My Labour Stories
Let me start of by first saying – I don’t deal with pain very well. So even before I got pregnant, I knew I wanted pain relief during birth. I made sure my Obstetrician knew I wanted one early on too – so there were no surprises.
I had an OB (instead of going through my GP / Midwife) because I am a worry-wart. I worry about everything, and my parents kindly paid for me to have one to help alleviate any fears I had. Then when I was pregnant with Ronan, my insurance covered it.
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CHLOE:
39 Weeks Pregnant – I woke up one morning, the day after shifting a whole heap of furniture, and found my waters had broken (a slow leak). After consulting with my OB, we decided to leave it 24 hours and see if anything happened. When it didn’t, I was booked in for an induction.
I was induced the following morning at 7.30am. I feel because I was already on my way to giving birth, my induction went quite well.
The pain wasn’t fun, at all.
I tried walking, didn’t help. Sitting, didn’t help. Lying, didn’t help. NOTHING helped.
When active labour kicked in (10 hours later), I was on the gas. That wasn’t helping – just making me feel sick, so I said “EPIDURAL TIME”.
The epidural was the worst. It hurt to put that bitch in. Plus I had contractions throughout the whole thing.
My husband was feeling a bit woozy from the whole “epidural-going-in” ordeal, so he had to sit down while the epidural went in and suddenly amongst all of this drama my waters broke.
It was like the flood gates opening up; I actually thought I had shit myself.
Everyone got wet – Phil, the midwives, me.
After cleaning up, my epidural had kicked in and it was wonderful.
We put music on, and my OB came in with Burger King and we chilled out until I suddenly felt like I needed to do a poo.
Then it was time to push. After an hour of pushing, Chloe was born.
7lbs 14ozs at 9.45pm the night that I got induced.
I had an episiotomy, and yep, I pooped myself. Although I worried about the pooping myself part, I had no idea it had happened. Phil didn’t tell me until way after the birth LOOOLLL
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RONAN:
42 Weeks Pregnant – Ronan didn’t want to come out, so I was induced.
After 12 hours of painful contractions (Ronan was posterior so the contractions were way worse than with Chloe), my waters finally broke when I stood up to go to the toilet. FINALLY things were starting to progress (at that point I was over it).
The contractions were starting to kill me, but were still irregular, so I got put on syntocinon to help speed things up.
This was when I asked for the epidural.
This time, not only did it hurt but it didn’t really work properly. One side of my body still felt things, which started making me worried.
Then the monitors started showing that Ronan was struggling a bit, so after my OB checked him he realised he wasn’t coming down.
Ronan wasn’t coming out of this stressed state (his heart rate was low), so I was taken in very quickly to have an emergency c-section performed.
I was the most scared I had ever been in my life. I had no idea what was happening.
I pulled the anaesthetist in close and said “I better not feel this” and then pulled my OB in and said “I’m really scared”.
Thankfully they were both great.
Ronan was born via emergency c-section at 5.30am the following morning.
9lbs 6ozs.
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I worried during each pregnancy, and the labour/birth always scared me. Especially the first time. The unknown is the worst. I was actually petrified
I got through it though, and I’d do it again in a heart beat if it was to happen.
My OB was amazing, as were the midwives who worked alongside him to help bring my children into the world.
I birthed at Middlemore both times, and both times I was treated extremely well.
I also had a stay at BirthCare after Chloe was born, sadly couldn’t make it there after Ronan but only because of the recovery.
How was the birth of your child/children? Care to share?
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