Liz's Story

I thought you might like to know what happened to us in the end. I was due on 8 April but nothing happened so the midwife attempted a sweep at 40+7 days but to no avail, the head wasn't far enough down. They tried again at 40+11 but the same story so they booked us in for an induction at the Royal, due to start on the Thursday 21st April in the evening. Unfortunately they had no beds that night so they asked us to come in Friday morning instead by which time we were truly fed up I must confess. I had three different pessaries in a row (1 24hour one and 2 six hour ones) which gets us through to Sunday morning by which time I am having contractions which I managed using the breathing/ low sounds and my tens machine. I was also bouncing on the yoga ball to take my mind off it all!

By 9am on Sunday morning I was exhausted having not really slept since Thursday night, and I kept almost passing out between the contractions which were very powerful by now (and I'm still making very low sounds during every wave which my husband said was similar to mooing!). I had dilated enough for them to break my waters and put me on the drip which controls the contractions, and at this stage I had an epidural (wonderful). Throughout all this they had been monitoring bump and baby was totally content which was fab.

The day progressed normally until about 4pm when they ran out of epidural medicine for me and the man was in theatre so I had another two hours of very powerful pain where I used gas and air (didn't notice a thing) and all the breathing/ sounds again, once again almost passing out with the strength of the contractions because they were being articifically managed by the drip. By 6pm they had me sorted again and I was 7cm dilated so they expected me to be able to push later that evening. However, I was examined again at 8pm to find that my cervix had regressed and I was only 4cm gone, plus baby had turned to be spine to spine with me again. So they offered me a c-section then or in a couple of hours time if I wanted to see whether my body would do anything on its own.

I opted to go down to theatre then and at 22.53 Lexi was delivered, happy and healthy and weighing 7lb 7oz. She latched straight on in the recovery suite and has been feeding well ever since which is lovely. What's interesting is that the paediatrician who saw her on day 2 is convinced she wasn't overdue at all- which may explain why my body wasn't co-operating despite being technically 16 days over...

So almost the complete opposite of the birth I was hoping for, but a fabulous result with a healthy baby which is the main thing. I am pleased I did the yoga as it definitely helped give me something to do when the pain was intense and to calm myself down between times- it helped me focus. The last three weeks have been great, she's a very content baby and we're settling down nicely all together.

Thanks again for your help

Liz (from Spring Wed pm class)