Post by lpj on Aug 25, 2016 7:10:51 GMT -5
Finally taking the time to write this out
On Wednesday 10 August I had a regular midwife appointment. Everything was looking good, but the midwife told me that M's head was very low in my pelvis already. That sounded alarm bells for me because DD was the same at a similar gestation, and she had arrived a month early. But at this point I wasn't having any other symptoms except intermittent crampy back pain when sitting for longer periods.
The following Monday, 15 August, I went to prenatal yoga. Afterwards when I was waiting to be picked up I had two or three strong contractions, but they immediately stopped when I got in the car so I didn't think too much of it.
On Wednesday 17 August, I had 'show' while I was at work. I called the midwife and she said she thought I would deliver within the week. My mother flew in to take care of DD just in case.
Thursday and Friday I felt totally fine, until late Friday night when I started getting contractions. By midnight they were uncomfortable and timeable, but about six or seven minutes apart. At around 1 I called the midwife and told her they were five minutes apart but that I could easily talk through them, so she said to have a bath and wait and see for a bit. By 2am they were a bit under three minutes apart but still not very intense. I called the midwife and she said to head to hospital.
We arrived about 2.40am. By then my contractions had got a lot stronger and were quite painful. They examined me and I was at 5. I had about two hours of active labour, swaying, using the birth ball and in the shower.
At transition, the pain got really intense and my anxiety skyrocketed, thinking about DDs birth (she was born with AGPARs of 1 and needed resuscitation). I nearly lost the plot but DH and the midwife were great. Unfortunately the monitors lost the heartbeat so that caused me to get even more distressed and panicked. They wanted to put a head clip monitor on the baby so they broke my water, but the monitor also didn't work!
I was so panicked by now and there were so many people in the room. The doctor told me I needed to push as hard as I could. I honestly thought my baby might have died. But, after 7 minutes of pushing, he arrived! They quickly looked him over, and unlike DD his AGPAR was 9 so instead of being rushed to NICU I got to have the full skin-to-skin experience which was so wonderful!
After about an hour he was taken to the special care nursery for monitoring due to a low-ish blood sugar result. He spent one night there and one night with me on the ward before coming home.
He is such a joy and we feel so lucky. Although the end of labour was so stressful I still feel really happy to have done it medfree, and because it was so short my recovery has been pretty easy.
Not sure when/if I'll be ready to go through it all again though!
Malc.olm Art.hur
2.598kgs, 50cm
20 August, 5.15 am.
On Wednesday 10 August I had a regular midwife appointment. Everything was looking good, but the midwife told me that M's head was very low in my pelvis already. That sounded alarm bells for me because DD was the same at a similar gestation, and she had arrived a month early. But at this point I wasn't having any other symptoms except intermittent crampy back pain when sitting for longer periods.
The following Monday, 15 August, I went to prenatal yoga. Afterwards when I was waiting to be picked up I had two or three strong contractions, but they immediately stopped when I got in the car so I didn't think too much of it.
On Wednesday 17 August, I had 'show' while I was at work. I called the midwife and she said she thought I would deliver within the week. My mother flew in to take care of DD just in case.
Thursday and Friday I felt totally fine, until late Friday night when I started getting contractions. By midnight they were uncomfortable and timeable, but about six or seven minutes apart. At around 1 I called the midwife and told her they were five minutes apart but that I could easily talk through them, so she said to have a bath and wait and see for a bit. By 2am they were a bit under three minutes apart but still not very intense. I called the midwife and she said to head to hospital.
We arrived about 2.40am. By then my contractions had got a lot stronger and were quite painful. They examined me and I was at 5. I had about two hours of active labour, swaying, using the birth ball and in the shower.
At transition, the pain got really intense and my anxiety skyrocketed, thinking about DDs birth (she was born with AGPARs of 1 and needed resuscitation). I nearly lost the plot but DH and the midwife were great. Unfortunately the monitors lost the heartbeat so that caused me to get even more distressed and panicked. They wanted to put a head clip monitor on the baby so they broke my water, but the monitor also didn't work!
I was so panicked by now and there were so many people in the room. The doctor told me I needed to push as hard as I could. I honestly thought my baby might have died. But, after 7 minutes of pushing, he arrived! They quickly looked him over, and unlike DD his AGPAR was 9 so instead of being rushed to NICU I got to have the full skin-to-skin experience which was so wonderful!
After about an hour he was taken to the special care nursery for monitoring due to a low-ish blood sugar result. He spent one night there and one night with me on the ward before coming home.
He is such a joy and we feel so lucky. Although the end of labour was so stressful I still feel really happy to have done it medfree, and because it was so short my recovery has been pretty easy.
Not sure when/if I'll be ready to go through it all again though!
Malc.olm Art.hur
2.598kgs, 50cm
20 August, 5.15 am.