Alyssa's ramblings...

Isabella's birth story.

Quick update on my life: I was pregnant, and now I'm not. :o) Here's the story.

For about a week before Isabella’s birth, I was in pre-labour, complete with regular labour pains that became closer together before randomly stopping after a few (or more) hours. I was sure I’d go into real labour at any minute. Sometimes I was even sure I was already in real labour. But after a week of wondering if it was the real thing, and messaging my husband every hour with updates (his idea), my waters broke! It was 10pm on the 12th of December, and I was sitting at the dining room table, playing a game on the computer. I felt something like a little pin-prick sensation, and then a huge gush of liquid. It was awesome and exciting, but also felt really, really gross. I called out to my husband, smiling and ‘eeeeewwww’ing at the same time. I called my mum first, and told her we’d be bringing Grace around soon. Then I called the hospital. They said that we could wait for a couple of hours if we wanted, but we decided to go in straight away.

On the way to Mum’s house, we stopped at the 24-hour grocery store, as you do, and my husband ran in to get some biscuits and drinks. I stayed in the car, of course, as amniotic fluid was still gushing out. I had two maternity pads on (which were soaked through very quickly), and the car seat was protected by two large towels. We dropped Grace off at Mum’s, she was still asleep when we left.

When we got to hospital, we signed in and were shown to an exam room. At this stage, my contractions were getting worse and closer together, but were still a bit irregular. The nurse talked to me about possibly testing my discharge to see whether it really was amniotic fluid. She asked if it was a slow leak or a big gush, and then asked if I’d soaked a pad. That was pretty funny, because I’d soaked through about 5 pads and a couple of towels! Apparently amniotic fluid keeps being produced as it’s coming out, which I didn’t really know. At the time, I was shocked at how much fluid was inside me! Anyway, the nurse followed me into the toilet to look at my most recently soaked pad, and she agreed that it was amniotic fluid.

By this time it was about 12am, and we were told that we could either go home and come back in the morning, or stay there in the exam room for the night. We chose to stay, because my contractions were getting worse (and it was a long way to travel just to have a few hours sleep {or lack of}). My husband was able to get about two hours sleep (on the floor!), but every time I almost drifted off, I’d have a strong contraction. They were really hurting, but the nurses didn’t think it was very bad, because I was still smiling. Yep, I was smiling, but only at them! I was really putting on a front, and grinning through the contractions when they were there. When it was just my husband and I, it was a different story!

I had a shower in the morning, and was shown to a delivery room because the contractions were getting really painful and close together. I was put on a CTG monitor straight away, to monitor Isabella’s heart rate and my contractions. After a little while, I decided to try having some gas, which took the edge off of my contractions. I tried lots of different things to ease the pain and progress my labour - walking around, bouncing on the labour ball, leaning on my husband, and lots and lots of gas. The pain soon became heaps worse, though, and I asked for some pethidine. It didn’t really do much apart from make me extremely, extremely sleepy! I could hardly keep my eyes open between contractions, and was completely out of it. When I was trying to talk intelligibly, it seemed like I was just slurring my words and not making any sense! I had to hold onto my husband the whole time, afraid that I would fall over.

The doctors checked my cervix at some point, and I was dilated 5cm. Two hours later, they checked it again. I was still 5cm. The labour wasn’t progressing as they’d hoped. Earlier, when I was in the exam room, the nurse had told us about some controversy surrounding the treatment of VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Caesarean) patients. Apparently, some doctors are fine with giving the patients syntocinon etc to progress labour, and some are against it. I think the syntocinon is linked with increased cases of the uterine scar rupturing. But she said that it just depends on what doctor is on duty as to whether they’ll let you continue with a VBAC by inducing labour, or if they’ll just go straight to another caesarean. I got one of the doctors who decided on another caesarean.

So I was taken into the operating theatre. This was the most painful part, because added to the disappointment at having laboured for a whole day just to have another caesarean (when I was really, really hoping for a natural birth this time), I had to be wheeled away from the gas! Oh my goodness. I didn’t realise how much the gas was helping with the pain until I couldn’t have it anymore. It was completely unbearable. On the operating table, all the usual stuff happened, except this time I was given a spinal anaesthetic instead of an epidural, because last time the epidural was for pain relief first, and this time the anaesthetic was solely for the operation.

Isabella was born at 7:58pm on the 13th December, exactly a week before her due date.

My experience in hospital this time was way better than after Grace’s birth. I felt fine most of the time (with the help of lots of pain relief!), and even the physiotherapist thought she’d come into the wrong room because I was moving around so well! And this time, I remembered to mention my allergy to Elastoplast, so I didn’t get a huge rash around my scar area!

It took me weeks to get over having another caesarean (and I still think about it sometimes), mainly because now I can never have the experience of a natural birth. And the doctors said that four caesareans is the limit to how many you can safely have, so I’m limited to four kids (without putting them at risk). But, as long as they’re happy and healthy, why should it matter what way they come out?

posted by Alyssa @ 12:24 AM