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My birth story

This is written more for me as a reminder, and I'm not very eloquent I'm afraid...

Tuesday 7th Jan. 40+5
1st sweep with the midwife. Had a bishops score of 5, cervix soft, baby 3/5 engaged but cervix posterior and not dilated. Booked in for an induction on Thursday 16th (40+14) told I could go to a walk in centre on Monday 13th for a 2nd sweep.

Sunday 12th Jan 40+10
Walking round the shops and feel my first mild contraction, definitely different to Braxton Hicks. Throughout the rest of the day the contractions settle about 30 mins apart and strong enough to not let me sleep at night.

Monday 13th Jan 40+11
Contractions shorten to every 15 mins but then go back to 20 mins. Go to the walk in centre for a sweep. My blood pressure is normally really low, but they took bp and refused the sweep, sent me straight to the maternity assessment centre at hospital as my bp was very high, for me. Told to get my bags on route as I'll probably be induced. Get my head round it all, trundle off and get hooked up to monitors and trace for hours. Bp starts to come down and I'm sent home. Told to visit midwife tomorrow and back to hospital on Wednesday. Contractions have shortened to every 10 mins, throughout the night they get to 4 mins apart, but then drop back to 15.

Tuesday 14th Jan 40+12
Bp still high, but starts to lower with monitoring. Contractions still shortening to 4 mins apart, stay like that for an hour or so, but then go back to 10 mins apart. Properly exhausted by thus point.

Wednesday 15th Jan 40+13
Back at hospital, contractions still doing the same. Bp still going high then coming down. Beg to be induced but told no, I need to stick to my original booking tomorrow!

Thursday 16th 40+14
Phone hospital at 7:30 am, told they are too busy and to phone back in an hour, we do and they are still busy, and they will ring us. Lunchtime, we get the call to go in, yay! Hooked up to trace and monitor on the induction ward, contractions still at 4/5 mins, can't get to the magic 3 in 10 mins. I'm pretty much just left for the rest of the day. At 10pm, we have to ask what's happening. Eventually someone comes and takes me to a delivery room. I'm told they'll try and break my waters, but 4 attempts at it and they still weren't sure whether they had gone or not.

Friday 17th Jan 12:01 am 40+15
I'm given pethidine which is sweet relief, however, it doesn't stop me feeling the contractions burning through hips and thighs thanks to SPD. I'm told that as I'm now 15 days over I cannot be in the midwife led unit and I'm wheeled through to the consultant led side :-(
It all gets blurry for me here, but I'm given gas and air, but it makes me sick. Diamorphine at some point and then I'm begging for an epidural. As they are so busy with emergencies I still haven't had the epidural 5 hours later. Whilst being monitored, H notices that babies heart rate keeps dropping so calls someone in and at some point it keeps dropping to 30bpm. I'm examined and still only 4cm dilated, so they say the words - emergency c-section, which is music to my ears at this point.
I'm rushed to theatre, given my epidural and at 11:45am E makes it into the world. The section takes about 15 minutes and was a very positive experience for me. H says from being pretty out of it, I came round pretty much as soon as I was in theatre. The staff were amazing, helped us stay calm, brought E to H for first cuddles and helped me to breastfeed.

Apologies for the length of this story, but it's nice to try and remember what happened!

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