Claire's Birth Story

When Iwas pregnant i had all these wonderful imgaes of a lovely tranquil water birth with little pain relief. I think it is fair to say the exact opposite happened, I recieved all the intervention under the sun, had a very long hard labour and my birth plan just completley went out of the window. I think it's important that i tell poeple this story though because even though it wasn't what I wanted, because I had an open mind and practiced the breathing relaxations all the way through I was still able to enjoy it.
 
I had my first contraction on saturday 2nd May at 1:30am, I managed with these fine until about 6am when i put my tens machine on and sat backwards on a chair leaning over the back of it. (This helped alot). I was having contractions every ten minutes all day gradually getting stronger, i sat in the garden breathing and humming (which is something i never thought i would do) through each contraction.
 
At 9pm that evening they were every 5 minutes and fairly strong. This is when i phoned the hospital. I was asked to come in to be checked. I arrived at the general at 10:30 to a very very busy delivery suite, was checked and told i was 2cm dilated, sent home and told to come back when the contractions were 3 minutes apart. I was gutted!
 
I went back in the next morning at 7:30 (This was now 30 hours since my first contraction and had no sleep) This was when i was admitted. The midwves did the usual checks and found out that i had group b strep and needed to be put on a drip to have antibiotics straight away, which meant i was confined to a chair with monitors on me too. Again i breathed and hummed and sometimes grunted through each contraction and by lunchtime i was on the gas and air.
 
They broke my waters at lunchtime - By this time i was 4cm dilated. This didint seem to speed things along much though because by 6pm i was still 4cm and the doctors decided i needed a hormone drip to speed up the contractions. By this time i had had pethidine which was rubbish so was strongly advised to have an epidural before the drip went in. It was then that i managed to get some sleep and by midnight i was fully dilated.
 
However the monitor was showing the baby was in distress and had passed meconium - he was also spine to spine which meant he wasn't moving down.
 
Suddenly allt he emergency buttons were being pressed and i was rushed into theatre and i had to sign a consent form for a cesarean. The doctor had to perform an episiotomy and and turn Jack by hand (picture a vet artifically inseminating a cow and thats what it looked like) He managed to do that and with forceps and 3 pushes he was out and screaming. He was born at 1:05am - 47 hours since my first contraction!
 
It was at this point i became quite ill and lost alot of blood, and was put on antibiotics. I had ALOT of stiches (So much for the weeks of perinial massage).
 
We came home 2 days later both fine. he is now 3 weeks old and i have no idea where the time has gone.
 
I honestly dont beleive that had i not practiced the breathing and relaxation techniques i wouldnt have coped nearly as well. Even though i couldnt do any positions once i was in hospital they really did help while i was at home. Even though it was absolutely horific i can still look back and be proud that i did it and coped.
 
And the humming... I still use it now - It seems to be the only thing that gets Jack to sleep at 3 in the morning.