Clearmydebts - Diary to keep me away from the path of temptation

too_much_debt

Hi CMD

Just found your diary so have subscribed now.

Again, Congratulations on the birth of Max, sorry your labour was quite long. My middle DD was 7lb 15, hers was the best labour/birth experience as I had an epidural.

Look forward to hearing lots more about Max in the coming months, it's so exciting having your first baby, we bought too much stuff when we had our first and never used some of it (like the baby swing which swung too fast and the bath top changer thing). At least we were able to use most of it for DD2 as she was born when DD1 was 13 months old.

I'm sure you are enjoying being a Mum, I'm glad your Mum and DH are there to help out and hope your dad has a good journey over.

TMD

savingholmes

Hope everything is going well with you and yours.... It can be exhausting when you first give birth - it will get easier I promise!

wendz86

Just wanted to say he is gorgeous, bet you are so proud xx

eternal_sunshine

hi cmd-didn't realise you had your own thread, have subscribed now-been following your progress on Dinahs thread, really chuffed you didn't have to get induced in the end! congrats on your little bundle of joy!

savingmore

congrats....been following your progress on dinah's thread (lurker there too)...love to see photos and to hear your saga about labour xx

clearmydebts

Thanks all, will have birth story up soon!

clearmydebts

I had a show on Sunday 28th Feb and had slight contractions on and off all day. I was feeling down about being 9 days overdue and just wanted to meet my baby. On the Monday my Mam made me get up early and we walked into town and went shopping and to the cinema. While I was in the cinema I was getting contractions but they were very mild and very erratic. This continued on Monday evening and I went to bed.

On Tuesday I woke up with a contraction at 3am. I went to the toilet and fell back asleep until I was woken with another contraction at 5.10am. I started timing them and at 5.50am I woke OH up and asked him if I could use contraction master on his iPhone. He started to time them and they were coming really regularly, every 6 mins, 4 mins, etc etc and they were lasting up until a minute and a half. I rang the midwife led unit and they said to come in to get checked out. I had a bath and put the tens on (tens was brilliant) and started doing my 20/20 hypnobirth breathing (which was a lifesaver as well). My OH rang a taxi and him and my Mam were trying to get me to hurry up but he said that I was very zen like and was insisting on straightening my hair before we got to the hospital.

When we were on the way to the hospital I was so angry with my OH and Mam as I felt they were forcing me to go to the hospital way too soon and thought that I wasn’t even dilated. When we got there I was examined and found to be 5cm dilated so I was thrilled. The birthing pool was available and made ready for me and I hopped into the pool at about 9am.

I stayed in the birthing pool and continued to breath through my contractions with the 20-20 breathing. My OH never left my side and was fantastic with the breathing. My Mam was massaging my back as that is where all the contractions were. I got to about 7cm and had to start using gas and air as the contractions were getting really painful. I managed to get to 9cm on gas and air and then the contractions started to go off the scale for me and I was having trouble breathing through them as they were on top of each other. The midwife asked me how much time I was getting between contractions but I wasn’t getting any. They were constant. She examined me again and found that although I was 9cm dilated there was a bit of cervix that had another 2cm to go (lip over Max’s head). She said that we could give it another 2 hours to see if it moved and if not we would have to review the plan. I lost it at this stage as I had been between 8-9cm for about 3 hours with no progression and was getting no break from the pain at all. I asked what my options were and she said pethadine or epidural. I decided to go with the epidural as I honestly felt that the last bit of cervix wouldn’t budge in 2 hours (and I was right!!!). This was about 4.30pm and I had been contracting for nearly 12 hours.

I was brought to another room and got the epidural. From then on I could talk again and was laughing and joking. There were quite a few people in the room because that morning they asked if a trainee midwife and a trainee doula could be present for the birth. I said yes and they ended up staying for the whole thing. The midwife wanted Max to come down the birth canal so we waited until about 8.30pm and then they had to get a doctor to come in and manually move the last bit of cervix over Max’s head as it still wasn’t budging (was I glad I had the epidural then!!!). He moved it and I started pushing.

Unfortunately Max’s heartbeat started to dip at that stage so I had to have an emergency forceps and episiotomy. Max arrived into the world at 9.50pm on Tuesday 2nd March. He weighed 7lbs 15ozs and stayed awake for 4 hours after the birth just looking around and being very alert.

Myself and OH are besotted with him and although the birth didn’t go to plan I feel it was a very positive experience and am proud that I got to 9cm with just gas and air. I think I was just unlucky that he got stuck because the midwife said if that hadn’t happened I would have had him in the pool by 4.30pm that day!!!!

Dinah93

Huge congratualations for going through all that and taking it in your stride when things didn't go to plan. However that post really needed a warning, I was about to eat my dinner but I'm having scary, scary images of a cervix with a little face poking out now...

too_much_debt

Thanks for posting your birth experience, sorry your labour was so long, naughty cervix for making things go on for longer, I'm sure it was worth every minute though when you saw and held Max for the first time.

lulu984

You sound like you're gonna be a great mum CMD.
Even though things didnt go to plan, you still were positive the whole way through.

Also love the hair straighteners bit and the Iphone bit! How funny is that, when Max is 18 and reads his birthing story back. I bet thats gonna sounds so outdated!