Ok, so some of you might know some of the details of my pregnancy from previous threads, but to keep things concise ill summarize the important bits in here. Up until week 30, my pregnancy was typical, aside from heartburn and some pelvic pain I had no mega complaints at all, and was carrying on about my daily life as normal.
Then one morning (30weeks+5days to be precise), when i got out of bed in the morning to turn off my alarm, my waters broke in a huge gush. Mayhem ensued in my house, I rang my local hospital and was told to go straight in, to bypass A&E and to go directly to their antenatal ward. Once there I was examined by one of the obstetricians. I had heaps of tests (some were similar to a smear), as well as internal and regular ultrasounds and the usual blood tests & urine analysis. I was put on antibiotics and given steroid injections to help my babys lungs to develop should I go into full labour. And then I was moved to a private room where they hooked me up to a CTG machine to analyse the babys heartrate & to check for contractions.
At that stage myself and hubby were all over the place with worry and nerves about whether the baby would survive and if he did what kind of complications there would be as he would be very premature. However it seems like baby had changed his mind and decided to stay where he was. As his heartrate was perfect, as was my blood pressure and bloods etc. I was kept in under observation overnight, and it was decided the following morning that I should be transferred to the Rotunda just incase my baby decided to arrive early as they are better able to deal with very premature babies there... but my baby was not ready to arrive, and I spent the next 3&1/2 weeks in the Rotunda where i witnessed all kinds of mental stuff like babies being born in the antenatal ward in the bed beside me, and in the hallway on the way to the delivery ward etc.. The staff there were excellent, but I would be lying if I didnt admit that I was thrilled when I was finally 34 weeks pregnant and was transferred back to my local hospital.
Once back in my local hospital, things carried on as in the rotunda with regular tests and checks to ensure that my baby was progressing well etc.. When I was 35 weeks I started getting Brackston hicks type pains from the Sunday, more like bad periods pains than anything serious, and they came and went with no regularity at all. This happened all day Monday too, at about 12pm Tuesday the pains started to become more regular, until about 4pm when they started to come every ten minutes, at this stage they still weren't too bad, I could talk through them and definitely didnt need any pain meds at all. At about 9pm that night the pains were a definitely stronger and were 2 minutes apart and were lasting half a minute and I called my husband to come in - just incase. I was examined by a midwife and told that I was only at 1cm, so she gave me some pain meds and told hubby to go home and me to try and get some sleep. I was able to sleep for about 2 hours, after which I started to walk up and down the hall to see if i could speed things up a bit. By 2am I was unable to walk with the pains, and was re-examined only to find that I was only 2 cms.. so had a fair bit to go yet. I got some more pain meds at that stage and went back to bed for a while.
By 8am I was in distress, I was unable to even keep water down, but was still only 2 cms, hubby came back in at that stage I was unable to even lie on the bed with the pain, I took to leaning on the window sill rocking my pelvis to ease the pains a bit. At 12pm on Wednesday, I was given gas & air (great stuff
). I was examined at 1pm and was finally 3 cms, so was left on gas and air while I waited for a delivery suite to become vacant. When I got to the delivery suite I was given an epidural, which was heavenly!! A couple of hours later, the midwife was not happy about the rate that things were progressing and put me on a drip to speed them up. Once I was fully dilated, and the time came to push out my baby, the midwife had to hold one of my legs and my husband the other. Which meant that my hubby had a clear view of everything (definitely not in our birth plan)The pushing part only took half an hour, and my baby was born at 8pm. My son was grand at the beginning and i got to hold him for a couple of minutes, but because he was premature, and also because the waters had gone so early in the pregnancy, he was transferred to the special baby care unit where he needed some help with his breathing. Almost two weeks later, he is still in the special baby care unit, but is getting stronger. His breathing is grand now, he just needs some help with feeding. Fingers and toes crossed we will get to bring him home within the next two weeks.
It might seem a bit mental to any of ye that are on your first pregnancies, but even though I got a 2nd degree tear while delivering my son, it really is not a big deal at all. My body will never be the same again, but I honestly dont care at all.. when i hold my baby and look at his tiny face all I can think of is when I get to bring him home.
Janey
hope he gets home soon xxx
