Forum home Pregnancy Labour & birth

My BS. From planned home birth to having hospital birth

Well thought I tell my birth story for anyone who wanted to read it.

I had a home water birth planned, I had been practising hypnobirthing techniques and also had a Tens machine and was happy to use gas & air if needed. I had had a few small isues during my pregnancy such as high BP and low iron levels but I had managed to control both and so was all on schedule for a hb.

On Monday I was 6 days overdue but had been having aa few signs that labour was on its way soon. By Monday night the period style pains I had been having for a few days had increased and were very strong so I took a couple of paracetamel and went to bed hoping to get some sleep and expecting to wake up at some point 'in labour' so to speak.

Before I had wven managed to get to sleep my waters broke at 1am. It gushed out - there was loads of it and so while I was in the shower dh phoned the labour ward to let them know. They told us we had to go in to have it confirmed lol, they could have come round with a mop and bucket to confirm it there was so much.

We got to hospital at about 2am and contractions had already started and were coming every few minutes already. The mw checked my pad and straight away said that there was meconium in my waters so we would have to stay and be monitored:cry:

My dh had to go back home again as we hadn't taken our bags with us as I expecting to go straight back home. While he was gone the mw strapped me up to the monitors but had trouble finding the baby's heartbeat as she kept moving so much. She helped me put he Tens machine on as the contractions were getting qute strong already and about ever 2-3 minutes. I was trying to keep off the bed and as active as I could which wasn't easy when you are attached to a machine, After a while she said as couldn't keep proper track of baby's heart beat that she would have to put a clip on her head. That was possibly one of the most painful things I have been through and as the baby wasn't quite far enough down the birth canal she couldn't even manage to do it. By then I was still only 2-3cms dilated.

The dr then came to check on us and said if I hadn't progressed significantly in the next two hours then they would have to put me on the drip to speed things up as they couldn't leave baby in there too long with the meconium. And unfortunately 2 hrs later I had only dilated another cm and so they said I had to go on drip and they were going to try and put clip on the baby's head again - I nearly actually cried when she said that and begged her not to but I started on the gas & air then and she managed to do it.

They also had a change of shift and I went from having a lovely mw to a very abrupt one who annoyed me straight away and had a new mw with her who she was training and so talking to her all the time and so totally distracting me - eventually I shouted at them to shut up so I could concentrate.

Anyway the drip was put in at about 9am and my god did it speed things up and the contractions became almost unbearable like nothing I had expected. Within about 30 mins I felt I was ready to push and so she told me to get on the bed so she could check, I could hardly move but with dh's help I managed to get on there only for her to say I was only 6-7cm. I got up on my knees and turned around so that I was leaning on the back of the bed as that was the only position that was remotely comfortable. Within what felt like only maybe 5 or 10 mins the desire to push was unbearable and I didn't think I could stop so she checked again and said I could and I pushed her out within about 4 or 5 contractions at 10.08 am. She weighed an impressive 9lbs 6.

I had originally wanted the baby to stay attached until the cord had stopped pulsating (usually about 3 mins) so that she could get the rest of the blood which can be up to a third and babies often miss out on when they cut the cord straight away. But she came out blue and floppy and not breathing so they had to cut the cord to take her to resus her. Luckily I was too out of at that point to realise what was happening but dh said after that she looked grey but they got her breathing pretty quickly.

I was also bleeding so they had to give me the injection to deliver the placenta so they could stop the bleeding. And I think at that point that I was in a little bit of shock and was just lying on the bed shivering and unable to move let alone push out the placenta but eventually with a little bit of pulling by the mw it came out in the end.

After about 10 mins or so and a drink of juice I had 'recovered' enough to sit up and give her a little cuddle and after a shower and something to eat we were moved to a semi-private room as the ante-natal ward was full, where we were totally left alone for the next 6 hrs! When I eventually went and found someone to see what time we might be able to go home I was told that we had to stay for 24hrs so Sasha could be monitored as the meconium could have damaged her lungs and so they had to keep an eye out for any breathing problemss! I told them in no uncertain terns that they hadn't done a very good job of monitoring her for the last 6 hrs and that I wasn't very happy that they hadn't said anything to me so that I could keep an eye on her breathing! She said to me as it was my 2nd baby they thought I would know if something was wrong to which I replied not if I was asleep as I didn't know I was supposed to.

Anyway she is fine and we went home the next day. I was talking to someone on the ward later and was told that they had been so busy that day they had had to close the department!

So totally not the birth that I had planned but we got the right result in the end, a beautiful healthy baby. :\)

Replies

  • glad it went well in the end, well done on such a big baby!!!!! glad Sasha is ok and you both got home fine. xxxx
  • Bless you sorry it didnt go the way you planned but you sounded liek you coped amazingly.Well dine and big congrats xxx
Sign In or Register to comment.

Featured Discussions