We arrived at the birth centre at 5:00 pm on 06.06.2014 to start gels as we only had 2 days left of being able to deliver at the birth centre instead of the labour ward. Throughout our entire pregnancy we had gone through the birth centre and we honestly felt at home there and desperately wanted to deliver there, so that’s one of the reasons why we chose to go through with gels.
After the gels had been on, I got cramps and back pain. Thinking back on it now, I can’t even remember how painful they were, but I remember that at the time I thought they were pretty rubbish. The pains continued until 12:00 am where I was checked and found out that I hadn’t made any progress, so they put a second lot of gels in.
Within an hour and a half labour had began. My contractions were 3 minutes apart straight up and I found myself wishing that I hadn’t of gone through with the gels because things came on too strong, too fast. I tried to fight through the pain, I even sent Kody to go have a little nap to save his energy while I laboured alone. The midwife on duty wasn’t a birth centre midwife (who opt for natural approaches first and foremost) and she kept throwing around the idea of me getting pethidine. I was dead against getting pethidine; I just really didn’t like the idea of it whatsoever. However, as the pain got worse, I started to vomit from exhaustion and realised that I really needed to do something in order to get some rest. So at 5:30 am I was given a shot of pethidine and I managed to doze off for an hour. It took the edge off of contractions and made me drowsy but didn’t really help much with pain relief.
I woke up from very strong contractions and went to the bathroom to shower. All of my plug had come out and I experienced a small gush, which I honestly thought was pee but learnt that it was my waters. They continued to trickle out as time went on, but I barely noticed with the amount of mucus plug I had. As time went on, the pains got absolutely horrendous. I had my bloody show and the contractions were so intense and exhausting that once they had finished, I would fall asleep instantly. I was literally asleep while standing at times. The rest of my labour/ birth was like this; my body was honestly too tired to cope.
At 9:30 am, after finding out that I was only 2cm dialated, I decided to go through with another pethidine shot in hopes that it would allow me more time to rest like the first one had. It didn’t in the slightest. I was too far gone at this point. I don’t really remember much after that, as I was either moaning through the painful contractions or I was out of it. During this time Kody and my midwife were struggling to communicate with me and I can’t imagine how frustrating it would of been, especially for Kody. Regardless, he continued to be by my side, even though I was getting snappy and aggravated. At one point I even bit him, and he didn’t blink an eyelid.
By 11:00 am I had requested the epidural. Now, the birth centre don’t actually offer the epidural and I had to be moved to the labour ward. My midwife seemed so frustrated at me but remained supportive and set up a room in the labour ward for me. When I arrived at the room, I fell into my usual routine of contraction/sleep while my midwife was organising the epidural, a drip, etc. All of a sudden, I was pushing. Seeing as I wasn’t vocalising very well, I would occasionally moan “PUSHING”. At first my midwife seemed doubtful seeing as she had checked me not long before and I hadn’t made much process, but thankfully she checked me anyway. I was 7 cm, and she was absolutely stoked. I think that was when she realised that the reason why I wasn’t dealing very well was because my body was dealing with so much at one time.
Although I didn’t really know what was happening, Kody explained to me that I was too far along for an epidural now. I felt a ping of sadness because I knew that that meant no magical pain reliever that would answer all of my troubles, but at the same time I was relieved. We raced back into the birth centre room and I got in the bath where I slept about 75% of the time. I tried the gas, but pushed it away after a couple of sucks. It wasn’t what I needed or wanted. Every now and again I’d wake up with a contraction and with the urge to push. Not long after I decided to check where the baby was myself and was shocked to feel her head only a few cm’s away from the entrance of my vagina.
With each contraction, I pushed her down a little more. Kody and my midwife sat at the edge of the bath in silence while I concentrated. My aim was to push her little bit by little bit in order to give my vagina time to stretch. I really didn’t want to tear. I had great control over this, and would push her further when I needed to or I would just hold her head where it was if I felt that I needed more time to stretch. Just as the head was about to come out, my student midwife ran in the door and made it just in time! When I felt ready I did one last big push and Mae-Lee Naminé Wynter flew right out at 12:50 pm, weighing 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 51 cm long. Kody and my midwife both caught her and handed her to me. We did skin to skin for 20 minutes and then Kody clamped and cut the cord.
I then got out of the bath to deliver my placenta on the bed. Holy crap, that hurt. I did actually tear a tiny bit inside my vagina during birth so pushing my placenta out took time. I eventually got it out though, and then I had more skin to skin time with Mae-Lee where we attempted to breast feed. I then started having strong pains from the birth and had to go take a shower, where I realised that I was struggling with the blood loss that I was experiencing. Kody stayed with Mae-Lee the entire time and they immediately had a strong bond, so I felt comfortable taking some time to myself to recover.
It’s now 10:20 pm and I’m still in disbelief that I have a daughter. I don’t know how I’m going to manage to sleep, I just want to stare at her. Our breast feeding journey has started off a bit slow and it’s suspected that she may have tongue tie. She hasn’t had a really successful feed, but we’re getting there and we’ve been topping her up with expressed colostrum. We’re hoping to have an improvement by tomorrow, but you never know I guess.
Pictures and updates to come once we've caught our breath!
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