Wednesday 28 October 2009

Birth Story

Gosh talk about totally different to the first time around!

I had my beautiful weeks off all planned. Thursday 15 October was my last day at work, had a party at work, it was great! I was naughty and ate lots of food and didn't check my sugars much, had cake and sushi and all sorts of yum stuff. Finished late though so that was annoying but since it was my last day.. who cares right? Went to a friend's house after that and stayed out late!

On Friday went and visited those same friends when they were sober, did some shopping and then I came home to wait for my daughter and my parents to come back. They arrived just after lunch and I spent the day playing with her and fussing over her and it was a nice day.

On Saturday, woke up and had some uncomfortable Braxton Hicks pains. Ignored them for a bit, thought it was because I jumped out of bed too quickly, and I went and did laundry and had some breakfast. I had to sit on the floor to do the laundry because it was so uncomfortable, the pains were giving me back pain as well. My parents were leaving to go back to Canberra and they wanted to go shopping first so off they went quite early. I decided to ring the hospital because I wasn't feeling particularly great, and the pains were coming quite regularly almost 6-10 minutely sometimes but lasting less than a minute. It was bad enough to make me stop what I was doing. The hospital told me if the pains hadn't settled down in 1 hour to call again, so at 915 i called again because now I was getting pains down my legs as well (which I remember from last time when I was in pre-labour) and so I called my parents to come back and look after Erika and went to hospital. I put my wallet, yellow card, phone and a book to read in my bag, and then quickly made up a hospital bag "just in case" which had my laptop, charger, wireless 3G, some pads, PJs, undies and maternity bras/singlets.

Got to hospital and went to the assessment room and got hooked up.. and typical no contractions. The midwife said to me that I looked too well to be in labour. I did get one contraction and then she gave me a drink of iced water and then I got more pains. She took one look at me and said "I think you're having a baby today, in the next hour or so" and I was in shock! OMG I can't be having a baby today! She examined me and i was 3cm and thin. So off she went to call my obstetrician. We had no camera, no clothes, nothing! So hubby called his brother to bring in a camera for us, called my parents to say we're having a baby today, and all the time I was like.. no my nice 2 week holiday... GONE!

Anyway they let me use the gas which was NICE! Didn't get off my face like last time, but it helped and it was grrrreeeaaaat! The anaesthetist was in Balmain and we had to wait for him to arrive and then off we went. I was sad to see the nitrous go...

Round to the anaesthetic bay and I got to meet my anaesthetist who was someone of some distinction (in my opinion) and was very good.. but the poor bloke couldn't get my spinal in! I tried my best to get in the position that would be best but it wasn't what they wanted, they seemed to want more flexion at the hips than what I would have done! So after 2 failed attempts at spinal he went to CSE but he got a dry tap with the spinal needle and put the epidural in instead. Went in nicely and was all good. Worked well and I needed some aramine later for headaches and what not, but baby was out soon enough and we got our cuddles and hubby went off to get him weighed... this time i got a scales picture!

Love that epidural morphine! Had no pain for 2 days and then started to get some discomfort which was covered by voltaren and panadol.