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I had had two weeks of pre-labour before the real thing and was getting very tired and demoralised by waking every night and having a run of Braxton-Hicks contractions, wondering whether it would be the start, and then waking in the morning with no baby! The day before I went into labour (40+5) I had quite a few much more painful Braxton-Hicks contractions during the day, that caused me to have a very sharp and sudden pain quite high in my back. I also felt a bit strange and ‘icky’ for most of the day.
I woke up at 4.30am on Monday to go to the toilet (as usual!) and remembered having a dream during which I’d had a contraction (in my dream) and that it had hurt my lower back and I’d had to lean over a table to ease the pain. The same thing happened at 5.30am and at 6.00am, at which point I had woken up enough to stay awake. I then realised that I was actually having regular-ish pains (all across my lower back) about 8-10 minutes apart. I woke up Sven at 6.30 and, although in my head I thought to myself that it was yet another ‘trial run’, something in my sub-conscious made me ring my mum and ask her to come over and to ring the midwife and to ask Sven to start neatening the house a little. It took him rather a long time though as I kept having to call him to rub my back! By 7.00am my contractions were 5 mins apart and getting more and more painful. The midwife and Mum arrived at the same time, about 7.30 and my contractions were then 3-4 minutes apart and really taking my breath away. I had my TENS machine on, but I think that, because most of my first contractions had been while I was asleep, I didn’t have much time to get used to it and it wasn’t very effective. The midwife explained that as I was so early on in my labour, she would leave me at 9.30am when the midwife on call and a student for that day would come. I had been walking around the whole time so far and leaning against Sven during the contractions, eventually discarding the TENS and relying on Sven rubbing my back or holding the bottom of my bump where the contractions were becoming strong as well by this point.
At about 8.30 I asked the midwife to examine me so that I had some idea how long it would be before I could get in the pool. I was 2-3cm already and (although I thought I had to wait until I was 5 cm dilated), the midwife said it would be ok to use the pool. I got in and felt instant relief. Mum and Sven knelt in front of me encouraging me while I knelt with my hands gripping the side of the pool. I began to get quite hot and Sven sprayed me with the evian spray between contractions and fed me an ice-lolly. The contractions were still mainly causing me backache as well as pains low down in my bump – it felt like a big elastic band tightening up. I was surprised by the lack of pain in between contractions though. I was also sick at some point when I was in the pool, into a bucket lovingly held by Sven!
The new midwife (A) and a student arrived at about 10ish I think. After the first midwife had left, A took my temperature as she thought I looked quite hot (I did feel hot) and it was 37.3 so she asked me to get out of the pool for a while – she also thought I had been advised to get in it too early and she wanted to see if she could speed things up a bit. I agreed, as I was so hot, and asked Sven to turn the heater off for a bit so that the pool could cool down a little for when I got back in. A persuaded me to go upstairs to try to pee and brought the Entonox up with me and helped me use it. I sat on the loo for ages and didn’t manage to pee but my Mum told me later that A had said she wasn’t bothered whether I peed or not, she had just wanted me to walk up and down stairs and to change position a few times! I came down and sort of knelt on the sofa with the Entonox and Sven and A rubbing my back during contractions. I was sick once more and A decided to examine me again – I was 4-5cm so she decided I could get back in the pool.
The pool did help the pain a lot, but I quickly became quite distressed and upset. I started to feel I couldn’t cope, the contractions were coming very close together and they were double peaked, the second peak being twice as painful as the first. This meant that every time I began to relax as one contraction wore off, another, much worse one took over. I was also using the Entonox very inefficiently. I was taking three or four deep but fairly fast breaths as the contractions began. This would then make me feel very dizzy and I would stop using it for the rest of the contraction, which meant that the pain wasn’t being at all controlled. In retrospect, I also think that subconsciously I was feeling quite alone in the pool even though Mum, Sven and one of the midwives were always in front of me, encouraging me and rubbing my back. I was getting very upset and saying that I wanted to go to hospital for an epidural – I really did feel that if I was only 5cm dilated and couldn’t cope at this point, that I would be nearly dead by the time I got to 10cm! I felt terrified and lonely and angry that everyone was trying to make me stay at home. Mum and A kept saying how I wouldn’t like the ambulance journey, and I kept saying that I had to go in that minute then, so that it wouldn’t be so bad. In the end, A persuaded me to stay in the pool for one more hour, then she would examine me and we could decide what to do. I agreed to this, and did begin to calm down at this point.
