🚨 Advance warning 🚨 This forum will be closing on 1st May – please see our pinned thread for more information.
Options
Worried about next labour
Hi ladies
We are ttc our 2nd and ever since I had my first 17 months i've been owrrying about my first labour and what will happen next time. I ended up with an emcs and just have no idea what to do next time. I was wondering if I popped a bit of my bith story on here - people with maybe similar experiences could share? Thanks
I start regular contractions on the Monday - 4 days before my due date. They were only 12 mins apart by then though.
Tuesday - Stopped for an hour in the mornng then started again much closer and longer prob got 4 mins apart by end of day.
Wednesday - Stopped for an hourish overnight then got to every 2-3 minutes lasting a minute or over. So went in to hospital - I was 1 cm dilated!!!!! Checked babys heartrate and it was too fast. My contractions pretty muh stopped as this point apart from the odd one. They ummed and ahhed for ages (i had dr after dr and consultant after consultant come in) and they decided for the emcs. Baby was fine when they got him out and he was born on his due date in the early hours of Thursday morning.
THe thing that worries me is that I was having contractions for 3 days and only got to 1cm. . . .is that normal??? My friend the other day was given a sweep as she was overdue and mw said she was already 2cm and wasn't even in labour!!
Has anyone expereicned this and gone on to have a normal birth? Thanks ladies - I always wish I had asked this quesiton at the time, but I gues its too late now!
We are ttc our 2nd and ever since I had my first 17 months i've been owrrying about my first labour and what will happen next time. I ended up with an emcs and just have no idea what to do next time. I was wondering if I popped a bit of my bith story on here - people with maybe similar experiences could share? Thanks
I start regular contractions on the Monday - 4 days before my due date. They were only 12 mins apart by then though.
Tuesday - Stopped for an hour in the mornng then started again much closer and longer prob got 4 mins apart by end of day.
Wednesday - Stopped for an hourish overnight then got to every 2-3 minutes lasting a minute or over. So went in to hospital - I was 1 cm dilated!!!!! Checked babys heartrate and it was too fast. My contractions pretty muh stopped as this point apart from the odd one. They ummed and ahhed for ages (i had dr after dr and consultant after consultant come in) and they decided for the emcs. Baby was fine when they got him out and he was born on his due date in the early hours of Thursday morning.
THe thing that worries me is that I was having contractions for 3 days and only got to 1cm. . . .is that normal??? My friend the other day was given a sweep as she was overdue and mw said she was already 2cm and wasn't even in labour!!
Has anyone expereicned this and gone on to have a normal birth? Thanks ladies - I always wish I had asked this quesiton at the time, but I gues its too late now!
0
Replies
did they offer anything to speed up the dilation like they do for inductions?
its so hard to know as not all labours follow the same path.
They didn't offer anything to speed it up because by time I went in to hospital baby was already in distress.
The hospital I went to has actual shut now!! So I think I will have to just wait and speak to the consultant when I do manage to get pg!
Thanks again ladies
Like you - I wasn't nervous before my first labour at all. In fact - I was totally ready and prepared!! But now I feel terrified at the idea of going through it again lol!!
I am sure I will feel better once I have spoken to a professional about it.
Thanks for your reply x
I started with pains on the evening of 18th august, they went off at bedtime but came back 4am. On the 19th they went off for a couple of hours in the morning so went to bed for two hours. That was the last time i slept. By 7am on the 20th i was exhausted. They were still only 5-7 minutely but i hadnt sat down for almost 24 hours. Everytime i tried a had a whacking pain and lying down was worse! I got to hospital by 8am (so had been having pains for most of 36 hours) - my cervix was half a cm. I was destroyed as i knew how long i had to go and was running on nothing. They gave me a good sweep and advised me to go home, paracetmaol bath and sleep (lol - i knew this was impossible) Had the paracetamol and bath, got in bed, kept drifting off between pains as was so exhausted and then at 10am was hit by one so strong i leapt from the bed into the air!! there was blood and water everywhere - my waters had gone - the pains were instantly one every single minute and unbarable. I was so frightened and would have sold a kidney to get out of it! I remember racing round the room trying to find a way to get out of the next one coming...which makes no sense but i was really scared. The hospital said no point coming back, to try a bath again, i couldnt even speak to them - so my OH did. I got in the bath but honestly, i was hysterical, and wasnt really fair on my OH. I remember telling him i needed to go to hospital for an epidural, when he said you arent in established labour so you wont get one i didnt care i just needed to get there.
I got there at 1pm (i dont know what happened to the time between waters going and getting there, its all a blur, my oh says he got me to stay at home for a bit but in retrospect it was like being really drunk, i cant remember any of it) i was 3-4cm and was given gas and air and they wrote in my notes not in established labour (i read this afterwards). At the time all i could do was try and survive each one - it was awful to know it wasnt even labour - although the gas and air did help a bit. I told them i needed an epidural as soon as possible! They told me my LO's head was OP (looking up instead of down) this was the reason my body had been contracting so long with so little effect on my cervix. My baby was 8 pounds 13, im only little so he couldnt get in the right position and had to be born by ventouse...so his size and position all contributed to an agnonising wait for labour. By 4pm on the 20th i had the epidural, was examined at 4.30pm and was finally 4cm - extablished labour. this was nearly 48 hours from the start of the pains.
He wasnt born until 0318 on the 21st, my epidural didnt work and had to be recited but by 1900 i was out of pain at least. I was exhausted and keytotic (body burning fat due to being low on energy) I wanted a water birth but honestly ill never regret that epidural in view of the complications.
My ds was born by ventouse due to his size and postion and sadly he had a neck injury, i also had a wicked episiotomy that left me black and swollen! I puffed up from all the fluid and the pair of us felt pretty rough, so id love to avoid an epidural and assisted birth next time. However, the midwives told me that no one copes very well with labour once they've had such a long and difficult latent phase (the bit before labour) and that where that happens its best to be realistic - if i faced this again id probably go for another epidural, i didnt see that i had a choice. The good news is that as others have said long latent phases often occur for first time mums, and this happens less often second time, your body gets more efficient!
It is reassuring to hear that so many of you have been told that the long latent phase often doesn't repeat itself in the net labour.
Right - just got to get pregnant now lol!!