My birth story

Hello ladies,

Thought I would post my story for anyone that fancies reading it. Sorry it's a bit long.

It all started on 24th June when I went in to be induced. I was 12 days overdue and had 2 sweeps that had done nothing.

We arrived at the Hospital for 11am and were shown to a bed. I had all the usual checks done and then was left to wait for lunch before anything would happen. All the checks were fine so we just waited.

After having some quite horrible lunch, a midwife came back to put me on the monitor to check the babies heartbeat before the induction was started. She was a different midwife to the one that was actually looking after me and had literally just come to set me up on the monitor. The baby was fine and they said they would start the induction. However, she told us that visiting hours were now up and James (my hunny) was told he had to leave the ward. Cue some tears from me as I didn't expect to have to be left alone quite so soon.

About 15 minutes later, my actual midwife came to see me and told me that she would examine me and then use the pessary to induce me if needed. She asked where my husband had gone and when I told her that the other midwife had told him to leave, she said that it was incorrect and this wasn't the case for inducements! So, after a quick phone call James was on his way back (thankfully he had only decided to hang around the hospital).

The midwife examined me and said that I was 2cm dilated but that my cervix was quite a long way back. She said that the doctor would suggest that they just break my waters but she thought that this would be too painful for me so decided to give me the pessary and see what happened. The plan was that I would be examined again in 6 hours in the hope that I wouldn't need the second pessary. So, I was given the pessary at about 1.30pm and left to see what happened.

James and I decided to go for a walk around the hospital to see if it would help things along, so we sat outside in the sun for a bit and went to the coffee shop, etc to try and kill a bit of time. We then went back to the ward and read magazines and watched Wimbledon on the television. At about 3.30pm I started to get some slight niggles but had been told that induction can give you pains that don't do anything, so wasn't sure whether it was going to turn into anything.

By about 6.30pm the pains had become a lot stronger and were coming regularly every 8 minutes. I was in quite a lot of pain already and so spoke to the midwife and asked to be examined earlier as I wasn't due to be seen again until 7.30pm. The midwife put me on the monitor and said that she needed about 20 minutes good trace of the babies heartbeat to make sure the baby wasn't in distress. This bit was hell as being on the monitor and having to stay lying down was awful. I was just writhing around in pain and the strap kept falling off meaning the trace of the babies heartbeat was lost and meant I had to stay there longer! James was watching the contraction monitor and knew whether it was a bad one depending on how high the number went. My contractions were now coming every 2-3 minutes and I wasn't getting much of a break between them.

The midwife then examined me and I was still only 2cms dilated and my cervix hadn't moved. I was so disappointed as I was in quite a bit of pain but it wasn't doing anything. I wasn't even in active labour yet. The midwife said that she couldn't do anything for me and we would have to wait for my cervix to start doing something or for the contractions to stop. She suggested that I have a warm bath as this normally helps.

James ran the bath and I went to get in. It didn't really help with the pain a great deal and I spent most of the time getting in and out of the bath and running to the toilet (Sorry TMI). The midwife gave me some paracetamol that didn't help at all as the pain was so intense now. James spent most of the time rubbing my back, which really helped but I really didn't know how to deal with the pain at this point. We had asked the midwife for pain relief but she said she could only give me paracetamol as I wasn't technically in labour yet. That made me worry as I knew it must get a lot worse and I was already struggling!

I started getting down on all fours to get through each contraction and picked a point on the floor design to focus on. Throughout my pregnancy I had a student midwife following me and she happened to be coming on duty at 9pm, so came up to see me on the ward before starting her shift on the delivery suite. She really helped me as I had lost my positive attitude and my breathing was really shallow as I was beginning to panic a bit. She helped me slow my breathing down and made me believe I could get through it.

After she left, I felt a bit like I wanted to push. Although I was worried as I had diaorrhea and kept needing to go to the toilet so was worried I wouldn't know the difference. It wasn't long before I couldn't get up off the floor so told James that he needed to go and get someone. I had been in the bathroom for about an hour and no-one had been to see us (except my student midwife) so hubby suggested maybe we should try and go back to the bed as it was easy to ignore me where we were (despite me screaming in pain!) I really tried to do this but really couldn't get up off the floor so James went to get a midwife.

When the midwife arrived, she asked me if I wanted to push. I told her I did so she rushed to get me a wheelchair and after her and hubby had peeled me off the floor, they rushed me down to the delivery suite, where finally I was allowed some gas and air! I was examined and was 8cms! I kept being told off about the gas and air as I kept using it between contractions as got a bit carried away. It was my plan to use the birthing pool but someone was already using it and they said there wasn't enough time to put up the inflatable one.

I was having intense contractions for the next 50 minutes or so and was getting a really intense urge to push. I can't believe what a feeling it is and how difficult it is not to push. My waters went during this time, which worried me as I thought it was blood at the time.
The midwives kept talking to me throughout but I couldn't hear anything apart from my hubby talking to me. He was utterly fantastic and I really couldn't have done it without him. He was really calming and encouraging and kept rubbing my back all the way through. They had to put the jelly they use for scans on my back for hubby to use as a massage gel as my back was so red from where I wanted him to massage me harder and harder. (My lower back turned out to be the worst injury I got from the birth and that was from the massage. I was all bruised and grazed the next day!! It really helped at the time though).

I was examined again and fully dilated so the midwife told me I could start to push. After only 8 minutes and 3 contractions, our baby arrived and cried instantly. I was on my hands and knees during the labour so couldn't see our baby but could just hear the crying. We didn't know the sex so hubby went to check and told me it was a girl. I was utterly shocked at this as had been so convinced it was going to be a boy.

When I finally turned round and saw her, she was absolutely perfect and I was in love instantly. I was a bit shocked from the speed of the delivery as she was born 4 hours after I was examined and found to be 2cms. She also arrived with both her hands up above her head so I had a 2nd degree tear. The midwife said she had never seen a baby with both hands up before.

She was 7lbs 12ozs when born at 22.54hrs on 24/06/09. We called her Georgia Mae.

Well done if you are still reading. Overall, despite being induced I had a very positive birth experience and would do it all over again for my little girl.

From a very happy mummy, xxx