Some women go weeks over their due date. Really, hats off to them. Because when your time has come, although you are seriously petrified, you’re ready to…not be pregnant anymore.
I only went over four days before I went into labour, the waiting started when the contractions showed up. After 30 hours the midwives and consultants were ready to intervene if I didn’t get the baby out very soon. But first back up a bit…
The contractions started at 4am. I was so excited. They came through regularly straight away – every 7 or 8 minutes. After a couple of hours they were coming around every four minutes and by 8am I could not imagine the pain getting much worse. We headed, through rush hour traffic, to the hospital, worrying that we’d not get there in time. A midwife led me to a room and examined me. I HAD NOT EVEN STARTED TO DILATE. The midwife said she did a sweep to help me along. How very kind of her. Within minutes we were out of there to take it easy back home. Via Macdonalds for a drive-thru breakfast.
Bear in mind that the contractions are still coming through every four minutes.
looking back that whole day was a blur. What did we do?? What I do remember is that these contractions were not slowing down so I was gettting pretty worn out throughout the afternoon – only I couldn’t rest. By tea time we’d had enough and called the maternity ward up to ask if we could come back. I don’t know why we choase rush hour again. I was relieved to get back there and onto a bed. A midwife came in, checked me over. TWO FLAMIN’ CENTIMETERS. I acknowledge – at least my uterus is starting to co-operate. But come on! I though I was minutes from sneezing the baby out! I had the choice to go upstairs onto the women’s ward or go home and I chose home and very soon thats where we were heading again. Via the fish and chip shop for tea.
At some point in the day my parents must have left the north east to bomb it down the motorway into Lancashire to meet their first grandchild. They were home by the time we got there with our chippy tea. And oh my life, I remember struggling by this point. Each contraction coming thick and fast.
I remember trying to have a bath but just writhing around in us for a matter of minutes before I had to get out. It must have been toward midnight that my mum made the decision to head back over to the hospital. I remember thinking that the next time I came back through our front door would be with my baby in my arms. I remember the next midwife. She was called Anne and she was very…Old school. No messing. I was given gas and air this time but it didnt help at all. Another thing that didn’t help was being told that after 20 hours of pain you’re STILL ONLY TWO CENTIMETERS DILATED.
Anne told me I was panicking, tensing my body and creating ineffective contractions. She also told me it was a back to back labour and this means more intense back pain. She told me to close my eyes and find my happy place. My first happy place was hitting this woman over the head with something so I had to find a second happy place. She showed me how to ‘dance’ with The Husband, draping my arms around his neck and swaying side to side through the contractions. Then she told me to go home. Again.
To be fair, I was approaching the contraction completely differently now. We got back home in the early hours of the morning, and we all went to bed to try and rest. As I lay next to The Husband, listening to his rhythmic sleepy breathing, I concentrated on each wave of pain, trying to relax my body through it. After an hour or so I had tried lying on my side, lying on my back, kneeling against the bed and standing up. I went downstairs and The Husband joined my in our living room.
I stood Rob up so we could ‘dance’ and as the pain rose, I remember thinking that I wanted to die. I’d had enough. Perhaps the hospital could give me something that would knock me out so I could rest. I looked up at Rob and he’d fallen asleep on my shoulder. A ‘gentle tap’ woke him up and he decided enough was enough. I bit onto the seatbelt throughout the 15 minute car ride back over to the hospital. I had fully decided that I would chain myself to a bed if I had to. I was not going to be going back home pregnant.
This time when I tried to the gas and air it brought immediate relief, and in those moments I forged a lifelong love for the stuff. They kept telling me to just use it as the contractions were coming. Stuff that, I breathed the stuff in and out like it was oxygen. In the haze of pain relief I heard distant relieved voices and someone saying that I wasn’t going anywhere this time…(to be continued).
All Things Momma Bear 