) floor
dc3 - i am never ever ever doing this again

DD - I'd decided I'd had enough and would just go home. I actually got as far as the door before the midwives dragged me back convinced me to go back.

DS- I had a major rant about how ridiculous it was that the G&A didn't reach to the toilet and how I really needed to go but wasn't going to leave the G&A and if I shit myself it would be all their fault. Then I vomited

Alice I was grunting too with DS1, kept asking DH what the noise was and he told me it was me, I couldn't stop it, it was really scary!