How I Came To Be Doing What I’m Doing. Part 3

Part 1, Part 2

39w2d- I went in for a weekly check up with the doctors. I was having niggly contractions but nothing really painful, more like intense braxton hicks contractions.

I told the doctor that I thought the baby might be starting to come and he asked if I wanted him to check me and see how I was doing. I agreed. He had a med. student with him and I consented to let her do the internal. From the look on her face and the way she went about it, I think it may have been her first internal. Poor girl!
She couldn’t find my cervix so he stepped in and checked me. Owwwww! ( I was later told by the midwife that he had stripped my membranes to help get labour started)

He pronounced me 3cm dilated, but said that my cervix was still ‘very posterior’. He said he expected me to deliver that night.

I was excited! So was Nathan.

For the remainder of that day I had bloody show (from the stripping of the membranes) and vague crampy contractions. That night I went into the hospital to be checked again because I was having crampy contractions every 2mins. Unfortunately they checked me and sent me home, still 3cm dilated.

Days passed, then some more days. Deliver that night? I think not!

At 40w I developed a chest infection and a bad cold. I rang the hospital, because I couldn’t breathe and I didn’t have GP that I could go see. I got an ABSOLUTE COW on the other end of the phone, she was so condescending and then she badmouthed me to a colleague WHILE I WAS STILL ON THE PHONE!!!

I had a doctors appointment the next day at the hospital (40w 2d) and the very lovely doctor I saw sent me down to the assessment centre to have my oxygen levels checked. They prescribed me antibiotics and booked me in for an induction the following week. By this stage I was so sick and so tired and the damn baby looked like she was never going to make an appearance.

On the 5th September, the day before I was booked for my induction I went into labour. FINALLY

I woke up at 8am having a contraction. Nathan had been up all night (he was on holidays and still adjusting from working nights). He started to get undressed to go to bed and I told him that I thought getting undressed was a bad idea.

At 8.10am I had another contraction. I thought ‘Yay it’s starting!’ I got up and started to get dressed. At 8.12am (yes 2mins later) I had another contraction. From then on my contractions came every 2mins and lasted for 1min.

I rang the hospital at 8.20am and they told me to come straight in because I couldn’t talk through my contractions.

Nathan got out of bed (unhappily) and rang a taxi to take us to the hospital.

I got to the hospital at 9.10am still having contractions every 2mins. They hooked me up to the monitors and monitored me for 40mins. That was hard because I couldn’t move about to help ease the pain. Sometime while I was being assessed I heard my mum talking to the midwives. I made Nathan go and get her for me.

Once the monitors were unstrapped, a midwife came in to check me and she pronounced me 6cm dilated and well on the way. 10mins later she came back to say that they had a bed for me in delivery. By this stage I wanted to vomit, so they got a wheelchair and wheeled me into delivery.

I kicked my mum out shortly after I got to delivery. I couldn’t cope with her in there and I think she was happier out of the room.

I laid down on the bed after trying to walk through the contractions for a bit, but I was just too damn tired from my cold.

I was in a fair bit of pain by now and I was wailing through the contractions. I asked for pain relief (an epidural) and was told that the anesthesiologist was busy at the moment. The lovely midwife offered me pethidine and I accepted.

Instead of being given the pethidine in my bum though, I was given a cannula in my wrist and they injected the pethidine and some maxalone (for nausea) straight into my vein.

Ahhhhhhhhhh

At this point they also put me on a glucose drip because I was exhausted.

The pethidine took effect really quickly and I relaxed soooo much that I was dealing with the contractions really well (baby? what baby? I am having a baby? Ooooooh okay then). I didn’t need an epidural after all. I still felt the pain, but it didn’t bother me. I just breathed through it.

My midwife said that she’d never seen pethidine work so well for anyone. She said I looked so relaxed that anyone would have thought I had had an epidural.

Nathan got to relax a little at this point. He sat down and I got down to the serious business of snoozing during contractions.

At 9cm dilated (12pm) the pethidine wore off. They said I couldn’t have anymore because of how far along I was =(. They also broke my water.

3 contractions after my waters broke I felt the urge to push and the midwife told me to do what my body was telling me to.

After about 40mins of pushing when nothing was really moving along, the midwife and Nathan physically picked me up and put me on the toilet to push. As uncomfortable as it was, I felt Amy move down heaps.

I staggered back to my bed and tried to resume the pushing, but I was too tired. Amy’s heart rate dropped drastically and didn’t come back up so they picked me up and rolled me onto my left side. I was beyond thought by this point. Luckily her heart rate picked back up, but they decided that she needed to come out !Right Now!

The brought in the OB who was a bitch BTW. She injected me with a local anesthetic and proceeded to give me an episiotomy. She then extracted Amy with the ventouse all the while yelling “PUSH VERONICA! PUSH!!!”

2 pushes and I felt her body slide out, what an amazing feeling that was. She was placed straight onto my chest and the pain magically stopped as I gazed at my daughter. I finally noticed just how many people were in my room. I think the only people who weren’t there were the cleaners.

They covered me and Amy in warm towels while I delivered the placenta with the help of an oxytocin injection. Nathan cut the cord.

After about 10mins the pediatrician checked Amy over to make sure she was breathing properly. She was fine. I spent the next 30mins alone in delivery cuddling Amy, while Nathan went and told Mum all the news. I think they may have had a mini celebration in the halls.

The doctor (the nice one, not the nasty one) stitched me back up and my Mum and Nan came into see Amy. The midwife helped me latch her onto the breast where she had 3 or 4 sucks.

After a bunch of photographs, I had to use the toilet badly (I was so scared – luckily I was still numb) so the midwife cleaned Amy up and handed her to her Daddy while I went and showered with the help of my Nan.

All in all it was 8hrs of labour.

Amy weighed 7lb6oz and was 51cm long.

There I was, 10 weeks before my 18th birthday with a brand new baby.

Stay tuned for part 4.

Daddy’s First Cuddle

2 Days Old.

Part 4 is here,