If you go by my dates, my due date was 12th March 2011, if you go by scans, my due date was 18th March 2011… so I figured, I must have been due somewhere in between… so imagine my disappointment when March 18th came and went, and I was still pregnant.
Wednesday 23rd March I had to head up to Auckland hospital for CTG monitoring and to clarify which date the doctors were going to work on for induction – I was, at this stage pretty scared they would go by the 12th as that made me 11 days overdue all ready, so I may have been admitted for induction immediately totally destroying all hopes of a natural, drug free, water birth at Birth Care.
The CTG showed that I was having regular tightenings, but I had yet to feel a thing… It also showed that all was well with bubs… So off for a scan with the doctor, who was very happy with everything, and was happy to let me go another 7 days before induction… YAY a reprieve… albeit a small one… I still had to get this baby out by 7.30pm Wednesday 30th March 2011.
Friday 25th March, and my midwife met me and my mum at Birth Care so she could monitor me and bubs with a CTG and do a Stretch ‘n’ Sweep {which by the way I had already had 4 previous ones starting at 38 weeks with no success yet}… While on the CTG monitor, I started to have tightenings that I could feel… they were coming every 3-7 minutes, so not regular, but definitely doing something. Midwife gave me a stretch ‘n’ sweep, I was already 4cm dilated, but cervix was still 2cm thick and a little posterior… baby had also turned posterior which I wasn’t too happy about having delivered one posterior and one anterior baby before, I knew which I preferred and posterior was NOT it. Midwife however was very confident that today would be the day my baby was born.
Mum and I headed off for a spot of shopping to keep me active, and to hopefully encourage baby to turn. Tightenings turned into full contractions, but never regulated… still swinging between 3 and 7mins apart and only lasting 30-45sec. By 8pm I contacted my midwife and told her I wanted to see her to see if any progress had been made as I was starting to tire out… so off to Birth Care traipsed me, Ian, my mum and my sister… the contractions by this stage were 3-5mins apart, but still only lasting 45-50sec… however, this being baby number 3, I was taking no chances.
Midwife examined me and declared there had been no change since that morning… she gave me some options, but the only one that didn’t involve heading to the hospital and having medical intervention, was to head home and wait and see… So that’s what I did… Got home, went to bed… woke at 3am, and timed contractions till 5am then they stopped, so I went back to sleep. My in laws were up from Ngatea so they helped with the other kids, while I rested and did nothing at all for the whole day on Saturday. I continued to get contractions throughout the day, but again they still didn’t regulate. Midwife came over to check me out, and again gave me the option of heading up to the hospital, but I was determined to avoid that at all costs.
Sunday morning I awoke feeling like crap… I’d slept all night, which meant I was NOT in labour STILL *sigh* Got up, and while making Cam's bed, had one almighty painful contraction which stopped me in my tracks. Half an hour later I still had nothing else, so txt midwife saying “nothing over night, labour not happening, giving up for today, I have plans”
Got undressed to jump in the shower and realised I had lost my entire plug… Jumped into shower, had 2 contractions in quick succession, hopped out and half an hour later there was still nothing else. Midwife called me and asked me to again meet her at Birth Care for CTG monitoring, as she was getting worried about my long latent phase. I told her I couldn’t meet her till 9.45am as I had to get Paris to hockey trials in Avondale first.
Headed off to Avondale and on arrival at the turf, I had another really strong contraction. Registered Paris, told her I was off for monitoring and I would arrange for someone to pick her up at 12. Back into the car and me and Ian were on our to Birth Care.
On the way, I had some pretty strong contractions, so decided to take note of time and length. Arrived at birth care and contractions were coming every 4-6minutes lasting 50sec. Midwife arrived late at 10 and during the wait for her to arrive I had started to pace the foyer. I told Ian that I thought I was in labour for real, but was too scared to get my hopes up.
Midwife put the CTG on and contractions became more intense. She gave me an internal examination and declared me to be 5cm dialated with cervix in the right place, and no thickness. She said she was happy to break my waters if I wanted her to, which I did… Off she went to set up a labour room and to start running the water for the pool. We called my mum and sister informed them of what was happening and told them to take their time, as contractions were still irregular and midwife was thinking baby wouldn’t be here till dinner time.
In the 10 minutes it took for my midwife to get the delivery room ready and me moved into it, and for Ian to head to the car and back with my labour bag, my contractions had stepped up to 3mins apart last 1min 30sec… wahoo… suddenly I was in active labour… midwife at this stage decided to not break my waters and to let me go for it my way.
Ian called my mum and sister and told them things had hotted up a bit and by the time they arrived at 11.30 my contractions were damn near on top of each other…
I hopped into the birth pool at 12.30 as leaning on the bed with Ian applying pressure to my back was no longer working for me… the water slowed my contractions down for about 20mins which gave me immense relief. By 1pm the contractions were completely on top of each other but I still had no urge to push… I was in the pool, leaning on the edge, holding onto both my sister and Ian’s hand squeezing the living daylights out of them, declaring in a very quiet but very stern voice that I was NEVER going to do this again.
1.20pm and I felt the urge to push, so midwife said to go for it… I pushed once, it didn’t feel right, I asked her to check progress, which she did and said I was 8cm… I felt a bit ripped off but then, 2 mins later, I really HAD to push… at 1.30pm my waters broke, 1.32pm I delivered a head, cord was removed from around his neck {I found this out later}… I tried to push shoulders out, but nothing was happening… midwife told me to push with my life so I did, at the same time she pulled the plug out of the pool, and pulled baby out with all her might as it was an extremely tight fit, and baby was stuck.
1.35pm baby was pulled/pushed out of me and brought up out of the water to be placed on my chest… I felt amazing… baby was very purple and took a couple of seconds {felt like hours} to make a sound… 1.37pm I checked to see what flavour we had and exclaimed to a very excited room that it was a boy…
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