Complicated birth, but positive BS!

On Friday 29th July at 40+5 weeks pregnant I went to my midwife's office to have a sweep. I had been completely engaged for quite a while and felt very miserable. My midwife told me I was already 1-2cm dilated and probably had been for a while. Obviously all of the pelvic pain and Braxton hicks I'd had had been doing something!! My midwife performed the sweep and said that she felt it had been successful because my cervix was thinning and she actually felt the baby's head! By the time hubby and I got home I felt damp, I went to the bathroom and there was a lot of fresh red blood. My midwife had told me that if I experienced fresh bleeding to call the hospital so I did and they asked me to come in to be checked. We weren't particularly worried - I assumed that because I was dilating it was just a sign that things were going to start happening but I wanted to get checked out just to be sure. Luckily my husband had insisted on putting my hospital bags in the car just in case. When we got to the hospital they put me on a monitor that listened to the baby's heartbeat, measured my contractions and my blood pressure. After an hour they noticed that I was having regular contractions that registered high on the monitor, but they weren't painful. The baby's heartbeat was strong so they said the bleeding wasn't anything to worry too much about but they were concerned about my blood pressure. All of the way through my pregnancy my blood pressure had been fairly high, usually the midwife had to check it twice because the first reading was always on the higher end of high, but we assumed this was because to get to her office I had to climb a steep flight of stairs. Usually by the time the exam was over it measured within normal ranges. Anyway, at this point I had two hours worth of high readings so they took some blood and said we would have to wait for the results. Me and hubby sat in the assessment centre in a private room with me all hooked up to the machine. After a couple of hours a midwife came back and told me that I had pregnancy induced hypertension and that the safest thing to do was get admit me, get me on medication and deliver the baby as soon as possible. At this point I was in complete shock - I had assumed I was worrying over nothing and now I had to stay in hospital. Even though I knew everything would be fine, and the complication wasn't an overly serious one I burst into tears the second the midwife left the room! I think I was in shock more than anything - I thought by going to the hospital in the first place I was over-reacting, but as it turned out it was the most sensible thing I could have done. Friday evening they admitted me to a ward and put me on tablets to lower my blood pressure. On Saturday morning in the early hours I had a huge bloody show - it was larger and more bloody than I expected, it literally came away in massive clumps over the course of a couple of hours and I had to wear a pad. The midwives didn't seem concerned about the show but I was monitored fairly closely. At about 8am I started to get regular contractions every five minutes. They felt like period cramps but didn't hurt too much. I was hooked up the machines again and it showed that I was starting to labour. Throughout the day the contractions started to get more and more painful and closer together. I felt them in my back as well as in my tummy and they were really strong. By 4pm they were coming every 90 seconds and I was starting to struggle a little bit. I was breathing through them okay but when they examined me they found that I was only four centimetres dilated. They also said that the baby was lying back to back which is why I was in so much pain. They took me to the delivery suite and told me that because I was only 4cm dilated it would still be several hours before I would be ready to deliver. The contractions started to come thick and fast with hardly a break between them. I was in so much pain but because of the hypertension I had to lie down and stay hooked up to the machine which seemed to make it more painful. I still wasn't dilating properly so I decided to have a mobile epidural and by 7.20pm I was almost pain free. I only had a low dose so I could move my legs and feet and could still feel my contractions, they just didn't hurt anywhere near as much. The doctor told me I could top my epidural up every half hour but I decided not to, I just topped it up ever y hour so that I didn't lose too much sensation. I have to say that the epidural was amazing. I had gone from stressing and struggling to calm and laughing within the space of about an hour. I have to say though, even though the back to back contractions were very painful, I never got to the point where I lost it and started screaming -One Born Every Minute' style. I cried and shook, but really tried to breathe through them. It was painful, but I would put the pain on a par with the time I had an abscess on my tooth, the thing that made it difficult was that it was constant and there was no rest. Anyway, after four more hours I had only dilated to 5cm so they decided to give me synthetic hormone to help me to dilate and make my contractions last longer. The hormone made my contractions much more painful - I could really feel them despite my epidural, so they increased the frequency that they topped me up to every half an hour. At this point it was about 11pm and both me and my hubby were knackered. We had a doze whilst the midwife took care of everything. I had turned on to my side to give the epidural a chance to work on both sides. At about 12.30 the midwife woke me because the baby's heart rate had dropped. She moved me onto my other side butbaby's heart rate didn't pick up and I started to get really scared. The doctor came in to check and informed me that the baby needed to be delivered. I was fully dilated so he told me to start pushing, but he would have a theatre on standby just in case. Luckily, within a few minutes of getting on to my back and starting to push the baby's heart rate settled back to normal. At this point I knew I needed to deliver the baby as soon as possible so I started pushing with the midwife coaching me through it. It was slightly more difficult to push because of the epidural because I needed to remember how to locate my muscles! However, when I started pushing I could feel pressure as the baby moved down. At this point my hubby was looking at me in complete wonderment, cheering me on and telling me I was doing well. I felt so calm and was really able to concentrate on everything that the midwife was telling me to do. I struggled a bit with the head, but the midwife was brilliant. After I had been pushing for an hour she told me I that if I continued to struggle she would have to call the doctor in to use forceps of a ventouse and she didn't want to do that because I had done so well on my own. I think, despite being exhausted, that was all the encouragement I needed to really bear down and get the baby out. I pushed as hard as I could and as the baby's head crowned the midwife was able to turn her so that I could deliver her properly. Seeing her head was amazing, then one more push and she popped straight out with a whoosh of warm water and let out the biggest scream! The midwife turned her over so my hubby could tell me the sex. He shouted out -we've got a girl!!!', the midwife put her on my chest and she pooed all over me! I cannot describe the feeling of watching your baby being born. It was just amazing; I just burst into huge sobs as she came out, as did my hubby. I held her on my chest whilst hubby cut the cord, but the placenta then got stuck so we had to wait a little while before I could get cleaned up. An hour and a half after I delivered I had breastfed for the first time and was on my feet and in the shower. After that me and my baby girl went to the ward for some sleep and hubby went home. In hindsight it was a very complicated birth, but at the time it just didn't feel that way. I think this was due to the amazing care I received from the staff at Leicester Royal Infirmary - I cannot even begin to describe how amazing everyone was, despite being rushed off their feet. Five days later I am still on a complete high. Despite the complications I actually consider my labour to have been easy because it was just so wonderful. I'm glad I had the epidural because it meant that I was able to remain so calm and collected all of the way through, it was a very peaceful experience in the end!

I think my biggest piece of advice for anyone about to give birth is this - think about what you would like to happen, but don't try and plan it. You really need to go with the flow and make the decisions regarding pain relief at the time. Listen to the midwives, thanks to my midwife I avoided a C-Section, ventouse/forceps intervention and I didn't tear. She coached me through it and I honestly believe that she is the reason that things went well when they could have gone bad so easily. Anyway, if you managed to get to the end of this epic post, well done!! Good luck to all of mummies to be.