2 weeks before Joseph was born, I started to feel some mild contractions on the Thursday evening. These continued through the night and into the morning. So, thinking that this was "it", Adam took the day off work on Friday ready to whisk me off to hospital once they became more intense and regular. The contractions died down, although they didn't disappear, but still, we felt a bit silly about Adam having the day off work.
On the Saturday, Adam's mum and step-dad came to visit and I didn't really feel anything while they were here, which was good job because if they'd known they'd have gone home. There were more contractions during the night, and again during the day on Sunday. Things continued in this vein, but, having had the false alarm on Friday, Adam reluctantly went into work on the Monday.
By Tuesday I was still feeling contractions that, although relatively mild, did appear to become regular, but then they'd eventually drop off, so I made myself an appointment to see the midwife. She checked me over and everything was fine. She reitterated that my body was warming up and preparing for labour, and that hopefully I'd be in for a relatively easy ride. She also told me that if things continued to ring the hospital and ask if I could go in to be monitored and examined, as an examination may stir things up a bit and get things moving.
By Thursday the contractions were starting to get stronger, and although still irregular, they were becoming more painful. On Monday I saw the midwife again for my routine appointment. As I wasn't yet overdue (hospital EDD has always been 24th June, but we've never believed it and always worked towards 16th) she was unable to give me a "sweep", but told me again that if the episodes continued to head to the hospital to be monitored and checked.
The contractions then started to get more painful and kept me awake most of Monday night, so at 6am on Tuesday we headed to the hospital. I was monitored for around 45 minutes, and at first glance they said it looked like the very early stage of labour. I requested an examination as I wanted to know what was going on. Unfortunately it showed that I wasn't dilated at all, and therefore not in labour. I was sent home feeling very small after being patronised by a fairly unpleasant midwife.
I went back to bed when I got home and was able to get about 3 hours sleep. I then went for a coffee and a moan with my friend from ante-natal classes, Sally, which helped to cheer me up.
The examination seemed to do something though, as I had a "show". The contractions remined irregular, but painful. They were pretty much too painful to bear when lying down (and sometimes sitting too) and I found the only way to cope with them was to remain active. This resulted in total lack of sleep, as there was never a period of more than 30 minutes without any pains. I spent most of the night pottering in the kitchen and reading standing up. Adam took Wednesday off work, and, believing this was finally it, I set about cleaning the house. It also gave me something to do to remain active.
At bedtime on Wednesday the pain was really bad, so I phoned the hospital. Again I spoke to a patronising midwife who told me it was all normal, to take paracetmol, have a bath and just ride it out. She also had the nerve to call my pains, "niggles"! Adam said I was too calm on the phone, and didn't get things across very well. Again, I spent the whole night pacing around downstairs, rocking my hips and reading standing up.
On Thursday I was feeling really bad and very sorry for myself, so cue yet another day off work for Adam. Unfortunately there was nothing left for me to do at home, so staying active was difficult. But we went for a really long walk, even getting a bit lost to extend it. By now I really was exhausted as I'd only had 3 hours sleep all week, and was feeling concerned that I wouldn't be able to cope with labour when it finally came and that I wouldn't be able to have the delivery that I wanted (as active as possible, water birth, gas and air, no intervention). So, after the football finished(!) on Thursday evening, I rang the hospital yet again, mainly hoping to get some pain relief to enable me to finally get some sleep. I guess my exhaustion and frustration must've come through over the phone, as I was immediately taken seriously and was told to go in without me explaining my circumstances at all.
We arrived at the hospital at around 10pm and I was put on the monitor for about an hour and a quarter. Despite the pattern of the contractions feeling pretty similar to me as before, albeit the pain being much greater, the resulting trace was very different. The midwife explained that it was very good/reassuring and showed that baby was very happy and healthy. She then examined me, and had a good root around, telling me that if I could bear the discomfort, she would explain what she had done afterwards. It turned out that as I still wasn't dilated, she had given me what she called a "really good sweep" and that I was now 3-4cm dilated. We both knew that she shouldn't have done it, as I still wasn't overdue, but she had checked my notes, knew my history and wanted to get things moving for me. I was just relieved that finally someone was taking me seriously.
She explained that I would now have a pretty heavy show, and that the contractions would get stronger, and asked us to go for a walk to try and get things going, which we did. We then returned to our cubicle on the assessment unit and I continued to pace. I encouraged Adam to rest, as I knew I'd need him later, but the chair was uncomfortable, and he was unable to relax seeing me in pain. Things then seemed to get pretty busy on the labour ward, with at least two women coming in for assessment and being moved on to delivery rooms.
At 3.30am, the midwife finally came back to us! She examined me again and I was now about 5cm dilated. She said she could really feel my waters, and felt that they were holding things up, and that if there was a delivery room free, she would break them. But there wasn't. She said one should be ready in about half an hour and that she would come back for us then. We assumed that one had just been vacated and just needed cleaning up.
Time ticked on, 4am came and went, as did 4.30am, and 5am. Then another lady on the assessment ward started screaming that she needed to push and we knew we'd lost our delivery room. By this point we were both shattered and falling asleep on each other between the increasingly painful and regular contractions. Adam wanted to chase things up, as by now I really could've done with some pain relief, but we knew there wasn't a lot that could be done. I was getting more anxious about the upcoming shift change. I knew from my previous visit that the night shift finished at 7.30am and a new team took over, and having finally found a midwife that wanted to help rather than patronise, I really didn't want to lose her.
Fortunatley at 6am, she finally returned, apologising profusely for the delay, and told us that there was finally a room for us, and we could move in. She told us that they'd delivered 7 babies that night plus a c-section. The hospital is small and they only have 6 delivery rooms! Once finally installed in our very own delivery room, the midwife attempted to break my waters. It was a real struggle and took around 10 minutes. She said they were really tough and would probably never have broken on their own. It was no wonder that things weren't progressing for me!
Everything is a bit hazy for me from this point onwards, due to the combination of the tiredness and gas and air! When the shift change happened, I was very relived to discover that I was being cared for by Nicola, a midwife from my own team, and she also happened to be my favourite and the one I've seen the most. Nicola was worried about my tiredness, and we decided that I would have some diamorphine, and that would hopefully enable me to get some rest. I was also put on a syntocinon drip at some point to try and speed things up as I was still dilating very slowly. Consequently I spent all of the time on the bed, as I was hooked up to drips, and was also being monitored quite a lot as well.
I'm not sure of timings, but I'm guessing at around 2pm, Nicola's shift finished, and my care was taken over by Jane, and a student midwife, Alanna, just as my monitor readings started to show some very early signs of the baby being in distress, and an examination showed that my dilation seems to have gone backwards from 7cm to 6cm. Initially it was decided that I would be left for another 2 hours and the situation re-evaluated then. But within 15 minutes the decision had been made that I would have an emergency caesarean. Nicola was still around and waved us off to surgery.
I think we were both pretty nervous, as we'd already discussed epidurals/spinals and were adamant that we didn't want one for a vaginal delivery as we just didn't like the idea of them. We went into surgery at about 3pm and I had a spinal, which was an odd feeling, as although numb, I still had sensation. I could feel tugging in my tummy, and at 3.21pm I heard my son cry for the first time and was so relieved. He was passed to Adam for a quick cuddle before being checked over and returned to his daddy. Our 10lb 2oz (4.6kg) baby boy was finally here and healthy.
It was another 30 minutes before I got my first cuddle, but it was worth the wait. I immediately fell in love with this dark haired, blue eyed boy.
