With Amelia's third birthday coming up, I keep looking back and remember what things were like when she was a baby and it excites me even more about Ezra coming. The day that I had Amelia is such a blur to me, it feels like it all went so quickly and there are parts of the day which I don't remember even happening. I wrote a birth story on my old blog about my labour with Amelia so I have taken some of that to try and put together how it went so here goes..
7th April 2012 -
Myself and Paul went to a large meet up with all of his family for his sisters birthday and while we were there I noticed that I kept getting tightenings in my tummy. I mentioned it and thought to myself that was the start of my labour, but it all went so slowly from there. I had been going on long walks and having hot baths for about 2 weeks before this. I was getting tightenings all of that day, and in the evening they were getting stronger but I still wasn't really in pain - They were just annoying so I couldn't get comfortable.8th April 2012 -
After sitting up for part of the night suffering with these tightenings while Paul caught up on his sleep (getting himself prepared ;) ) the tightenings starting to hurt, I was trying to stay on my feet as much as I could and walk/breathe through the contractions. We timed them and until 2 when the pain was getting really bad, myself, Paul and my mum went into the hospital continued labour there. The midwives came in and check me and I was 4cm dilated. As soon as they told me this, I was gutted. I had already been having tightenings/contractions for over 24 hours with no sleep and the pain was getting worse. At this point I was still walking around but suffering a lot. I tried getting into the tub as I wanted to have a water bath, but as soon as I got in the contractions slowed down even more so I had to get out again.
I kept being told to use the gas and air, but I really didn't want too. I had it in my head that I would hate it - and I did! It made my head feel like it was going to explode, and it was just the worst experience of my life. 4 hours later the midwife came in and checked me again and I was only 5 cm dilated. My labour was progressing really slowly so she decided to break my waters and from there it all went bad. As soon as my waters broke I went into some sort of shock, and it's from then on that I can't remember parts of what happened. I was screaming and rolling around the bed not knowing what was happening to me. The pain was excruciating and mostly down my right thigh, I thought my leg was being sawed off, it was just horrendous. Due to the amount of pain I was in, I was pushing without meaning too so was told that I had to have an epidural or I would cause damage to Amelia.
About half an hour later the anaesthetist came in to put my epidural in - and then he realised the curve in my spine. This is why I felt a lot of pain in my leg, and I was told before birth that the pain would be worse because of this too. He managed to put in the epidural but it failed to work on one side of my body. They tried telling me to lay on my side to try and move the anesthetic around but I was in so much pain that I couldn't even more. About an hour or so later they tried to top up the epidural and I can remember the anaesthetist shouting at me because I kept moving while he was trying to put it in. The second epidural also failed.
At 11.40pm I was checked again and was told that I was fully dilated and that I could start pushing. At this point I was a bit silly, I had calmed down a little so felt a bit more comfortable. Amelia was due on the 9th April, just 20 minutes away - So I waited until midnight before I started pushing.
As soon as the 9th came, I started pushing. I really enjoyed this part of labour as I felt that pushing through the pain helped so much! 46 minutes later Amelia was born, took her first breathe, placed on my chest for the first time and I had officially become a Mother.
After a couple of minutes cuddling, and being tidied up the midwives realised that my Placenta wasn't coming out. They told me to try and push it out, but I was so tired and numb all over that I didn't even know how to push anymore. I remember them propping me up onto my hands and knees and trying to get me to push - but nothing happened. So they gave Amelia to Paul and took me to theatre where they gave me diamorphine and manually removed the placenta. (This was awful and I feel sorry for anybody who has had it - So I'm not going into that.)
Once that process was complete I was taken to the recovery room where I was met by Amelia, Paul and my mum - I can't actually remember Paul being there at this point, I was so dosed up and tired that most of the recovery was such a blur. I remember my mum getting Amelia dressed for the first time, and helping me trying to breastfeed Amelia.
I hope that my labor with Ezra is much quicker and less dramatic. I will be trying again for a water birth but have been told that I will have to have a drip up incase my placenta gets stuck again, and I've also been told to expect as much pain again, and that we could have the same problem with an epidural.
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