I eventually found that I’d got the hang of the Entonox, breathing long, slow, even breaths in and out and focussing on a point in front of me. Sven was in the pool with me and I was hanging on round his neck. His poor leg got squeezed really tightly during each contraction! Mum and the student were helping me with the gas and air and to focus my energies during each contraction. I found I was coping much, much better and actually began to ‘enjoy’ the labour (if that’s at all possible! ), whereas before I’d thought I would never be able to cope and would die before I got anywhere near actually giving birth. After the hour was up, A asked me to turn onto my back so she could examine me again and was surprised to announce that I was 8-9cm dilated! She couldn’t believe it, and neither could I, and it gave me a huge boost of encouragement. She actually told me later that she had lied to me about the time and had examined me an hour and fifteen minutes later as she had wanted me to get as far as possible! She called the second midwife (B) who arrived at about 3.00pm.
At 3.30pm I felt like I needed to poo, but it was such a small urge, I didn’t think that it was the urge to push. However, I suddenly started to scream on each out-breath I made during the next contraction, which I hadn’t been doing up until now, and, when I looked in my notes later, the midwives had written that I was involuntarily pushing. Mum also told me later that it was very clear that I was pushing, as my whole body moved back with each contraction. I had no idea I was pushing though. A asked me if she could examine me again so, with Sven’s help, I flipped over onto my back after that first ‘scream’ contraction for her to examine me. She said that I had an anterior lip and if I could avoid pushing it would be good – but I didn’t know how to not push, if you see what I mean! She asked if she could stay examining me during the next contraction and I agreed – the next contraction caused my waters to break (3.33pm) and she said she could feel the head coming down. I flipped back over onto all fours half way through that contraction and tried not to push. During the next contraction I put my hand down to see if I could feel the head as I had seen several births and wanted to be able to visualise what was happening. After three pushes (during that contraction), I felt the head come out and told the midwives that the head was born. They were surprised and rushed to get a mirror to see if they could see what was going on. Sven wanted to catch the baby so I told him, at that point, to move round so he could be in the right place. He was so lovely and asked me if I was sure I didn’t want him to stay cuddling me, even though I knew he really wanted to catch Rosie! I told him that Mum was there for me to grab hold of. After just one push during the next contraction, Rosie was born (3.35pm)! I flipped over and Sven handed her to me – I couldn’t believe she was here!
All the time I was holding Rosie, the midwives were telling me to be careful as the cord was going under my leg and they were worried it would snap, so after Sven had checked that she was a girl, I handed her back to him and carefully climbed over the cord. He gave her back to me to carry as the midwives and Mum helped me out of the pool and onto the sofa to deliver the placenta. I chose not to have the injection so the placenta arrived 25 minutes later.
After all the usual checks and weighs etc. I went upstairs with the midwives so they could check my perineum. I unfortunately had sustained a third degree tear (although I hadn’t felt it tear at all) and needed to go into hospital so that it could be stitched under a spinal anaesthetic. They told me that it was so crucial that a third degree tear is stitched as carefully as possible in order to prevent faecal incontinence! Needless to say, I agreed entirely So I had to spend a night in hospital after all! They wanted me to stay in longer, but my community midwife happened to come in to the ward while I was there and she said she’d go and speak to the registrar about letting me home and he agreed, so I got to settle into life with our new family at home earlier than expected.
To summarise: First stage – 8 hours. Second stage – 5 minutes. Third stage – 25 minutes. Analgesia – TENS, water and Entonox. Physiological third stage. Third degree tear sutured under spinal anaesthetic in hospital. I hope this story is interesting to some of you, and that you managed to get this far, although I don’t blame you if you didn’t!