Noah's birth story

After niggling away all week with stop/start contractions I woke up as usual Saturday at about 6 am feeling no different and that Saturday would be the same as the days previous. I went back to sleep at about 730 and woke again at 915.

I lay in bed for about 10 minutes when I heard something go "pop". I went to the toilet expecting my waters to have gone but didn't see or feel anything so didn't think anything of it. As I stood up the most almighty pain ripped around my bump, around my back and into my back passage, it made me fall to my knees. I screamed for about 2 minutes which made Tim come running. I sat back on the toilet at which point I noticed I had had a bloody show. I managed to get myself back into bed and had another huge pain 5 minutes later followed by my waters breaking.

I called the hospital - explained about my waters and I am carrying GBS, they told me to come in. All the way to the hospital I was so excited as I had been told that once my waters went because I needed AB's I would not be leaving hospital without my baby. They monitored me for half an hour, but my contractions had stopped, and upon a speculum exam doctor informed me it was "discharge" not my waters and sent me home.

I was not convinced as was still leaking and was concerned to make sure that they gave me the AB's - he said he thought I would be another 2-3 days and that was too many antibiotics - I was not yet dilated 1cm!

We pulled up onto the drive at 230pm, as Tim took the keys out of the ignition I started to contract! They came every 30 minutes until 4ish, by 530 they were every 12 minutes. I called hospital again and explained about my waters but they said to stay at home until I was 5 minutes apart and that 1st babies took ages and I would have time to get the AB's.

At 6 I called again as I was in so much pain, a bath, shower, TENS and paracetamol had done nothing to help ease it. Again I was told not to come until I was 5 minutes apart but to take another bath - which I did. Whilst I was in the bath the pain became so intense I really did not know what to do, and when I got out of the bath I started to bleed quite heavily. I decided then that I was just going to go in and not even call. By the time we had made the agonising 20 mile drive my contractions were 5 minutes apart.

They examined me at 845pm and I was 5cm dilated and was told to expect another 5-6 hours, at which point I just cried and demanded an epidural - me the needle phobic girl! The midwife gave me a tiny shot of meptid to see me through until the guy could get to me for an epidural.

I tried to walk around to help ease the pain but all I could really bring myself to do was lie on the bed all curled up. By this point the pain was unbearable and the meptid and gas and air were having no effect what- so- ever on the pain, they were just making me feel drunk. The midwives then tried to canulate me to give me the AB's and for the drip for the epidural but by this time my contractions were every 50 seconds and I could not sit still for her to do it. At one point I tried to get off the bed and informed the Midwife “I’m going, I can’t do this!”

All of a sudden this really primeval noise came from me and I screamed "I want to puuuuussshhhh", and my body just started doing it - I couldn't stop myself. I was told not to as I was only 5cm and would do some real damage, but the one midwife decided I sounded too genuine and asked the other midwife to check me. When she checked me I was 10cm and told I could push - I had gone from 5cm - 10cm in just under an hour!

After pushing for about 15 minutes and getting nowhere (I think mainly due to my paranoia about pooing myself!) Noah's heart rate dropped to under 100 and I think at that point they were thinking emergency c-section but the manager asked them to try me in the stirrups. I was told if they didn't see progress in about 10 minutes they would need to intervene. Luckily the stirrups did their job and after 1 hour and 19 minutes of pushing my gorgeous son came in to my life 2 weeks and 3 days early. There was one scary moment after he was born when the crash team were called in as he wasn't pinking up quickly enough but after a very short time he was fine.



At the time I thought it was the most horrendous pain ever, but looking back it is really hard for me to distinguish which was more painful: the contractions during transition or the feeling of a bowling ball being stuck in my pelvis and me not being able to do anything about it! I did have a 2nd degree tear, but at which point this occurred I could not say - I didn't feel it happen, although I certainly felt the 7 shots of lidocaine in my lady bits to numb the area before they stitched me up:S


I am so pleased to be able to say that after an eventful and stressful pregnancy I was lucky to have had a relatively quick and easy- ish birth. I only deviated from my birth plan slightly - but that was due to situations beyond my control - and I had 10 needles in all! In the end I did not receive any AB’s for the GBS, and at one point they were planning on canulating Noah which broke my heart, but the doctor that examined him decided that I had been told wrong info all the way through and as I was carrying GBS on a swab and not in my urine I was not high enough risk to warrant AB’s! Noah received 12 hours of monitoring but was then given the all clear.



But everything that I went through was just so worth it to be able to hold my lovely Noah and I am so privileged to be able to say that I am his mummy.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by

Aly