By Nancy Welch
After my horrendous birth experience with my daughter I was
absolutely dreading giving birth, but after much reading up on breathing
techniques and realising that panicking only makes things worse I was prepared
as I ever would be. The run up to my last few days had been pretty bad, coming
down with very bad flu and being taken to hospital and admitted for a couple of
days. Then on Friday 16th March both my other half, Ger and daughter, Juno,
also came down with flu. Not great timing to have a baby, and even though I was
three days overdue by this stage, I really didn’t think the baby would be
coming anytime soon. While eating my dinner that evening, I started getting
quite a few Braxton Hicks. After half an hour I realised they were actually
quite regular, every seven minutes lasting 30 seconds. After another couple of
hours of this I thought I should probably ring my mom and warn her she might be
needed in the morning! As she was three hours away I also texted my friend to
be on standby.
We went to bed, me downstairs due to my horrendous pregnancy snoring lol. It got to about midnight and I suddenly felt really ill and was sick everywhere. I also realised I was losing my plug. Despite this and the fact I was still getting contractions every seven minutes, I went back to bed as I thought they were supposed to get closer together when labour was established and I could still talk through them. It got to 2.30am and I had quite a strong one so thought I'd better ring the Rosie. I was expecting them to tell me to ring back when they were closer together and asked them when they thought my mom should come over. When I said she was three hours away, I was really surprised when they said I should have rung her three hours ago! They then said I needed to come in straight away – but in the next sentence said they were closed and not accepting anymore deliveries!!!
Ger came down to see how I was doing, poor bloke was so ill I'm not sure he really understood what was going on. I said I had to go in but they were closed and were going to ring back and let me know which hospital was free. His response was to go and get some day nurse! The hospital rang back and said that a hospital in a neighbouring county could take me. We've only lived in Cambridgeshire for a year and had no idea where we were going. Thank God for postcodes and sat navs. Ger went downstairs and for some reason put the kettle on and asked if a cup of tea would help?! I tried to explain that we needed to go ASAP, and he went out to sort out the sat nav and car, at which point my waters broke everywhere, I felt the baby drop down and the contractions started coming every three minutes. There was lots of meconium and blood in the water which scared me, but I decided not to tell Ger as he was obviously getting a bit stressed already.
My friend turned up to babysit. At this point it was 3.30am and the sat nav said we would get there for 4.15. Ger drove like a lunatic, and I seriously thought we would either die on the way or he would have to pull over and help me give birth – thank God it was the middle of the night! We eventually found the hospital and got there at 4.05am, only for Ger to drive slowly around the car park looking for a space! At this point I started yelling for him to park anywhere, just let me out as I couldn't stand sitting through contractions anymore. I was off and walking through A&E while he was still getting everything out the car. I had no idea where we were going and went up two flights of stairs to find deliveries.
We walked into the room at 4.20am and Ger started taking out clothes and food and texting family to let them know where we were, at which point I was yelling at him again to put the bloody phone down, get my birthing t-shirt and massage my back. At the same time, I was telling the poor midwife I wanted to go in the birthing pool (a big no because of meconium in waters) and then asked for an epidural before she had even examined me. She persuaded me to get on the bed which I did really reluctantly as I wanted an active birth this time around and the thought of being strapped to a bed again made me slightly panic. She found that I was five cm so said she would sort out an epidural, but had to put on a monitor to make sure the baby was ok. At this point I yelled that I needed to push which she said no you're not dilated enough, checked me again and I'd gone from five to 10 cm in one minute! Eight minutes later my beautiful gorgeous little man, Cadel Arthur Declan Miley, was born, and our little family was complete :).
We went to bed, me downstairs due to my horrendous pregnancy snoring lol. It got to about midnight and I suddenly felt really ill and was sick everywhere. I also realised I was losing my plug. Despite this and the fact I was still getting contractions every seven minutes, I went back to bed as I thought they were supposed to get closer together when labour was established and I could still talk through them. It got to 2.30am and I had quite a strong one so thought I'd better ring the Rosie. I was expecting them to tell me to ring back when they were closer together and asked them when they thought my mom should come over. When I said she was three hours away, I was really surprised when they said I should have rung her three hours ago! They then said I needed to come in straight away – but in the next sentence said they were closed and not accepting anymore deliveries!!!
Ger came down to see how I was doing, poor bloke was so ill I'm not sure he really understood what was going on. I said I had to go in but they were closed and were going to ring back and let me know which hospital was free. His response was to go and get some day nurse! The hospital rang back and said that a hospital in a neighbouring county could take me. We've only lived in Cambridgeshire for a year and had no idea where we were going. Thank God for postcodes and sat navs. Ger went downstairs and for some reason put the kettle on and asked if a cup of tea would help?! I tried to explain that we needed to go ASAP, and he went out to sort out the sat nav and car, at which point my waters broke everywhere, I felt the baby drop down and the contractions started coming every three minutes. There was lots of meconium and blood in the water which scared me, but I decided not to tell Ger as he was obviously getting a bit stressed already.
My friend turned up to babysit. At this point it was 3.30am and the sat nav said we would get there for 4.15. Ger drove like a lunatic, and I seriously thought we would either die on the way or he would have to pull over and help me give birth – thank God it was the middle of the night! We eventually found the hospital and got there at 4.05am, only for Ger to drive slowly around the car park looking for a space! At this point I started yelling for him to park anywhere, just let me out as I couldn't stand sitting through contractions anymore. I was off and walking through A&E while he was still getting everything out the car. I had no idea where we were going and went up two flights of stairs to find deliveries.
We walked into the room at 4.20am and Ger started taking out clothes and food and texting family to let them know where we were, at which point I was yelling at him again to put the bloody phone down, get my birthing t-shirt and massage my back. At the same time, I was telling the poor midwife I wanted to go in the birthing pool (a big no because of meconium in waters) and then asked for an epidural before she had even examined me. She persuaded me to get on the bed which I did really reluctantly as I wanted an active birth this time around and the thought of being strapped to a bed again made me slightly panic. She found that I was five cm so said she would sort out an epidural, but had to put on a monitor to make sure the baby was ok. At this point I yelled that I needed to push which she said no you're not dilated enough, checked me again and I'd gone from five to 10 cm in one minute! Eight minutes later my beautiful gorgeous little man, Cadel Arthur Declan Miley, was born, and our little family was complete :).
Total labour two hours, total
pushing eight minutes, and I had only been in the delivery room for 10 mins.
Cadel's blood cord levels were a little low and because of that and the meconium
in the water we had to stay a while, but he’s fine now, we’re just waiting to
get a scan to check how badly damaged his kidney is (which we knew about
pre-birth).
I can totally understand now how people can enjoy childbirth; it was such an amazing experience, totally natural and different to my daughter’s birth. It was only really painful in the minute when I dilated to 10 cm, otherwise bearable, even the pushing was ok!! I just had four stitches and was out the next day to look after the rest of the family who both still had really bad flu lol.
I can totally understand now how people can enjoy childbirth; it was such an amazing experience, totally natural and different to my daughter’s birth. It was only really painful in the minute when I dilated to 10 cm, otherwise bearable, even the pushing was ok!! I just had four stitches and was out the next day to look after the rest of the family who both still had really bad flu lol.
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