I'm not keeping up with things these days, but hope that I will do soon when I'll find out all the answers to my burning questions about stitches, poos and reflux. In the meantime, here's my birth story as promised whilst all the details are still fresh in my head:
In summary, I'm over the moon that I managed to get my VBAC of sorts and that little baby Isla was born calmly and safely, despite being 16 days late! She was a good weight at 8lbs 5oz and is a very placid soul, unlike her sister at the moment. I cannot believe how easy the recovery has been in comparison to last time, and now understand why it doesn't take everyone 3 years to consider doing it all again! Those ladies working their way through the c-section recovery have my full and unreserved sympathies.
As you may know, I had 3 sweeps performed last week on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. From Monday night I was beginning to wake once or twice during the night with strong braxton hicks. I thought nothing of it as this wasn't unusual for me. I had a show on Wednesday morning and rejoiced that something 'normal' was happening. Well, that was about as normal as my labour got.
On Thursday and Friday nights I began to get contractions which melted away into braxton hicks during the day. They came infrequently and irregularly from twice an hour to every 10 minutes. On Saturday night they got properly sore and I had to get up and put my TENS on. I was still unwilling to believe that anything was really happening, so I was reluctant to use my TENS in case I spent days using up the batteries before I went into labour proper! I didn't really sleep that night, but dozed between contractions. Again, they were irregular between 8 and 20 mins apart. In the morning I had 2 huge ones, but again as before, as soon as I got up they eased. I put it down to gravity helping, and got very grumpy that my body wouldn't just get on with it. I tried a walk to the shop to speed things up, and tried to stay on my feet or on the ball when I could. I was going to nap to catch up on kip but then the huge contractions started again as soon as I lay down so I took the easier route of upright and active.
The contractions started hotting up a bit into the evening, so I had a bath and my waters went at 8:30. Cue more rejoicing from me, and flapping from DH. I phoned the midwife unit and they told me they'd give me 96 hours max before induction as a special case with monitoring from the community midwives. I asked what induction after a c-section would involve, and the midwife said she'd check and phone back. When she phoned back she had the unwelcome news that because of my dates, they wanted me in for assessment and that they may start induction that night. I got very annoyed at this, but went along with it in the hope that I could bully my way into the pool as soon as possible, as I was getting contractions every 5-6 minutes by then.
The monitoring showed that baby Isla was in distress. The midwife asked me to lie down to see if that made it any better, which I did reluctantly, knowing how sore the contractions would be. I had a monster one, and her heart rate plummeted and didn't come up again. I got whisked through to labour ward where I was basically told to expect another c-section. I was fine with this, since it was obvious that everything was not ok. The Dr (a parent from school !) examined me, and found to all our surprise that I was 8cm dilated, but that Isla was still high (at station 0). I was taken through to theatre and given a spinal (thank goodness I still had enough time between contractions for the anaesthetist to do his work after I took the TENS off and before the next one!) and examined again and I was fully dilated. They decided to try ventouse and forceps delivery, which I was skeptical of at first given the urgency of the situation. However, after a very calm experience Isla was born in rude health at 10 to midnight. She had the cord around her neck, which may have been the cause of her distress, but we didn't know whether the risk of scar rupture may have contributed. Better to be safe than sorry. Pushing whilst under a spinal is a bit of a weird experience, and I felt both relieved that the pain had stopped, and oddly detached from the actual birthing experience. However, that is no matter. In fact, my first bowel movements since have felt more like giving birth than giving birth did!
We both got home the next day, and she has been a joy to have around. She is showing signs of reflux, which I hope won't worsen, and is coping well with it. Although, saying that, she was up ALL NIGHT last night with reflux and windy belly but it may just be due to my milk coming in. Episiotomy stitches are far easier to deal with than c-section ones and I'm feeling so much better than I was even months after DD1's birth.
I am so chuffed to have managed to go into labour myself, and to have dealt with 'active' labour unknowingly with just breathing and TENS. The breathing really does help, but it is hard to persuade yourself that it will help sometimes when your instincts are to breathe out tensely. The candle flicker image helped remind me that I wasn't doing it right most of the time!
I don't think I'll ever know why I had odd, irregular contractions that were worse horizontally, but I'm curious to find out if it happens again next time. Having had another girl (especially one so quiet), I think I may have permission to try again in the future!
Hope you are all doing well, will catch up proper soon.