Glad I’m not the only one who hallucinated!
First time I was left waiting so long I was 8cm by the time they finally examined me in the 6-bedded MAU ward. Shocked midwife realised there were no beds on labour ward. I feel terrible for the 5 women and their partners who had to listen to me screaming and shouting my way through transition with only curtains between us. Baby was back to back and I was in agony, hind waters kept breaking, midwife kept telling me to be quiet. Eventually she broke a rule and gave me some gas&air to shut me up but that made it worse. I was on my own (DH trying to find a car park, midwife trying to get me a bed on Labour ward). After a few puffs of gas I felt like I was spinning and had this sensation of flying backwards through the air so I pushed the emergency panel on the wall (I’m a HCP so did so more by instinct). People came running and told me off, i accused them of poisoning me 😳
In between contractions I could hear the other ladies talking to their partners and now and then a lady would call out trying to reassure me. The man behind the curtain next to me kept crinkling crisp packets and I tried to hit him through the curtain 😳
Finally got moved to Labour ward and had a private room, lovely midwife gave me diamorphine but it barely touched the pain just made me hallucinate more. Then I started vomiting non stop despite having nothing to bring up, so every contraction I’d retch and think I was dying as I couldn’t breathe. They kept giving me anti sickness injections but nothing worked and I hallucinated I was on a boat. Kept thinking the boat was sinking and rambling about needing to hit the waves at a different angle! Then hallucinated I was decorating the house for XMas and rambled about that.
When the midwives left the room DH would have a turn on the gas to ‘help him get through it’ (I hated the gas and only used it when someone forced it into my mouth). Or he’d leave the room to phone his mum for moral support (for himself).
My back froze at some point and baby was stuck, I’d been pushing for ages and when they told me to roll over I physically couldn’t move so they had to flip me over while I screamed and clawed at them.
I saw panic on the midwife’s face when she realised baby was in a tricky presentation, and knew what the next step would be, so put everything into the next contraction and baby came out in one go. I kept saying ‘is all of it out? Are you sure?’
Then baby latched onto my nipple and DH got off the floor (he’d felt faint and curled into a ball at some point) and suddenly everything felt normal again!
It’s weird how quickly the haze vanishes when the baby’s out. I didn’t really want to hold DD at first, so DH took her and cried with happiness. Then I realised I had to deliver the placenta and starting worrying I might bleed out (I didn’t).
Within an hour I was in the shower, dressed and in a wheelchair going to post natal ward with DD suckling and my whole boob out. We had to go up in the lift and I saw some of my colleagues! They either didn’t recognise me in that state or pretended not to but it was a weird journey!