The monitoring showed that baby’s heart rate was fine and my contractions were still coming roughly every 5 minutes. I continued with my TENS machine all through the night. By 6am I was exhausted, had had no sleep, and my contractions were still only every 5 minutes. I asked the MW whether she was going to do an internal, and she said no, because she didn’t think I was very far along. I think that was one of the lowest points for me – I really thought things would progress quickly as the contractions seemed to me to be quite close together. But she said they needed to be a lot stronger and closer together. She suggested I have a bath, which I did, and after I got out I panicked a bit as I had no pain relief anymore, and the contractions were becoming quite hard to deal with.
The MWs changed shifts at 8am and the new one agreed to examine me at about 9. When she did I had got to 5cm. Again, I thought things would progress quickly from that point. Throughout the rest of the morning and early afternoon I coped with the contractions ok using the gas and air, tried different positions when I could, but had to be monitored continually as they still wanted to keep an eye on the baby’s heart rate.
At about 4pm, a doctor came in to discuss my trace, examined me to find I was still only 6cm dilated, and said I needed to have my contractions speeded up as I wasn’t progressing fast enough. I felt a bit scared when she said they were going to put me on a syntocinon drip, and thought about asking for an epidural because by this point I was really tired and was scared that the drip would make the contractions unbearable. The MW kept saying that I would be fine and would manage, so in the end I stuck with the gas and air.
Another MW came to put the cannula in but she couldn’t get it into one hand and there was blood spurting everywhere, and she was asking me to stay still while I tried to get through the contractions. She then managed to put it into my other hand. Almost straight away the contractions got MUCH worse and closer together, and I started to really struggle to cope with them...it was agony! This went on for some time, I sort of lost track at that point.
At about 7pm I was examined again and was now 8-9 cm dilated but there was a lip on my cervix which was swelling up...the pain was now becoming unbearable. At this point I started begging for an epidural, pleading with them to do something and saying I couldn’t do it anymore. The MW kept saying “everyone says that when they’re about to have their baby!”, but I just knew I couldn’t cope any longer and in between contractions I told Wayne that I needed to have an epidural. Another MW came in (a more senior one I think), and I heard her telling the other MW that I should have been given an epidural when they started me on the syntocinon drip. I was still begging and pleading, and they said they were going to call the anaesthetist to come and do the epidural. I remember asking over and over where she was and how long it would be. When she arrived she was calmly trying to explain all the risks and stuff and I was saying I didn’t care about that, could she just do it.
So they got me in position for the epidural, curled up and leaning over a pillow. I thought I would only have to survive one contraction in that position, but the MW and anaesthetist then couldn’t find the right needle kit and had to go off down the corridor looking for one. Wayne was not impressed and I was begging them to hurry up. Anyway, the epidural was eventually done and it was fantastic! I wasn’t totally pain free because I was pretty close to delivering, so I could feel each contraction but it was totally bearable again.
The MWs changed shifts again and I had the one who had admitted me the previous night. She got us all a cup of tea and some biscuits, and then we sat and watched “The Apprentice” while we waited for me to be fully dilated. It sounds a bit weird but that’s a memory I’ll always treasure. I was virtually pain-free and knew I was getting close to delivering, and I felt really calm and in control again. At 10pm the MW said I was ready to push. I pushed with everything I had and she said almost straight away that she could see the baby’s head starting to crown. Wayne had positioned himself down at the business end and was having a good look! With each contraction the baby was moving further down and the MW got me to reach down and feel his head. She said that with the next contraction I would have my baby, so I pushed as hard as I could and at 10.31pm, James Thomas shot out into the world, covered in bright yellowy green poo and screaming his head off!
He was taken to be checked and then given straight to me, and it was just the most amazing feeling. I’d been worried that he’d need resus because of the amount of time since my waters had broken, but he scored 9 on the Apgar test at 1 minute. We had a couple of hours of skin to skin time and the MW helped me to start breastfeeding, and then Wayne went home and James and I were taken down to the postnatal ward.
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