Long Overdue Birth update

First of all I am going to apologise for my lack of blogging! It’s been 5 months since my last post, (it has also taken me about two weeks to complete this post) can’t believe I have left it so long. I will try and update on everything that has happened but I will probably forget to include most of it. It also won’t be the best written blog as I try and include everything.

So the last few weeks of my pregnancy went by without any real problems, although I did get pretty big and uncomfortable. 

I spent my last few weeks of pregnancy getting ready for Christmas and catching up with friends. I also spent it going long walks, bouncing on my exercise ball and trying to drink raspberry leaf tea (gave me a headache, had to give up)
So my due date came and went with absolutely no movement. Went to see my midwife the day after my due date for a sweep which she had no luck with as my body wasn’t ready, but her trying did cause me to have a show that night. 

Three days later I woke up having contractions at 5.30am. How people manage to go back to sleep while having contractions I will never know. My contractions were on and off all day, getting closer together. I managed to stay at home until after 11pm before heading to the hospital as my contractions were getting stronger and were only 2-3 minutes apart.  When I got to the hospital they told me I was 5cm dilated. I was honestly over the moon that I had managed to labour at home until that point. I was sent straight to the labour ward where I met my midwife who if I’m honest I didn’t really like. 
I continued to get stronger contractions, I managed to stay mobile as I was most comfortable on my feet holding onto hubby when the contractions where happening. I held off for quite a while before using gas and air. By 4am  I was only 7cm dilated and the contractions were beyond any pain I had ever imagined. I was still on the gas and air, I had had some anti sickness meds as I had been sick a couple of times from the gas and air. 

My midwife went on a break and the one covering decided to try and monitor baby. Turns out my contractions had slowed and baby’s heart rate was going up and down. The doctor came in and said he wanted to try and break my waters to see if that would speed things up. By this point I had been confined to the bed and I was really struggling with the pain. While the doc was waiting to break my waters it happened on its own. It turns out baby’s bowels had moved. Doc examined me and said baby was back to back which was why I was in so much pain and convinced me to have an epidural as he didn’t think I was coping with the pain. 
While I’m waiting for the epidural my original midwife was trying to get me to move about and onto my side but my whole body ached and I just couldn’t do it. I could tell she was getting annoyed with me as she had also tried to get me to pee which wasn’t happening and then tried to put a catheter in which was agony! The doc then appeared again to say he wanted to take a blood test from baby’s head which he told me would be painful as I had had no pain relief. I can’t even remember how painful it was as I was already in agony. 
So anesthetist came, put in the epidural. After half an hour I was still feeling absolutely no relief from the epidural. Anesthetist appeared to test it and agreed it hadn’t taken on either side. Doc appeared again to do another blood test on baby. He told me I was ready to push so there was no time to try and reposition the epidural and I was going to have to try and push. 
At some point during this there was a shift change and I got the nicest midwife. I began to try pushing but it wasn’t happening, every time I pushed, baby was just going back up as soon as I stopped. Doctor appeared again to say they were going to give me an episiotomy and use forceps to turn baby and help deliver. 
While they were getting set up and ready to go, baby somehow managed to turn on its own so change of plan they were going to use the kiwi to deliver.  Plan was for me to push and the doc to hold baby in place waiting for the next  contraction. So episiotomy and the cap being put on baby’s head with no pain relief was pretty bad but nothing compared to the firey pain I felt while he held baby’s head in place.  But a few pushes later and the doc is holding my baby up in a total lion king moment while me and hubby shout ITS A BOY!!!! 

Because of everything that had happened unfortunate baby boy was taken away for a little while to be checked out before I got to hold him. Thankfully I could hear him crying so I was feeling relief that he was alive and breathing 

According to the midwife as soon as baby’s head cane out, the whole body came flying out and caused me to have a third degree class C tear. Hubby tells me at some point there was a discussion of being prepared to go for an emergency c section. At points when everything was going on this did cross my mind that it was going to happen, perhaps I was even hoping it would so I wouldn’t have to keep going with the pain I was in. 
After what felt like forever I eventually got my beautiful 8lb 5oz baby boy lying on my chest. He was just perfect. And just like that all the pain and the stress of the last 27 hours disappeared as he was absolutely worth it all. 
While I was gazing lovingly at my new baby boy the doctor (who was the most amazing calm man ever) explained about my tear but said I wasn’t losing a lot of blood so they were waiting for a theatre to be ready for me to go and be stitched up. I had discussions with the midwife about feeding while I was waiting and I decided I was going to bottle feed, I was exhausted and stressed about going to theatre and just didn’t feel I could manage to try and breastfeed. I know many people would have tried, but for me I now know it was definitely the right decision at the time. 
Pretty quickly I am then being wheeled off to theatre leaving my baby boy and hubby. I was given a spinal seeing as the epidural hadn’t worked and it was honestly such a relief to feel nothing although a little weird to see the theatre staff moving my legs about all over the place and not being able to feel it. They wrapped me in a heated blanket and I had the best nap I’ve ever had while they stitched up my tear, my episiotomy and also three hairline tears around my vagina. Must have been a bit of a mess down there 
Once it was over I was wheeled round to recovery to meet the hubby and baby boy. Hubby stayed with us until I was moved to a bed on a ward and then he headed home for a shower and change. It took quite a long time for the spinal to wear off it so it was hours before I could get up out of bed to get changed and cleaned up. I had to stay in hospital over night as my catheter had to be in 24 hours. The next day we were both checked over and ready to head home in time for Christmas. 
The next few days went by in a bit of a blur what with having a new baby and it being Christmas but it was amazing.  My recovery went well and I was moving about and not really having too much pain all things considered. I was very religious at taking my pain relief and laxatives as well as the arnica pastilles I decided to add in to help with all the swelling and after two weeks I was feeling good.  I think the fact I went to theatre and the doc was able to take her time tidying and stitching me up helped with my recovery as opposed to if they had had to do it quickly in the labour ward.  I also had to remember to do my pelvic floor exercises every day to help with the recovery. With the type of tear I had it’s common to have problems with bowel movements but thankfully that hasn’t happened. I have a physio follow up in a few weeks just to make sure there is no lasting damage to my pelvic floor. 
Baby boy is now nearly 15 weeks and they have been the best 15 weeks of my life. He is just amazing. I love watching him change and grow and develop his own little personality. I couldn’t be happier with our little family. 
I am undecided as to whether I will continue to blog. This blog was a place for me to vent while I was trying to conceive and I’m not sure I want to turn it into a baby blog but we will see. For now I just want to concentrate on spending time with my baby but maybe one day I will come back to it. 
Apologies again for this post, it’s all over the place. 
Sending love xxx