I was super excited to be pregnant and was probably a little naïve thinking it would be a breeze because I was young and fit. I was wrong. Pregnancy for me was awful. I had nausea and vomiting the whole way through, developed cardiac issues, my exercise tolerance completely went, and I had severe pelvic girdle pain. All these played a huge part of my mental health. So when my little boy decided he wanted to come early at 37 weeks I was somewhat happy that my pregnancy journey was coming to an end.
On the 5th of May after doing a little bit of colostrum expressing, I felt like I had wet myself. At first I thought “oh great is this the latest thing happening in my pregnancy, randomly wetting myself,” but once it kept trickling out every few seconds without me being able to stop it I thought nope this is my waters. I told my partner what I thought was happening and we called the maternity unit, who recommended that I come in to get checked but said it sounds like my waters had broken.
After getting the confirmation that my waters had broken, I was sent home with the hope that my labour would progress within the next 24 hours otherwise I would have to come in to start some antibiotics and get induced. At 2am, once we were back home, my contractions started. I was over the moon. I quickly popped my tens machine on after friends had advised to put it on early, and I tried to get comfortable and get some sleep. 2 hours later things had stopped. I was gutted but determined to get this show on the road. I was bouncing on my ball, going to walks on uneven surfaces, pumping…nothing worked.
Come 6pm it was time to head back to the hospital where I was started on some antibiotics. At 1am on the 7th I was told to call my partner to come in as they were going to start my induction. I wasn’t happy that things had gone down this route as I had heard people say when you get induced its 0 to 100 really quick, so I was a little nervous about how I would manage the pain having never experienced anything overly painful.
At first the pains just felt like mild period pains. Once again I popped that wonderful tens machine on and settled in. At this stage I was 1-2cm dilated and my cervix was 1cm in length, yippee! At least there was something. Fast forward to 11:30am and I was now officially in established labour, unable to talk during my contractions and they were coming more quickly and lasting longer. Despite the pain I was happy just using my tens and wasn’t considering alternative pain management (the boost button was my best friend). I was super proud of myself with how well I was coping with my pain. I was now starting to get pretty tired as I hadn’t slept since the night of the 4th and it was now the 7th. At 4pm I was examined again and my heart sunk when they told me how dilated I was…1-2cm and my cervix hadn’t lengthened any further. I couldn’t believe it. I broke down crying, exhausted and feeling defeated. I was asked what I wanted to do and at that point I said I need something to help me get some rest so the hospital organised me to speak to the anaesthetists. At this point my doctor advised that I should have a caesarean due to increased risks of a post partum haemorrhage and that I hadn’t progressed in the last 14 hours. I felt like I had failed at being able to do the thing my body was designed to do. After a teary conversation with my partner and mum I decided to go for it.
At 6:30pm I was wheeled into the operating theatre where things happened so quickly. One second I was bent over having a spinal and the next I was flat on my back, numb from the waist down with a drape hung about 10cm from my face. I couldn’t look at my partner as I knew I would break down crying. After feeling like I had been lying there forever I heard the doctor say “making an incision into the uterus” and after some tugging heard the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. The drape was dropped and there he was. My beautiful boy floating in the air in front of me. I had never felt this kind of emotion before and I couldn’t help myself from snorting like a pig as I cried. I was told afterwards that he had the cord wrapped tightly around his neck which was stopping him descending.
Even though things hadn’t gone the way I thought they had I wouldn’t change my birth story. Our beautiful boy is here now and we are so in love.
