Hello mamas!
We are both well and good! Baby is earthside! 🥰 It's just been very exhausting 30h, so took my time to update you.
Our baby girl was born this morning at 4:44 🥰🥰🥰
The story goes like this: they confirmed I was 10cm dilated at 2AM (they were only checking every 4h). Then they let me rest and bring baby down more for 1h. I started to push at 3:20 in the morning.
I pushed for an hour with quite a good progress, but here is where things started going crazy.
My temperature ramped up to 38.3Cthen 38.8 C within 10 minutes. Baby's HR also shot up to 160, which is very high compared to her 140 baseline. I was pushing and pushing, but the main midwife told tell me they now need to take blood from me, change antibiotics to broader spectrum and to get baby out ASAP using alternative means, as there was at least one hour estimated remaining time of pushing otherwise. I agreed, whilst still pushing.
Then the obstetrician came in, asking me for consent to forceps deliver (baby's head wasn't fit for ventuse, due to some mild swelling), then also for episiotomy, whilst the midwife was talking bloods from one arm, all whilst I was pushing, and the other hand was taken by my DH alongside a student midwife who were encouraging me like in a marathon "keep pushing, you're doing great, 1s more, you've got this!"
Honestly it all was happening at once and I have no idea how I managed to keep pushing, but I did it with the amazing support of hubby and midwives.
The obstrerician returned with all tools neeeded, and seeing that made me burst into tears of despair at this stage, as this was the outcome I just did not want (but also didn't want baby to get sepsis, so I was choosing the lesser evil).
I thought I lost my battle, but DH and midwives didn't think so. They kept encouraging me to push as the obstetrician was gowning up: "focus on yourself - you've got this, one more push!".
This is when I flipped - with their help I turned my despair into some mama bear rage and now I was pushing with all my might. The obstetrician then put a catheter in but I was pushing! The midwife team and DH were rooting for me like there's no tomorrow - 'Push push push, you're doing amazing, keep going'
I was getting a local anaesthesia injection in perineum for episiotomy, but I also kept pushing. Honestly I was pushing continuously at this stage, contraction or not, I felt like it's then or never.
When I saw the obstetrician approaching to take over, I gave my hardest 3 pushes which basically made baby crown. Midwives then stayed put, and in 6 pushes baby's head was out, and in another 2, baby was born.
I cried and cried with DH and the midwives altogether as we got baby on my chest because none of us could believe what just happened. From the moment obstetrician came in the room, to when baby was out, took 15 min.
My hubby laughed between tears that when I'm procrastinating he'll just tell me "forceps are coming" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
We then got our golden 2(!) hours, hubby cut the cord, baby latched and we just soaked it all in. Baby's obs were nice and normal once she was out, and my temperature started decreasing.
Through some miracle I only got 2nd degree tears, and they could stitch me in the room, enjoying even more time with baby.
We are now in the hospital for observations for 24h, just to make sure there's no sepsis - but so far all baby obs have thankfully been normal; my temp hasn't returned (though I will have my bloods taken again tomorrow). I also feel really well, completely mobile and not too sore at all, was expecting all muscles to be strained today. So grateful to not have chosen or needed a c-sec in the end.
Hubby has never left our side, and I'm very grateful he can stay the night here, too.
We are just so grateful that our story had a happy ending, and that we got the best delivery that we could have hoped for, bearing the circumstances.