It looked like a scene out of the saw movie
It was about 7:30 on Monday morning, quite normal for me to wake up with painful heartburn. So normal I was quite sure from what people said (that if you have a lot of heartburn you have a hairy baby) that I was going to give birth to a wookie.
I get out of bed and head over to my mini fridge to microwave some milk and honey to help relieve me of this nightmare as the white chocolate isn’t helping. It’s one of the more painful episodes of heartburn. I hear a pop as I’m getting up and feel like my pad is completely soaked. I wake my husband and tell him I think my waters have broken only to be told “to get back into bed and sleep it off “.
I go to the toilet and go for a wee thinking maybe I’d wet myself and change my pad. After about an hour as I’m getting back into bed I hear another pop but this time there is quite a gush and I’m now certain my waters have gone. I decide to wait half an hour until the midwife rings to confirm the time of my sweep. She advises me to go straight to the hospital even though I was only getting twinges.
I get to the hospital and I have to wait a while to be seen. The midwife isn’t convinced I’m in labour and is quite condescending asking if this is my first. I explain what happened and eventually she puts me on the monitor and in a shocked voice asks if I’m having contractions. I tell her yes but they are mild and then she finally examines me I’m 2cm. I worriedly ask what next and I’m told to go home and come back when the contractions get more painful and regular. But they also book me in for induction if that doesn’t happen. I leave the hospital terrified for my baby as I’m still leaking amniotic fluid and terrified of infection.
I spend the day bouncing on my ball trying to get the labour to move along hoping that the contractions will be advanced enough to not need induction. I can’t eat or sleep through worry. Around 9pm I go to bed as I have to be at the hospital for 7am. I need to sleep as I have heard it can take a while when you’re induced plus I have heard the pains get worse quicker. I can’t get comfortable as my back is aching. I manage to drop off but I’m awoken by a quite painful contraction around 12:45 and they are coming quite fast. I remember thinking this can’t be right where are all the mild one’s that build up to this.
I get to the hospital and I’m eventually given a chair in the observation area. This midwife doesn’t believe I’m in labour either. She examines me and I’m 4 or 5 cm they tell me they are quite busy and I might have to wait awhile for a bed. This is 6am. My poor husband has no idea what to do it’s hurting me to sit but I’m told if I go for a walk someone else will be given my chair so I stay put. Now I couldn’t tell you how long I was sat in that chair but my husband and mum said it was around 1:30pm when I was finally given a bed. And my beloved gas and air. This stuff is incredible.
I’m examined again and I’m about 7cm. 7 quickly went to 10 and I want to push but I’m so exhausted and the midwife (who mumbled her name so no one could hear her) gives me pethidine and I’m able to rest (before hallucinating and seeing my father in the Window of the second floor room. I should explain that my father passed away when I was 9.)
Getting the energy from somewhere to finally push her out at 3:54pm on a rainy December afternoon my little pot of gold Alexis Molly Collette Hayes weighing 8lb 2. She’s so perfect alot bigger than my first but it still amazes me how tiny her little hands are.
I barely get to look at her and feed her when she is ripped away from me and handed to my mum. I look up and there is blood everywhere up the walls and dripping off the bed and out of me. It looked like a scene out of the saw movie. I don’t really have time to take it in before the multitude of doctors and nurses are surrounding me. I don’t know what is happening but I’m given the gas and air and told to use it. There are nurses pushing on my tummy and a doctor the only way I can describe it is as he was scooping the clots out of me with his gloved hand. I have four cannulas in and drips of some clear solution. No one is talking to me, just about me. Where is my husband where is my baby? Eventually I am reassured that my baby is fine she’s with my mum. And my husband is back from calling his mum. Then the same midwife tells my husband they have stopped the bleeding no need for surgery but I had lost nearly 2 litres of blood so I’m going to be staying awhile.
One of the best days of my life was when my two girls met for the first time seeing the love in my eldest daughter’s eyes for her new little sister and for her to say thank you mummy for giving her to me.
