My birth story - LONG!

Hi, all. At long last, I have written my birth story... and it's really long - sorry!


Baby's Name: Alexander (‘Sander’)
Due Date: June 27th, 2012
Birth Date: July the 2nd at 10:14pm
Gestational Age: 40w5d
Weight: 7lbs 3oz
Length: 19 3/4 inches

On Sunday the 1st of July at 7am, I had my bloody show… and I was so excited! I knew it didn’t necessarily mean anything, but I really hoped it might. I’d planned to do more work on our new house, but, at about noon, after skyping my parents and emailing family, I started having contractions and decided to relax instead. The contractions at this stage were uncomfortable rather than painful, and definitely not regular, but I’d had BH for several weeks, and these were very different. At 7pm, they suddenly got regular – 45 seconds long every 5 minutes. This isn’t what the books told me to expect, so I asked the BZ ladies if this was the beginning of labour, and was delighted when you all said it sounded like it! Although we’d been told to go to the hospital when my contractions were 5 minutes apart, I knew I was still in early labour and I wanted to spend as little time in the hospital as possible.

Over the course of the evening, the contractions picked up in intensity, and by 11pm I was sure enough that it was labour that I texted my family in Britain to let them know. I decided a warmer than usual bath would help. With every contraction, DH would splash hot water on my back, which felt great. My sister skyped me (video off my end!) and helped me get my breathing under control. I couldn’t believe how much breathing affected the way I felt the pain. After a couple of hours in the bath, we called my MIL and asked if she could buy a bag of rice, as we had none in the house. She dropped it off, and DH stuffed two socks with it and heated them in the microwave. I got out the bath and we used heat and back pressure with me over the birthing ball, and then I started using the TENS machine on 2 (out of 10). I loved it!

After a couple of hours, DH fell asleep – he’d been working such long hours to get his PhD thesis in that he was exhausted. He basically slept for three hours, but did get up three times during that to reheat the rice bags, which is all I really needed, and I felt proud of myself for managing ‘alone’. During that time, I messaged my sister and Alice, both in the UK and so awake, and they really helped me to stay calm and focused. As morning approached, I tried to decide whether to go before or after the rush hour traffic. I was beginning to think perhaps I was waiting too long, but decided I’d wait until the worst of the traffic was over. As soon as I thought the roads would be clearing up, I woke DH and he called the hospital to say we were coming in… and that’s when things started going wrong. Up until this point, I had felt in control. I had felt strong and proud of myself for handling the pain without so much as a Tylenol and without anyone there to help me through several hours of it, and the TENS was only up to a 4. Now, everything was taken out of my hands, and nothing (save eventually having a healthy baby) went as planned for the rest of the day.

The hospital told us we had to call my doctor first, and couldn’t just show up. We called him, but it was out of hours still, so they paged him. Half an hour later, he hadn’t called us back and I was beginning to lose control during my contractions, bumping the TENS up to a 5. DH called again and they paged him for a second time. Half an hour later, he still hadn’t called back, and I was no longer coping at all; the TENS was up to a 6. DH called for a third time, and a few minutes later he got the call, told my doctor I was in labour and he said to go in… of course. I now got back in control as DH packed up the last few bits around the house and got everything into the car, and I coped fine, turning the TENS off completely. With it on such a high setting, I found it had actually made the pain worse, and by now the contractions were so strong that I could hardly notice a lower setting, so I left it off after that.