So I started to feel some weird tightening feelings across my belly during the day, and I was really struggling to wee- I was having to sort of lift the baby up so that urine would come out- I decidedly ignored these signs, HC was 10 days late and I had decided that he was saying in there forever, I went shopping with my Mum and said nothing to her. By dinner time I had noticed that the tightenings were becoming more regular, almost 30 mins apart, I mentioned this to The Man but continued as normal. When we went to bed at around 11pm they were definitely contractions and were too uncomfortable to sleep through so I got up at about midnight and told The Man that I was in labour but he was to get some sleep and I would wake him when I needed to.
I went to get a towel to sit on in case my waters broke on the new sofa, I felt them go on the way back to the chair but was able to hold them in (I believe that my waters did not fully break as they came in fits and spurts not a huge gush) until I got to the loo where I passed the good old mucus plug. I then rang the labour ward of my local hospital and told them the story, the midwife felt that I was probably in labour "Well you are 10 days overdue, so it is likely to happen at some point!", and advised to come in when the contractions were 5 mins apart and the pain was too much to bear. So I took some paracetamol, opened my contraction timer app, put on a documentary I had recorded about the Nazis and finished writing my Xmas cards.
As each contraction came I breathed deeply, stood up/ leant on the back of the chair and rolled my hips until they had passed, thinking "This is one less contraction until I meet my baby, I will not have it again and this will not last forever". By 4.30am things were getting more uncomfortable so I took more paracetamol and ran a bath- this woke The Man so I updated him and told him to get dressed After my bath, contractions were regularly 5 mins apart and pretty painful so I rang the ward to say we were coming in. I got dressed- why I didn't just put pajamas on I shall never know, I'm pretty sure I was a bit delirious!
The drive in was the worst part- during contractions your tail bone is moved backwards which is why people in labour often don't want to be sat down or lying on their backs. I felt nauseous and hot, but we made the half hour journey safely. We arrived at approx. 6am, just before handover from day to night staff so the admitting midwife wasn't keen to do a vaginal exam as the morning shift would only need to do it again soon. I requested gas & air and after a minor disagreement about a TENS machine (I didn't believe it would help, she thought I should try,.. I didn't have it!) I got the Entonox- it is very weird, it is like you are drunk- you can still feel the pain but it's like it's not yours or you are too distracted to focus on it. I needed to be on the bed when using it as I felt like I'd fall over! I had a massive hospital bag packed but all I really wanted was my lip balm and silence- The Man put the radio on for about 30 seconds before getting The Look...
By this point the contractions felt almost constant and were very intense. They wanted a urine sample which I couldn't produce as it felt like I would push the baby out! While I was in the bathroom the morning midwife came in and was chatting to The Man, I heard her say "Don't worry, we'll check her now but she's probably only 4cm dilated" I was nearly suicidal- if it was this painful at 4cm I would not cope with another 6cm! I went out and had this conversation:
"I need an epidural."
"Let me just check you first..."
"Go and get the anesthetist- it's Sunday, there'll only be one on. And on the way back bring the pethadine"
"Will you just let me check you first?"
"Fine"
So I hobbled onto the bed between contractions. They couldn't get a trace on the fetal monitor - I think due to my fat belly and the baby being so low, but at the time they thought he was back to back (essentially when the baby is the wrong way round and your spines are pushing together making contractions very painful and labour longer as the pointy bit of the head isn't pressing on and opening the cervix) I had heard stories- and demanded a C.Section! The midwife reassured me and got the monitoring lead that attaches to the babies head, while placing this she also performed a vaginal exam: "Oh! You're fully dilated...I'll be right back!"
She came back with the senior midwife - standard practice I believe- and told me I could push when I felt like I needed to. As soon as I knew I was fully dilated my whole perception of the pain changed- it is meant to hurt when you are squeezing out a baby so lets get on with this, it's perfectly normal!. I was determined this baby was coming out, I was done with all this! After the first contraction that I pushed I said to The Man "It hurts!" and the senior midwife said "Well you are having a baby!", but I was too delirious to care, I even think it is pretty funny now! After the second one I was convinced that he was never coming out, so on the third I really went for it and HC slid out all in one go- I
should have stopped once the head was out but I didn't think about that and had a lovely tear- that'll learn me to listen to instructions!!!
Our beautiful slimey baby was born at 9.10am and put on my chest and we cuddled for a long time while they stitched me up- it was a bit of an ordeal, worse than the labour actually. But they'd given me back the Entonox which I'd thrown away in disgust when the midwife had said that it makes it harder to push! The Man went to ring family, my Mum had wanted to be there but I didn't want to wake her until we knew how far along I was and by the time we did it was too late! I reckon I had about 9 hours of proper labour, only 3 in hospital and just 20 mins of pushing, which I think is pretty good going for a first baby- maybe I'll do it again!
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