Birth Story: A long painful journey
A lot of people are surprised when they go into labour. Some wake in the middle of the night to find that they are having mild contractions signalling the onset of labour, others are in the middle of a task or event when their waters break and they are rushed into hospital. Whatever the case may be, plans are discarded and events abandoned to be replaced by the special magic of birth.
In my case, there was no surprise involved. I was one of the ever-growing percentage of people whose labour was induced medically.
Being induced definitely has it’s pros and cons. For example, it takes away the surprise of going into labour naturally. However, it does give you quite a lot of control and anticipation for the impending date set.
There are many different reasons for being induced. Mine was down to the fact that I had gestational diabetes.
I was allowed to choose the day that I would be induced (within the time-frame allotted), and told that it could take up to two days before my little baby was born, depending on how quickly things progressed. I booked my date and arrived promptly on said day feeling both nervous and excited.
There was another feeling very prominent on my special day: ill.
Unfortunately, a few days prior, I had come down with an awful cold and so found myself packing a box of tissues and throat soothers along with my hospital bag.
I had called the hospital the day before to find out if it would be possible to perhaps delay my labour a day or two until I had recovered from my cold, but was informed somewhat unhelpfully that the ward would be too busy to book me in for another slot anytime soon. And so there I found myself – the morning of my labour – full of cold, big as a balloon, and ready to welcome my baby into the world.
Being the first appointment of the day I was booked into the maternity ward without delay and by mid morning I found myself in the hospital café watching my husband happily eating his breakfast while I waited in nervous anticipation for the hormone they had given me to kick in and start my labour.
The kind nurse had been very discreet about giving me the pessary and I felt a little uncomfortable in a café full of people with it in, so we made a hasty retreat back to the privacy of the maternity ward.
My experience with being induced was, to cut a long story short, being at hospital all day with minor period-like cramps full of cold while my husband paid an extortionate rate to hire the TV at my bedside. By dinner time, all the other pregnant patients had been admitted into the ward and I found myself confined to my bed with two straps around my large belly monitoring both mine and my baby’s heartbeats.
An absolute pain in the…
Now, I’ll make an admission. I am not good with pain. I hate it. I’ll do or take anything to avoid it.
I am a wimp without remorse. And I don’t mind being honest about the fact that my birth plan fully included all pain medication available. I had heard that being induced is more painful than going into labour naturally because the synthetic hormones given to start labour don’t trigger the release of oxytocin, which in a natural labour works to stimulate your uterus to contract and dilate the cervix. With an induced labour, this does not happen – the intense pain begins immediately.
In the few months leading up to my labour, I had mentioned to a work colleague that the pain side of labour worried me and to this day I’ll never forget her reply: “If you’re worried about pain just remember the option is there for an epidural – pain problem solved.” This simple statement was like a sponge to my fears. It soaked them up leaving me feeling confident that I could make it through my labour without the soul shattering pain I thought had awaited me before.
My sister had just given birth two months before (read Paula’s birth story here) – without ANY pain relief – 100% natural, and yet despite this I knew I would be hounding the nurses for my epidural from the moment my waters broke. My hospital birthing class had already assured me that there were always two anesthetists on hand so I would not be missed out. But like most hospitals, I knew I might have to keep on their case to get what I wanted.
It must have all kicked off about 6pm. I remember that I had just sent my husband away to get himself some dinner when I felt my first increasing of pain. The nurse was on her routine check of the ward and I told her that I was starting to get uncomfortable. It’s sod’s law that my husband had just left me when it all started happening.
My contractions went from period-like cramps to actual labour contractions very quickly. I was lying in bed bracing myself for what I knew was coming when I felt a painful “pop” inside me, and I knew that my sister had felt this too before her waters broke. Armed with this knowledge, I waited for any sort of a leak… but nothing happened. My husband arrived back from the cafe then, hands full of food that made me feel sick to even look at. He must not have been gone long, but he left with a mildly bored and nervous wife and returned to a woman full of pain and annoyance.
“Where have you been?!” I snapped the moment he had opened the curtain surrounding my bed. His confusion was clear to see, but before he could reply I announced angrily that I needed the toilet.
It was the strangest sensation – feeling like I needed to wee yet being unable to relieve myself – as I sat for what seemed an eternity on the toilet. I heard my husband knocking on the door and asking me if I was okay, which I suppose is what made me give up and go back to the bed. The pain was burning hotter and I knew something had happened, but I couldn’t understand why my waters had not broken.
I sent my husband off to find the nurse while I stood waiting in hopes of an explanation. The nurse was lovely – I’ll never forget being in the middle of telling her that something wasn’t right and her very caring reply that it meant things were obviously progressing well when it finally happened – my waters broke. That is, part one of my waters. A very embarrassing gush of water that had me thinking how strange it was that now I didn’t feel the sensation to wee and yet here I was peeing all over the hospital floor beside my bed!
