Alabama
10-01-2008, 07:52pm
It was approaching my due date on the Saturday and I’d come to the realisation that there was no way this baby was coming early and I was fully expecting to go well overdue. I had planned a home birth but a scan at 37 weeks showed that baby was quite big and since this was my first, I was advised to have it in hospital in case he had trouble coming out.
On the Wednesday I was in a foul mood, absolute raging PMT bitch queen from hell (not like me!), then on Thurs and Fri just felt really ‘can’t be arsed’ – had lots of little jobs to do but absolutely no inclination to do anything but sit on the sofa, couldn’t even bring myself to leave the house to go to the supermarket 2 miles away so ordered the shopping online.
Friday night we had a curry for dinner and thought we may as well get a bit of :adultcontent: in :wink: . I did have a tiny bit of pinkish bleeding afterwards but put it down an expected side effect of DTD at 40wks!
Went to bed that night as usual but woke up at 5.30 in a bit of pain. That wore off then five mins later it came back. And the same thing happened again… Thought I'd better get up and have some breakfast in case that was my last chance to eat and within ten minutes had called DH down to strap on the TENS machine. Within an hour they were every 2-3 mins and I was chewing on the kitchen table so after hurriedly throwing a few last minute things in the hospital bag off we went at about 7am, with a plastic bag in case I threw up and a towel for the seat in case my waters went en route!
They wouldn't let me in the pool as I was still bleeding a bit so got straight on the gas & air but things were getting pretty tough and when midwife finally examined me at 9am ish I was just 5cm and was starting to think that no way could I go another 5 without some pain relief so despite all my plans for a drug-free birth I completely wimped out and begged for an epidural.
Got shifted to a different room, little squirt of an anaesthetist arrived and spent far too long faffing about, introducing himself, explaining risks to me etc (I DON'T CARE JUST DO IT!:bwahaha: ) and butchered my hand getting the canula in for the drip then proceeded to try and fail three times to get the epidural in my back. He went off to get someone else and by this time midwife had had another look and I was almost 10cm :cheer2: so no point in trying a fourth time!
The pushing was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, especially as it felt like I was achieving absolutely nothing. I started on all fours but things weren’t progressing so ended up flat on my back then sat up a bit with midwife/DH holding my legs up, guzzling the G&A as if my life depended on it. The worst pain was when he was almost out and his head was in my pelvis. The pressure was immense and by far the worst part as there was no relief inbetween contractions. My waters went bit by bit throughout, I think there was a bit of a gush at one point.
The midwife eventually warned me that he would be crowning soon (“and it will feel like your clitoris is being ripped off” :zombie: ) and after about an hour and ten mins the head finally emerged (nowhere near as painful as she said – I was just relieved to feel that my efforts weren’t in vain!) and I had a stroke of his fuzzy little head. :lurve:
In the next contraction the rest of him flew out at 11.45am and oh, the relief when that happened! He was plonked straight onto me and in the process pooed all over me, the bed, the midwife and the monitoring equipment then cried non stop for an hour. We waited until the cord had stopped pulsing before cutting it, then ten mins after that the placenta came out on its own. The little superstar got a 9 on his apgar making mummy and daddy very proud.
Even though I felt like I made loads of noise (DH says I wasn't too bad!) I only really swore at the pain rather than anyone in particular and I think one of the first things I said after was "well, that wasn't so bad"! My god it was agony at some points but it didn't actually get any more painful past the 5cm point, just the same level of pain more often. I was so glad I didn’t have the epidural, but if I hadn’t thought I was getting one I might have freaked out at that point.
Needed a few stitches after which is where the G&A really came into its own. They gave me a local for the actual stitching so I couldn't feel that but the trainee doc doing the clean up beforehand wasn't exactly gentle and it was like being attacked with a brillo pad (had they not strapped my legs down I would have kicked her in the face) so I took the opportunity to get as off my face as I could before they took the pipe away for good :lol: .
After that they pretty much left us alone for the rest of the afternoon apart from popping back in for the odd check on things and weighing him. He was a 9lb 5oz chunky monkey!
There was a bit of concern that both our temperatures were a tiny bit high they eventually dropped and we got discharged at 7pm (so less than 12 hours in the delivery suite!), coming home to a few family visitors and some celebratory champagne.
