Post by blossom on May 20, 2006 16:48:07 GMT
Some grim stories in here!
Here goes...I've never written this down before and don't really like talking about it so see how we go.
Had a bit of a rough pregnancy - nothing specific, other than gaining an astonishing 5 stone, mostly water. My hands and feet looked like marigolds filled with water. At 20 weeks people were saying "Oooh you haven't long to go!".
I was 41 + 2 when I went into labour. Tues morning at 10am. My waters broke spectacularly in the lift of my apartment block and soaked the floor. Walking (or waddling) to my flat there was a trail behind me. Rang the MW who sent me to the hospital to test to see if was def amniotic fluid, which it was. They told me that the contractoins should start within 24 hours but if not booked me in for thursday. By lunchtime on tuesday my contractions started so I looked forward to having my little one.
My contractions were very irrugular - sometimes 5 mins apart and sometimes an hour apart. I rang the hospital several times and they kept telling me they didn;t have enough beds and only to come in when my contractions were regularly 5 mins apart or less.
So...After 36 hours of these irregular but very painful contractions i went to the hospital and begged them to do something. They plugged me up to the machine to have a look at the contractions and agreed they were very strong braxton hicks and they would induce me the next day. They gave me some paracetemol and told me I could go home. I got off the bed and collapsed. I could feel her head pushing down so painfully so they let me stay and said they would induce me the next morning. I endured another night of contractions with just paracetemol and at 9am the next day the mw came to get me to be induced. Almost 48 hours of contractions! Beofre inducing me they decided to give me a quick internal and found that I was 6 centimeters dilated..."Oh so you have been in established labour after all!" Like I hadn;t been screaming this at them for two days.
Gas and air, pethidine and an epidural later, I relaxed one the bed and finally went into the third stage at 6.30 pm. Pushed like mad for an hour and then they sent for a doctor. Pushded for a further hour (pretty knackered by then) and with the help of a ventouse she finally popped her head out at 8.34pm. Then it all went wrong. We suffered something called a shoulder dystocia, which means her shoulders got stuck in my pelvis. It took the doctors a few minutes to get her out and I spent the duiration screaming. I can't really remember what heppened but it took three hours to stich me up, having had a three way episiotomy. I sincerely thought I was going to die and was screaming in pain, despite three local aneasthetics being injected into me 'down there' during the stitching. The 60 hour labour was nothing compared to the last four minutes of delivery. I really had no idea what was going on...I was rather naively waiting for our skin to skin moment, but it never happened so I was also terrified that something bad had happened to my little one. Fortunately she came out of the experience completely unscathed and had a good apgar score of 7 & 9.
I was still having reconstructive surgery 5 months after giving birth.
I can't possibly go into how much this experience has disturbed me, it makes me shiver to think about it and I can't possibly imagine getting pregnant again. Have discussed future pregnancies with GP and been advised that I would be advised to have a c section, but terrified of going into labour before planned date etc.
Thanks for reading, sorry if really long.
Here goes...I've never written this down before and don't really like talking about it so see how we go.
Had a bit of a rough pregnancy - nothing specific, other than gaining an astonishing 5 stone, mostly water. My hands and feet looked like marigolds filled with water. At 20 weeks people were saying "Oooh you haven't long to go!".
I was 41 + 2 when I went into labour. Tues morning at 10am. My waters broke spectacularly in the lift of my apartment block and soaked the floor. Walking (or waddling) to my flat there was a trail behind me. Rang the MW who sent me to the hospital to test to see if was def amniotic fluid, which it was. They told me that the contractoins should start within 24 hours but if not booked me in for thursday. By lunchtime on tuesday my contractions started so I looked forward to having my little one.
My contractions were very irrugular - sometimes 5 mins apart and sometimes an hour apart. I rang the hospital several times and they kept telling me they didn;t have enough beds and only to come in when my contractions were regularly 5 mins apart or less.
So...After 36 hours of these irregular but very painful contractions i went to the hospital and begged them to do something. They plugged me up to the machine to have a look at the contractions and agreed they were very strong braxton hicks and they would induce me the next day. They gave me some paracetemol and told me I could go home. I got off the bed and collapsed. I could feel her head pushing down so painfully so they let me stay and said they would induce me the next morning. I endured another night of contractions with just paracetemol and at 9am the next day the mw came to get me to be induced. Almost 48 hours of contractions! Beofre inducing me they decided to give me a quick internal and found that I was 6 centimeters dilated..."Oh so you have been in established labour after all!" Like I hadn;t been screaming this at them for two days.
Gas and air, pethidine and an epidural later, I relaxed one the bed and finally went into the third stage at 6.30 pm. Pushed like mad for an hour and then they sent for a doctor. Pushded for a further hour (pretty knackered by then) and with the help of a ventouse she finally popped her head out at 8.34pm. Then it all went wrong. We suffered something called a shoulder dystocia, which means her shoulders got stuck in my pelvis. It took the doctors a few minutes to get her out and I spent the duiration screaming. I can't really remember what heppened but it took three hours to stich me up, having had a three way episiotomy. I sincerely thought I was going to die and was screaming in pain, despite three local aneasthetics being injected into me 'down there' during the stitching. The 60 hour labour was nothing compared to the last four minutes of delivery. I really had no idea what was going on...I was rather naively waiting for our skin to skin moment, but it never happened so I was also terrified that something bad had happened to my little one. Fortunately she came out of the experience completely unscathed and had a good apgar score of 7 & 9.
I was still having reconstructive surgery 5 months after giving birth.
I can't possibly go into how much this experience has disturbed me, it makes me shiver to think about it and I can't possibly imagine getting pregnant again. Have discussed future pregnancies with GP and been advised that I would be advised to have a c section, but terrified of going into labour before planned date etc.
Thanks for reading, sorry if really long.