The embarrassment factor at the core of childbirth
Now, I am one of those women who will put toilet paper down the loo at work before peeing to muffle the sound of my pee should another person come into the toilet cubicle beside me and hear anything, so as you can imagine, standing there in front of my husband and a stranger basically wetting myself in front of them was more embarrassment than I’ve felt in a long time.
Little did I know my embarrassment scale was about to go through the roof. The nurse left quickly to get me some towels and I was sat on the edge of my bed when part two of my waters broke. It felt like they would never stop. When the nurse returned she not only had to mop the entire floor but also replace all the sheets on my bed. Bless her for not complaining once.
The next few hours are something of a blur. When you are induced they say you go into full contractions straight away and it certainly felt that way. I remember shaking from the pain while my husband timed the contractions. I held on to him for dear life through each one and the next would be upon me before I’d had time to recover from the last. When they checked me, I was four centimetres dilated.
They gave me Pethidine and anti-sickness injections but I still vomited. The pain medication lasted all of five minutes, just about enough time to make me realise what I was missing. I figured it was past time for my epidural!
The nurse who had been so kind to me earlier had either finished her shift or was seeing to another patient so when I requested the epidural from another nurse she advised me rather flippantly that I could only have an epidural when a room became available in the labour ward, which wouldn’t be for a while. I remember thinking that nobody had warned me about this before! I felt alarm bells instantly going off in my paranoid head. Were they joking? The nurse seemed so unhelpful – I couldn’t believe this was happening. Where had that helpful nurse from earlier gone?
I held out as long as I could before demanding (yet again) my promised epidural. The nurse denied me with her blasé response – and boy was I LIVID.
I remember yelling at her (the poor woman, but really, don’t deny a woman in labour her pain relief) and I must have seemed pretty peeved off because she decided to go and check one more time to see if something had come up. I was sure that I must have dilated further, but apparently it’s against policy to check a patient again so soon despite my pleas.
Let me just take this moment to say that I am not a confrontational person. I don’t argue with strangers (usually) and I’m not really a fighter. I was always a quiet and shy child growing up. I tell you this because the fact that I yelled at the nurse is a pretty big deal for me – that’s basically how much agony I was in.
It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. It changed me. Of course, everyone’s experience is different and people have different thresholds of pain. Mine just isn’t that high.
More screaming and eventual pain relief
However, there was light at the end of the tunnel. At about 11pm I was finally told that I could have my epidural. Boy was I relieved. I remember that all through the whole ordeal I was the only woman on the ward who was in labour, bearing in mind I had been admitted first.
I could hear the husband and wife in the cubicle next to me talking quietly while I did my best to keep my agonising pain under control without screaming the whole ward down. They put me in a wheelchair and as they wheeled me away I finally gave in and cried out in pain, most likely the sound echoed through the whole ward, but I was past caring.
In a private room whilst waiting for my epidural, I was given gas and air which drastically helped the pain – I’m not sure why I wasn’t offered this sooner. The only downside was that it made me vomit (again). At this point they checked me and I was six centimetres dilated.
My anesthetist was like an angel sent from heaven. My epidural was the best thing I’ve ever had. I could finally breathe. What a relief.
The downside – which I also hadn’t been warned about in my birthing class – is that when you are given an epidural they wait for the baby to make it’s way down the birth canal until it’s basically crowning before you can push. This took roughly ten hours.
The next morning I was finally allowed to push. However, the day shift nurse told me that I could only have half an hour to push and after that they would need to step in. It had been a long day and night, I was full of cold, and half an hour just wasn’t enough time. I did my best, I pushed as hard as I could and it made me dizzy with the effort it took.
After the allowed time, the nurse advised that they would have to intervene with forceps because my baby was in distress and my own temperature had risen quite a lot. I felt like I had failed. It was awful. (I only found out later that women who are induced are more likely to have an assisted delivery, where forceps or ventouse suction are used to help the baby out). My room was now full of nurses, along with a trainee doctor, and there I was – legs held up in the air for all to see. At this point nothing mattered more than my baby’s safety and so I let them do what was needed to help me deliver my little boy.
The final stretch
I was admitted at 9am on a February morning, went into labour at 6pm, had an epidural at 11pm, and finally gave birth the next day at 9.48am.
I remember the first thing I thought when they handed him to me all wrapped up was how big and hot he felt. The next thing, as he wailed his little lungs at the world, was that he had his daddy’s mouth. It had been a long journey, 9 months long in fact, but here he was in my arms finally and there was no better feeling in the world than holding him against my heart – this little baby who was made of myself and my husband.
And then he was taken by one of the nurses while his daddy cut the cord and he had all his checks carried out. I was being stitched up from where they had cut me to use the forceps and I watched my baby in awe as his daddy dressed him for the first time.
At 7lbs and 11oz my little boy was the most perfect and precious thing I had ever beheld and I knew that our lives would never be the same. Despite all of the pain I had endured I knew that I would do it all over again for him, our little treasure.
