Jasmine Anneke C
Born – 8th Jan 06
Weight - 7.2 lb
Length – 50cm
Head – 33cm
Well it appears that my last post about being in false labour was wrong!!
On Friday had constant peroid like aches and lower back pain all day.
Saturday morning when I woke up I noticed that it had turned into cramps
that were coming and going but as they were fairly irregular – 15 minutes at
times, 20 minutes at times etc I didn’t think much of it as I’d had pains
for the last couple of weeks. By about midday the pains were still around
and I wondered if it was still non progressive or whether it was leading
somewhere. This pretty much carried on all day – gradually with
contractions getting more intense, and seemed to be pretty much anywhere
from 5 mins to 10 mins apart. At around midnight my waters broke and we
decided it was time to go to the hospital.
I started by going into the showers with different jets so I could position
them on my lower back where it constantly hurt. I probably stayed there for
about an hour, leaning over a birthing ball. On coming out they examined me
to find that I had dilated to 4 cm (I was sure I had to be further along
then that so it was rather disappointing) I then tried lying on a bed for a
while with a hotpack on my back and after a while I asked for some gas –
although for low mix. I think it helped a bit, and I kind of lost track of
time from this point – it just seemed to go on forever, lots of pains, hot
packs being replaced, changing position, slowly increasing the level of gas.
One thing I found helpful was to count through the contractions, knowing
that most of them lasted around 30 secs, so by the time I got to 15 secs in
counting I would know that this one would be subsiding soon.
At one point I remember asking if it was too late to get an epidural as I
didn’t
think I could handle it any longer and my husband said I was at 9cm, and
encouraged me to try to manage (I had previously asked him to do this, as I
wanted minimal intervention).
I then started getting the urge to push, and said so, but the midwife said
that the urge didn’t really mean that much, when it was time to push my body
would take over anyway and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself – which
happened a while after – as I said I’d lost track of all time. Then I guess
I started to push, and as I was still lying down the midwife told me to move
onto a birth stool to let gravity help. I really don’t know how long I was
pushing for – but it seemed to go on forever and was the most intense pain I
have ever felt – I couldn’t stop myself screaming. They were monitoring the
baby’s heartbeat in between pushes and each time it would drop and then come
up again. Every time I felt a contraction coming the midwife would say come
on – this time - push it out this time – and I felt like saying what do you
think I’ve been trying to do!!!
They were still monitoring the heartbeat and started to get worried as it
was still dropping, but didn’t seem to be coming back up again. Maybe
psychologically that was what I needed to hear as I pushed even harder for
the next few if that was possible and they told me the head was showing. It
still took a while and once again they were getting concerned that the baby
was stuck and then finally I pushed and the baby came out. They picked her
up and put her on my chest and then gave me an injection to help the
placenta out.
She fed almost straight away for about 5 minutes – but I was so exhausted I
didn’t really even notice. When they examined me they said I would need
stitches and got a doctor to come and check. She came and said that it was
pretty bad and I would need to go to theatre. As it turned out I had severe
third degree tearing and pretty much tore all the way through,
and on both the left and right sides through all the muscles.
So I ended up having a spinal and was in theatre for over an hour while DH
looked after Jasmine (which incidentally was quite nice for him, he said it
was a special time, notwithstanding him being concerned for me).
For the next few days every doctor that checked me out would go to look at
it, and then once they could see things would be going "Oh, this was pretty
bad", or "Oh Dear" etc.
I felt pretty miserable as I’d been through the whole thing without
having an epidural so that I would have a shorter labour, less chance of
tearing, shorter recovery time etc etc and as it turned out I was in
hospital for days, and even now 9 days later am still on a lot of pain
killers and can’t sit down, and have been told I will need a c-section if I
have another baby.
I know this all sounds pretty negative, and I was expecting a lot of pain,
but so many people I talked to beforehand said it was bad, but they could
live with it and so on, but for me, it really was a horrific experience, and
even DH said it was the worst thing he had ever seen.
However – we do have a beautiful little girl, who (apart from what I gather
is the usual soreness for breastfeeding,) is feeding really well, is
absolutely gorgeous and has already put on more than half a pound on top of
her birthweight.