Chronicle {of my first labour}

Warning! This is a long read.

February 16, 2003 – 11ish O’clock at night

I am lying in bed when I hear this audible ‘pop’ and a sharp pain in the lower region of my belly. Thinking it is a bad case of gas, I lie and wait for the ‘emission’. After 2 minutes nothing has happened so I turn to settle into a more comfortable position when – wait, what’s that wet trickling between my legs? I reach down and feel gingerly – yes! It’s definitely wet, getting wetter by the second and showing no signs of slowing down either. I switch the lights on pronto and shake hubby awake saying at the same time ‘my waters have broken; I think my waters have broken’.
‘What waters?’ is the sleepy response.

The light finally dawns and he leaps out of bed – fairly calm- grabs his mobile phone and calls, after a bit of fumbling about with the numbers, our friend Boo and my Midwife. She asks if I am in any pain (yes), what time the waters broke (about 10 minutes ago), was I bleeding (yes, a little), how is the flow (heavy, I am lying in bed with a towel between my legs!). Fine sounds good she says (could have fooled me!!).

She tells hubby to tell me to go and have a shower and clean up, get ready and then go straight to the hospital. I do all this and shortly after Boo arrives and off we go.

Feburary 17, 2003 Midnight-ish – 3am

Arrive at the Hospital a little after midnight. I am put in one of the labour rooms and asked to change (would you like the hospital gown or did you bring something along?) into something ‘more comfortable’. So I change into my La Senza night shirt and a pair of warm socks and climb onto the bed where I am put in a ½ lying ½ sitting position, and hooked up to a machine which monitors my baby’s heart beat, my heartbeat and pulse rate, via two straps which are put around my belly and a finger clamp on my index finger. My blood pressure is also checked. The midwife palpates my belly (quite roughly) and examines me internally (even more roughly!!) and tells us that I am 3cm dilated. She would leave me on the monitor and come back and check on me in 30 minutes. She drapes me with a hospital blanket and leaves. I am still cold in spite of the blanket.

By this time the contractions are coming hard and I am in pain and hanging onto hubby’s hand for dear life and muttering ‘mummy, mummy’ (huh????). I keep telling him how much it hurts and he keeps stroking my head and saying ‘I know, I know sweetie’.

The midwife returns 30 minutes later, takes the straps off and inquires after the sort of pain relief I would like. Hubby and I look at each other for a second and opt for Gas and Air - with an epidural as a last resort.

She hooks up the Gas and Air machine and shows me how to use the inhaler bit and then hands it to me. I put it into my mouth and breathe deeply… nothing and then it hits. All I can say is this must be how drug addicts feel when they take their first hit. It is a very strange feeling. It doesn’t take the pain away but boy, does it make you feel high. I felt like I was floating and the pain was sort of in the background – like it was happening to someone else, not me. You hallucinate and just zonk out basically. The effect doesn’t last long though and wears off a few minutes after you stop inhaling. However, we become inseparable friends that inhaler and I.

About an hour (or more) later the midwife suggests that maybe I would like a warm bath as this would help relax me and ease the pain a bit. I gladly agree (anything to ease the pain) and off we go to the bathroom with hubby supporting me. The water is lovely and warm and does help the pain a little but not much. In between the breaks of pain, I chat with hubby but when the pain hits it is numbing and all I can do is moan.

It is at this point that my main midwife, D, arrives. She asks after my contractions, the pain and some other stuff which I cannot now remember. She also goes off to get my Gas and Air and soon I am high again. After about 30 minutes in the bath, I decide I have had enough and I am helped out, dried and dressed up again. I also decide that I need to wee – an attempt which takes absolutely ages. D leaves the tap running to help me along. Finally I do and we set off to the labour room, which D had swapped in the meantime for a smaller and much warmer one. She asks if I would prefer to lie on the bed or use ‘the chair’. Now, this chair is no ordinary chair. I will call it a birthing chair. It reclines and is soft and comfortable and just heaven. I settle in, clutching my inhaler for dear life and wait for the rest of the drama to unfold. I am so totally spaced out.

7:00am – 12:48pm

At 7:52 am, D examines me again. I am 7cm dilated. From experience, she explains, a woman dilates at the rate of approximately 1.5cm every hour and thinks that by 10:00am I should be having my baby. She then orders hubby off to go and have some breakfast in the hospital canteen.

At 10:00am D checks me again and this time I am fully dilated (10cm) and from this point forward it is action stations. Every contraction now is important and I am required to push with each one. I push and I push and I push …. By 12 noon still no baby. My contractions were are now happening further and further apart and I am getting higher and higher on my G & A and in la-la land.

By this time, the Consultant arrives and gives D a deadline of 1 hour to deliver me if not , she (the consultant) will give me a forceps delivery which D assured me in no uncertain terms, was a road I wouldn’t want to go down. So adamant was she that I wasn’t going to have a forceps delivery that she wouldn’t allow the consultant examine me and practically kicked her out of the delivery room.

By this time D had reached her limit with me. She put a catheter into my bladder to drain it ( in case this was one of the contributory factors for the baby not coming), turned me onto my side to encourage the contractions and see if I would be more willing to push – I wasn’t as the pain in this position was just unbelievable. Finally, with hubbys help, they both hurled me out of my comfortable chair because D said I had become too comfortable and lazy in that position and took away my G & A – this was the killer for me. I was put onto the bed with my legs in stirrups and given an ultimatum (in fact several)

1. If you don’t push with each contraction, you will be put on a drip which induces them; however, they will become 10 times more painful.
2. You can have your G & A back BUT you will have to lie on your side.
3. You cannot avoid the pain, so you can push hard now and deliver your baby. I believe you can do it.

I opt for number three.

The pain was horrendous!!! I pushed like I had never pushed before and suddenly I could hear hubby say ‘I can see the head. It has crowned’.

By now both D and hubby were yelling at me to PUUUUSSSSHHHHHHH PUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSHHHHHH YOU ARE ALMOST THERE – which I did and then D tells me to stop and just pant (the head was half way out by now) and then the head was out at 12:46pm. I was told not to push. A couple more pushes later and our darling daughter was born at 12:48pm. Hubby did the honours of cutting the umbilical cord. She was put on my chest straight away – gook and all – before being taken away to be cleaned.

About ½ hr later, I had a warm bath and was wheeled away to my recovery room.

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And to think I will be doing this all over again come June!!