i'm hoping someone can reassure me that the problem i had with my first birth won't necessarily repeat itself!
my birth story as follows...I laboured at home for about five hours, using a tens machine. When the pain got extreme, and the contractions were about 3 minutes apart i headed to hospital. Upon arrival i was found to be 5cm dilated.
I think i was in the delivery room for about an hour only, really battling with the pain (had asked for epidural but was fobbed off with gas and air first), I felt the urge to push. Midwife came and examined me and said i was ten cm. By this point I was incapable of using the gas or the tens due to pain, i could not focus on even getting the tube in my mouth.
I remember getting hefted on to the bed and the midwife saying she could see the baby's head. It was strange, this information terrified me and I remember a distinct feeling of just giving up, i was in such pain and fear that I didn't listen to what was being said by the midwife, she told me to push I just couldn't. At this point dh says my eyes rolled back in my head and i was unresponsive.
Apparently the monitor they put on me showed my dd's heartrate was not doing very well, and i must have come to at this point as i heard the midwife tell my dh to push the emergency button.
Some other people arrived who decided then to make quite a big cut, as this was done without anaesthetic the pain of it did bring me round and then i realised several people were all shouting 'push' at me with a note of urgency. Thankfully i managed to do this and she was born shortly after with no ill effects. I was as right as rain as soon as she was born (apart from the cut but that's another story)
My dh estimates there was probably about half an hour where i was unresponsive on the bed, just prior to the emergency team arriving. I think it was a combination of extreme pain, but also the shock of the quick progression of labour that caused it.
As dc2 is due end of May next year i am quite worried I will end up in the same situation. I want to avoid an epidural because it's more likely to lead to forceps/ventouse as far as i understand it.
I'm looking into hypnobirthing and hoping it'll help me to keep it together this time.
So...has anyone experienced something like this, and did it happen with subsequent births?
My midwife has ruled me out for a home birth as she says if this is my reponse to extreme pain i will need to be in hospital.
thanks for reading if you got this far!