We would all love a birth that’s quick, easy, and as pain free as possible. I’d have loved to have had a water birth, with minimal pain relief, and not to have sounded like a cow being run over by a truck...but I did.
Whilst watching One Born Every Minute I used to say to my husband, “I really hope I don’t scream, moan and make as much noise as that”. However, when it came down to it, I was so out of it on pain relief, that I think I may have even thought my partner was a midwife, let alone even cared about how much noise I was making.
With my first born, Ellis, I was totally clueless on all aspects of birth. At 35 weeks, a very naive 27-year-old me had a sudden urge to pee. Now you may say at 35 weeks pregnant, needing to get up in the middle of the night for a wee is normal. Yes it is indeed, however I kept needing to pee all the time. I was getting myself so upset, that I eventually decided to ring the midwife for advice. I think I may have been greeted with a sympathetic laugh when I said, “please don’t tell me that at 27 years old, I can’t hold my wee in any more” to which the midwife replied “lovely, I think your waters have gone”. In utter shock, I woke my partner and told him the baby was coming! I’ve never seen him move so fast!!
With a little excitement, and a lot of apprehension we traveled to the hospital, little did we know he wouldn’t make an appearance until a week later. I thought that once your waters broke a baby was on the way. Obviously not.
I didn’t really know what to expect when they said that they were going to have to induce me. I’d heard that they give you a pessary, which apparently helps everything move along, or so to speak. So when three of those pessaries didn’t work, I kind of knew something horrible was coming. I was later hooked up to a hormone drip called oxytocin, which is designed to induce contractions. After a few hours on the drip, eventually increasing the dose to the maximum I could have, there was still not one contraction in sight.
I joked that I was super human and look at me go, not feeling a thing, but oh I was so very wrong. They say induction causes labour to be much more painful, this I can tell you from first hand experience, is a total understatement. I had sent my husband off to get some food, ( I was super human remember) so the midwife could examine me! She used what can only be described as a fishing hook to break my waters and bring my cervix down. By the time my husband had returned, those contractions I had not been feeling, all came at me at once.
I ended up so out of it that apparently I was crying out for my mother (who passed away when I was 15), to which point my husband said that enough was enough and they need to give me an epidural. And let me tell you, It is an absolute godsend!
Although it is commonly known that epidurals can cause complications such as the slowing of labour, inductions also carry risks as well. Inductions can cause a higher chance of requiring instrumental delivery, which sadly, was the case in my labour. Ellis was later born on the 6th of December at 21:00, five weeks early, by forceps. I also endured tearing, which later had to be stitched back up. Oh the joys us women go through.
We were kept in hospital for about a week for two reasons. With Ellis being born five weeks early, he was very little and needed a little bit of extra care. I had also scarily lost quite a lot of blood, so I had to undergo two blood transfusions. But after all that stress and pain, my beautiful baby boy was finally by my side. It was all totally worth it.
Follow my journey here @thehonestmotherofboys