Here’s mine...
34 week appointment waddle along as per usual happy as Larry, blood pressure 144/96. Midwife sends me to antenatal day unit to be monitored. BP rose to 18something over 106, then settled back down to a ‘normal’ level. No protein in Horne, allowed back home, booked in for following week.
Few days before the appointment that was booked I rang triage as I just didn’t feel right. Asked to go in that night, BP elevated again but dropped back down. +++ protein in wee. Bloods taken, came back normal so allowed home to await results of culture from wee to see if any infection etc causing the protein.
Phone call 2 days later asking to come in. No other reason for protein, diagnosed with pre eclampsia. Further Bp check booked for 2 days later as not high enough to be admitted, and growth scan. All fine. BP still fluctuating.
Appointments back and fourth to check BP, stayed constantly borderline, decision to induced made for Friday 27th October @ 7am.
27th October - get to hospital, pessary inserted at around 9:30am. Walk around hospital grounds with DP. Fail to realise how far I’d walked and now have to walk all the way back. Cheered on by some hospital porters who clearly know the reason for the walk.
Very Mild pains and tightening start around 1ish. Put on monitor. Contracting irregularly, given paracetamol. Wiled the day away talking to DP and midwives. Around 8pm I go to sit in the bath for a while. DP goes home around 1am. Contractions stop completely and I manage to get some rest.
4am wake up for a wee. Waters break after the wee and pains start up again straight away but more intense. Go and sit in the bath again, and ring DP to come back.
5:30 DP arrives. Breathing through contractions at this point.
Midwife examines me and I’m 4cm and in proper labour. She offers diamorphine and I take it. This is around 6am. Rings midwife to transfer me to birth suite. I insist on walking. This is no later than 6am.
Get to birth suite and she tried getting me to wee. Feeling a lot of pressure at this point so I sit on the loo and put my hand down there and there’s a bit of blood. I told her this and said he’s coming out. She didn’t believe me (last labour was days!), so got me on the bed and checked. Sure enough I’ve gone from 4-10cm in less than an hour. At this point DP is fucking about retrieving my flip flops from antenatal! He got back just as she was telling me to start pushing.
Started gas and air, diamorphine hasn’t kicked in by this point and started pushing. DS was getting distressed, so she took the gas and air because I wasn’t pushing properly just literally sucking on the gas and air like my bloody life depended on it! Managed to push him out and he was born at 7:23, and his apgars were all 9.
Had skin to skin, and injection for the placenta to be delivered. It was delivered, but I started to bleed heavily. Further injection given and uterus massaged to try and stop it, the blood would stop for 10 minutes and then gush out, I could literally hear it. By this point the room was getting busier. Doctor appears and has a root up there, midwife has my placenta spread out on the floor and there’s a bit missing, and I’m starting to panic, and feel extremely dizzy from the blood loss/diamorphine finally kicking in. Doctor says theatre, DS is handed to DP and off we go.
Spinal inserted, im panicking convinced it’s game over for me. Lovely theatre staff holding my hand and reassuring me. Midwife pops in, asks if DP can come in, she found him stood in the corridor holding DS crying 😢 by the time he comes in they’ve started, seemed like it took them 2 minutes but was probably in there for around 45 all in all. All the bits retrieved, and a small tear stitched and wheeled into recovery, then back to the room where DS was born. Which weirdly enough was the exact same room that DS1 was born. Spend the day attached to various drips with catheter in feeling shit. DP goes home around 8pm, I’m taken to postnatal ward at 10pmish.
In hospital until the Tuesday (31st), blood pressure etc measured all the time. Discharged with precautionary antibiotics, tinzaparin injections and iron tablets!
God that’s a long one but there it goes. Quite therapeutic to type it all out.
I’ve had a debrief as was having panic attacks and had convinced myself I was going to hemmorage again, or get an infection and die, and been offered another around 6-8 weeks which I don’t know if I’ll take up yet.
Quite traumatic and stressful, but DS2 is worth every single minute!