I was so nervous for Lewis' birth, obviously with him being my first baby I had no idea what to expect - fear of the unknown! I was given an appointment to see my consultant at 38 weeks, having Gestational Diabetes I was seeing my midwife and consultant bi-weekly to keep an eye on my blood sugar readings and babies growth. I had my last growth scan at this appointment, 10 days before my due date, where they told me baby was measuring around 9 and a half pounds and I was looking at giving birth to a baby weighing 10lbs. Yikes. I was booked in for two days later to attempt a membrane stretch and sweep and given our induction date! I was to go to the induction ward for 8am on the 4th March (39+3 gestation)
I attended my sweep, the consultant said my cervix was quite unfavourable but he gave it a go anyway! Later that evening I lost my bloody mucus plug, I wasn't experiencing any pains or twinges so over the course of the weekend I kept rolling my hips around and bouncing on my yoga ball. I ate a spicy dinner on the Saturday night and by Sunday evening I was exhausted after having a nice, long walk around our local area. I went up to my Mother-in-Law's house & told Darren I was giving up in my efforts to try and make this baby appear on his own, in order to avoid induction. On the walk home I started to experience a little dull back ache.
I didn't think much of the pains in my lower back, as they weren't super painful and I just thought I had maybe over-done it. I went to bed that night as normal, with plans to finalise the nursery and make sure the house was all in order & I had plenty of rest over the next few days before the tasks of labour.
I woke up around 1am with mild period pains, the pain in my back was more constant now also. I fell in and out of light sleep for the rest of the night until around 5.30am when the pains seemed to be coming on and off. I had no idea if these were contractions or not, as they didn't feel tight and my stomach wasn't going hard like I was told would happen. I started timing the pains in case - they were happening every 5-6 minutes lasting around 30-40 seconds. I got up and ran myself a warm bath at around 7am. By 9am the pains were coming every 2-3 minutes lasting around a minute each. I woke Darren for the millionth time around 10am (oh the good old days before kids!) and told him to call into work - I think the baby is on it's way!
We called the Maternity hospital at around 11am and they told me to gather my things together and make my way up since the pains were so close together. We arrived around a half-hour later where a midwife examined me and hooked me up to a monitor to keep an eye on the babies heart rate and the contractions intensity & frequency. I was coping just fine on my yoga ball at home and had one dose of paracetamol. I remember thinking to myself "hey, this really isn't all that bad, I got this, I can handle this!" Oh how wrong I was!
The midwife told me I was only about 2cm dilated but my cervix was soft and thin, so I was getting on my way to being fully-effaced then it was just a case of my cervix fully-dilating! My waters were full and bulging so she didn't want to send me back home again. Instead, I was given a bed in the ward upstairs where they could help monitor my blood sugars while things slowly progressed.
Around 4pm I was in a lot of pain & getting really tired. A midwife examined me and said I was 4-5cm so I could go down to the labour ward. That half hour or so was the longest of my life, waiting for a bed to become free for me to go down!
I started on gas & air straight away, which helped temporarily. My mind set was just not in a good place any more as I was so exhausted. I was in tears, throwing up, falling asleep between contractions and squealing in pain with my lower back! The midwife offered me some pethidine which I accepted. It made me black-out and I have huge blank patches in my memory from this point on. I had said many times I wanted an epidural so I was on the 'waiting list' for this as the anesthetist was in surgery at the time. They kept losing the trace of the babies heart, so my waters were broken for a clip to be fitted to his head.
Things got really intense after this! I had immense pressure but they had only checked me about an hour previous and I was only 6cm dilated. I was screaming at the poor student midwife to help me, I convinced myself I was dying and started the famous "I can't do it any more" lines and moo-ing like a cow. They say these are signs your labour is nearing to an end and high probability that it's time to push! The consultant came in and checked my cervix, he said I was 9cm so if my body was ready to push I could.
It is amazing how your body just takes control and seems to know what it's supposed to be doing - I was too busy screaming to listen to it though and tried to fight against it. This is the worst thing I could have done. 1 hour and 40 minutes of 'pushing' later the midwives began to talk of giving me an episiotomy - NUH UH I thought as I had written in my birth plan that I was open to whatever had to be done and what I wanted but I would rather a natural tear than a cut. (Faster healing, less chances of infection etc) I then began to push hell-for-leather and Lewis came out facing towards my left thigh and all in one contraction resulting in a very nasty 3rd Degree tear! Not pleasant in the slightest.
Lewis was born at 0101am on the 4th of March (induction day!) weighing a very healthy - yet smaller than predicted - 9lbs 1oz. He was perfectly healthy albeit sporting a hefty cone-head! I had a little skin-to-skin bonding while the midwives took care of the afterbirth. Darren kept telling me not to look down, and keep looking at him and the baby. He was chalk-white so I knew something was wrong. My eyes flickered briefly downwards and all I could see was RED. Everywhere - the bed, the floor, me, the midwives. I was then rushed down to surgery where it took them 7 attempts to get the spinal block into the right place, luckily the last attempt before they were going to put me under general anesthetic. I had several stitches in my perineum and the muscle wall in my back passage stitched also.
I arrived in recovery to be reunited with my new baby at around 5.30am. We had some more skin-to-skin & I had my tea & toast. Darren headed home for some sleep & I was taken up to a ward. I felt horrendous. No sleep in about 30 hours, a stressful labour, surgery, huge blood-loss and half-numb still from the spinal I was then told I had to get into a shower! I was grateful afterwards when I was back in bed in clean sheets, free from all the blood & whatever else I was covered in! Lewis slept brilliantly & I was able to nap on and off throughout the day in between visitors. I had a settled night with Lewis, though I was up regularly changing him as he was very sicky!
Once home, my recovery was very long, painful & a bit of a blur in the early weeks. I ended up back in hospital at the weekend with an infection that lasted weeks. I flitted between painful constipation & horrendous diarrhoea. I was in a lot of pain & severely dehydrated as I was scared to urinate as it stung so bad! Lewis was very jaundiced & sleepy so feeding him was a struggle. He just wasn't interested in his bottles, so he became dehydrated too and he couldn't flush out his jaundice. I was hit with the worst Baby Blues going through such a hard time in my recovery & taking huge criticism from family members that I just couldn't shrug off - being made to feel like a bad mum as I wasn't breastfeeding or conforming to their own parenting ways. Looking back later on, I realised this was actually Post Natal Depression that I ended up denying for the best part of around 8 or 9 months before I began medication & my road to recovery.
I had a very challenging pregnancy, a traumatising delivery, post-birth surgery, bad infections, a horrendous recovery that was one of the most difficult things I've ever been through in my life & a bad start out to Motherhood. It was all not at all what I had expected, everything that could go wrong did. It was all so much harder than I thought it would be! But I had a healthy and happy little boy that was thriving under my care, he kept me going and it was amazing seeing him learning and growing every day! Even now, seeing the amazing young man he is turning into - I am constantly praised on how well behaved he is, how polite and well-mannered he is and how gorgeous he is! He is my little shining star, my first love, the one who made me a Mummy and for him I will be forever thankful.
I always thought I'd have loads of kids, but after this I was so scared of a repeat of all that I had experienced with Lewis, that it totally put me off. I thought we would have an only-child forever, but then forever changed... Stay tuned for the story of my second baby.
