The birth of my Little Monster

It all started on the 4th of October...
I woke up early in the morning with a new and different pain in my belly... I knew straight away, that this was it - Baby was on the way. What I didn't know was that it was the start of 3 & 1/2 days of pre-labour - lucky me!

After 24 hours of contractions, I called my midwife to let her know that I thought I might be heading to hospital soon. Boyfriend and I camped out on the sofa bed with my hospital bag at the door, but the contractions slowed right down during the night, and I was able to catch a few hours sleep. The same thing happened again the next night... talk about frustrating!!

On the Wednesday morning I went to the hospital to see my midwife, who did a stretch & sweep (once again, lucky me) and announced that I was 3cm dilated... which was very pleasing, as I didn't want those three days of pain to have been for nothing! She then sent me home with some panadine forte and told me to try and get some rest.... FAT CHANCE!! Within 30-minutes, my labour started for real ("Ahhh so THAT's what a contraction feels like!!"), and I spent the next 7-hours wandering around our flat wondering what the heck I had got myself into!

At 6.30pm, with contractions coming every 3-minutes, I made the final call to the midwife telling her to expect us in the hospital within the next 30-minutes. As soon as I was showered and ready to go, Boyfriend pulled me into the nursery and asked me if I was ready for what was about to happen; to which I promptly burst into tears and said "no!"... He then asked me to marry him - to which said "yes!" :) (heck, I would have said yes to anything at that point!! hehehe)

And then we were off!

All throughout my pregnancy I had hoped to have a natural water birth, but I had maintained my feminine right to change my mind at any given time and use all the drugs available to me ;)

I started off well. I spent a about an hour in the bath and tried to relax and go with the flow. But the contractions were getting stronger and faster, and at about 10pm I asked for the pethadine - I had now been in some sort of pain for about 80hrs with not an awful lot of sleep, and I was exhausted. In our ante-natal classes, we were told that some women can almost sleep when they have pethadine... unfortunately for me, that was not the case. Every time I tried to lay down and close my eyes, another contraction would hit me and I would have to get up, pace the room and moan with pain.

The pethadine also made me feel a heady combination of overly hyper, very woozy and pretty sick - and it's not easy to be heaving over the toilet and get through a contraction at the same time! The pain relief was minimal, and about an hour later I decided to try the gas.

At this stage (according to Husband, I don't really remember), I was making some pretty scary/weird sounds - my midwife said I was starting to transition. I couldn't get the timing with breathing the gas right; probably because the contractions were coming in fast a furious, and the pain was pretty much unbearable, so I requested an epidural.

I had to wait for about another 10mins before they could get me into a delievery suite (it was a busy night apparently!), but by golly it felt like years!!! Finally I walked the 20m to the delivery suite - stopping for two contractions along the way!

I then found out that I was 8cm dilated, and my body was spasming with each contraction. I had to argue with the anesthesiologist as to why I should have an epidural; she maintained that I was too far gone and wouldn't be able to stay still for long enough for her to give it to me.

My wonderful amazing midwife stood up to the silly cow and told her that I was not too far gone, and I thought that I could stay still for long enough. So after explaining the risks to me, AGAIN (I'm in labour lady, not stupid!!) I finally got the drugs (staying still and contracting wasn't easy, but I wanted those drugs, and I wasn't moving for anyone!)... and it was almost instant relief  :)

But when they put the monitor on, the Baby had a "non-reassuring heart rate", so they called in an obstetrician who decided that rather than doing a blood test from the scalp, it needed to be delivered straight away... and at 1.58am (on his due date, the clever little man!), my Little Monster was brought into the world by ventouse delivery.

Not my Little Monster - but almost as cute!

It was love at first sight, and every day since then he has found new (and usually very entertaining!) ways to make my heart sing.

{images from here, here and  here}