We are both utterly besotted – Daddy (who wasn’t entirely convinced about the whole thing in the first place) is already talking about the second and the third! :faint: We just both can’t stop looking at him and it’s a constant battle over whose turn it is to hold him. Well done if you got this far, sorry it’s been a long one :oops:
http://i4.tinypic.com/85f2npz.jpg
On the Wednesday I was in a foul mood, absolute raging PMT bitch queen from hell (not like me!), then on Thurs and Fri just felt really ‘can’t be arsed’ – had lots of little jobs to do but absolutely no inclination to do anything but sit on the sofa, couldn’t even bring myself to leave the house to go to the supermarket 2 miles away so ordered the shopping online.
Friday night we had a curry for dinner and thought we may as well get a bit of :adultcontent: in :wink: . I did have a tiny bit of pinkish bleeding afterwards but put it down an expected side effect of DTD at 40wks!
Went to bed that night as usual but woke up at 5.30 in a bit of pain. That wore off then five mins later it came back. And the same thing happened again… Thought I'd better get up and have some breakfast in case that was my last chance to eat and within ten minutes had called DH down to strap on the TENS machine. Within an hour they were every 2-3 mins and I was chewing on the kitchen table so after hurriedly throwing a few last minute things in the hospital bag off we went at about 7am, with a plastic bag in case I threw up and a towel for the seat in case my waters went en route!
They wouldn't let me in the pool as I was still bleeding a bit so got straight on the gas & air but things were getting pretty tough and when midwife finally examined me at 9am ish I was just 5cm and was starting to think that no way could I go another 5 without some pain relief so despite all my plans for a drug-free birth I completely wimped out and begged for an epidural.
Got shifted to a different room, little squirt of an anaesthetist arrived and spent far too long faffing about, introducing himself, explaining risks to me etc (I DON'T CARE JUST DO IT!:bwahaha: ) and butchered my hand getting the canula in for the drip then proceeded to try and fail three times to get the epidural in my back. He went off to get someone else and by this time midwife had had another look and I was almost 10cm :cheer2: so no point in trying a fourth time!
The pushing was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, especially as it felt like I was achieving absolutely nothing. I started on all fours but things weren’t progressing so ended up flat on my back then sat up a bit with midwife/DH holding my legs up, guzzling the G&A as if my life depended on it. The worst pain was when he was almost out and his head was in my pelvis. The pressure was immense and by far the worst part as there was no relief inbetween contractions. My waters went bit by bit throughout, I think there was a bit of a gush at one point.
The midwife eventually warned me that he would be crowning soon (“and it will feel like your clitoris is being ripped off” :zombie: ) and after about an hour and ten mins the head finally emerged (nowhere near as painful as she said – I was just relieved to feel that my efforts weren’t in vain!) and I had a stroke of his fuzzy little head. :lurve:
In the next contraction the rest of him flew out at 11.45am and oh, the relief when that happened! He was plonked straight onto me and in the process pooed all over me, the bed, the midwife and the monitoring equipment then cried non stop for an hour. We waited until the cord had stopped pulsing before cutting it, then ten mins after that the placenta came out on its own. The little superstar got a 9 on his apgar making mummy and daddy very proud.
Even though I felt like I made loads of noise (DH says I wasn't too bad!) I only really swore at the pain rather than anyone in particular and I think one of the first things I said after was "well, that wasn't so bad"! My god it was agony at some points but it didn't actually get any more painful past the 5cm point, just the same level of pain more often. I was so glad I didn’t have the epidural, but if I hadn’t thought I was getting one I might have freaked out at that point.
Needed a few stitches after which is where the G&A really came into its own. They gave me a local for the actual stitching so I couldn't feel that but the trainee doc doing the clean up beforehand wasn't exactly gentle and it was like being attacked with a brillo pad (had they not strapped my legs down I would have kicked her in the face) so I took the opportunity to get as off my face as I could before they took the pipe away for good :lol: .
After that they pretty much left us alone for the rest of the afternoon apart from popping back in for the odd check on things and weighing him. He was a 9lb 5oz chunky monkey!
There was a bit of concern that both our temperatures were a tiny bit high they eventually dropped and we got discharged at 7pm (so less than 12 hours in the delivery suite!), coming home to a few family visitors and some celebratory champagne.
We are both utterly besotted – Daddy (who wasn’t entirely convinced about the whole thing in the first place) is already talking about the second and the third! :faint: We just both can’t stop looking at him and it’s a constant battle over whose turn it is to hold him. Well done if you got this far, sorry it’s been a long one :oops:
http://i4.tinypic.com/85f2npz.jpg