"After my first experience of childbirth, I was positive that I was more prepared this time around. I believed I knew what labour felt like, and I knew the signs and symptoms. I knew to pack dark pyjama bottoms, because the blood loss after birth would be tremendous. I knew that when I was ready to push, it would feel like I needed a poo. I also remembered that rush of love I felt for that little newborn in my arms, and was prepared for it.
My dream homebirth had been scrapped at 36 weeks after being rushed into hospital with severe high blood pressure, so I had resigned myself to having a second hospital birth. After two membrane sweeps at 39 weeks and being 2cm dilated both times, I was now 1 day past my due date and thoroughly miserable with extremely painful Pelvic Girdle Pain and desperate to get everything over with.
We hit the sack pretty late, but I was asleep in no time. 6am I woke up with a niggly bump, and realised that it wasn’t going to be long until I was going to meet my baby. I had a midwife appointment booked for 10am, so decided to try and get back to sleep until Little Man needed to get up for school. It was 7.45am when I woke up next, and the day absolutely had to start. It was a pretty normal morning, well for 15 minutes. I was eating my breakfast when I felt the first agonising pain shoot through my pelvis. “Oh my God, J, that hurt,” I said. “What?” he replied, still half asleep. “The pain in my pelvis.” It was only a couple of minutes later when I had another, so I started timing them.
By 8.30am I’d had 8 pains and I knew something was happening. We dropped Little Man off at school and continued about our plans taking J’s sister to her doctor’s appointment. While we were waiting for J’s sister, the pains started coming more frequently, every 3 minutes and starting to last longer, but they were still in my pelvis and nothing in my bump. I decided to call my midwife. “I’ll give you a home visit, Beth, if you’d prefer. Or if things are too difficult call the labour ward,” she advised. I decided to take the second course of action as I also hadn’t felt a kick that morning. “Come in and we’ll monitor the baby, but it does sound like it’s the groundwork being done,” the midwife on the phone advised.
We took J’s mum and sister home, picked Little Man back up from school, called my Mam and headed off to the hospital at 10am. Mam was meeting us there so her and my nan could have Little Man and the wait was excruciating.
When Mam arrived she took one look at me and knew it was not just 'groundwork being done’. “I’ll find somewhere to park the car, and I’ll be back for you,” Mam said as she left. With that me and J headed off to the labour ward.
As soon as we got there, I was given an internal examination. “Ah yes, 2-3cm, so you’re not in labour,” the examining midwife said. I was then hooked up to the monitor, and baby’s heartbeat came out loud and clear. I continued being monitored for a whole hour, and despite the pains in my pelvis every 3 minutes, nothing was coming through on the monitor. I was devastated, I really wasn’t in labour. Eventually, the monitor was taken off, and I was told to go for a scan and then go home. “How long will it be?” I asked. “Oh, it could be days yet,” was the reply I got. I couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst into tears, I really couldn’t cope with this pain for days. As we walked out, with me crying my eyes out, I heard, “Beth, what’s wrong?” I turned and saw my mother’s concerned face and could barely get the words out, so we just walked to the ultrasound department, stopping every couple of minutes because of the pain.
While in the waiting room, surrounded by women coming in for their first antenatal appointment, I started to panic. The pain was so intense I just couldn’t cope. “Oh, lovely, what’s wrong?” a midwife walked over to us, and took us into one of the rooms. We explained and she put her hand on my bump and calmed me down, “You’re scaring all these women off,” she laughed. Minutes later, my name was called and we went through for my scan at 12.16pm. I’ll always remember D, I’d seen her a few times throughout the pregnancy, and she was absolutely fantastic. She scanned me, and felt the contractions through my bump herself and suggested we didn’t go home, as it definitely wouldn’t be days. “Let’s go outside, and we can call M,” Mam said. (M is my Godmother who delivered Little Man when in remission from breast cancer, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer.) The entire time Mam was on the phone to M, I felt the urge to push. I didn’t know what to do with myself, or how I was going to survive this.
As we weren’t going to leave the hospital, we went to the restaurant and I ate a cheese and tomato sandwich in between contractions which were lasting over 90 seconds and starting every 3 minutes. I couldn’t handle the pain so we went back to the labour ward and at 1.20pm I was examined and was 4cm, with membranes intact but I WAS IN LABOUR! I cried with relief then got excited as I knew it would be long.
Over in the delivery suite (which wasn’t as mad a rush as the first time), I was fitted with a canular, had oodles of blood taken and was put on an antibiotic drip as I had a high temperature. My ideas of a mobile labour had gone out of the window. I eventually gave in to gas and air around 2.30pm and immediately turned into a silly billy. “I didn’t have a shower this morning,” I moaned, making everyone in the room laugh. I had 2 fully qualified midwives, and a lovely student who made me feel completely at ease with their chatter and laughter in the background. My waters still hadn’t gone and that was a talking point with the midwives and they all stood out of the way, just in case.
By 2.45pm, I was pushing with no control over it and no breaks in between contractions, as quickly as one was finishing another was starting. It was agony. “I’m pooing, I’m gonna poooo.” That feeling had got me again. I was determind I knew what it felt like, but obviously not.
I’d had enough by 3.15pm. “Mam, I want it over. I want Pethidine. I want a section. I just want it over, Mam, please?” I’d turned into a baby, and looked at the midwives wondering why the hell they hadn’t moved to get me what I wanted. “I want a section… Now” I cried.
“F, I think you ought to check how far she is? She could be doing damage by pushing.” One of the qualified said to the student. F gloved up, and examined me. “I think I can still feel a bit of the cervix.” She said, “Could you double check for me?” The qualified turned around to glove up, and another contraction tore through my body, “Oh, there’s the head, stop pushing…. little pushes.” As I ‘little pushed’ I looked down, and saw my baby land in F’s hands. Baby was placed on my stomach, and my first reaction was, “how small is my baby?”
It took me a while to realise I didn’t actually know whether I’d given birth to a boy or a girl. J cut the cord and we looked down together. A girl, a beautiful baby girl. I cried, Mam cried, J cried. It was amazing.
Then something happened I wish I’d filmed, she started rooting for the breast and all by herself, she found it. It was an incredible sight. Her first thought was booby and that was all she was interested in. Her first feed was a good 20 minutes long and at least an hour of skin to skin was amazing. Afterwards, we realised that again my waters had not gone, and there was none when Dot arrived. It’s another mystery. And I’d almost cut my labour time in half, being in established labour for just 2 hours 12 minutes. I was in love once again with the little human I’d just given birth to and at that moment nothing else mattered.
Dot
2nd December 2009
3.32pm
9lb 1oz"
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