First time pregnant mummas, I really advise you don't read on. Of course, my idea of what is traumatic may differ dramatically from yours, but I never liked hearing the negative birth stories while pregnant so completely understand if you feel the same.
I really want to write this story down in full, partially for anyone interested in reading it, but also for my benefit as I have often avoided retelling it. Warning; this will be a long blog entry.
Pregnancy:
I fell pregnant when I was 19 years old. Although bubs wasn't exactly planned, he was not a surprise either.
I carried very big in my first pregnancy (I will post a series of photos at the end of this blog post), at the time a larger than average baby was suspected to be the cause, but we now know I had a lot more fluid than most people have. I showed early and just kept getting bigger. I had little to no morning sickness and to be honest I really loved being pregnant. I loved my bump, I loved my bigger breasts. I loved the feeling of growing my child within me and how womanly that was.
Unfortunately in my first trimester I did some ligament damage at work (I was a childcare worker) and as my pregnancy progressed and my ligaments stretched this damage got worse and worse. By 20 weeks I was in constant pain and had started regular physio. I also had issues with sciatica.
Despite this, things progressed well and both bubs and I were healthy. I had a low lying placenta that moved up by 32 weeks and was not an issue. I gained 14kg all up, the maximum weight gain for someone of my height and felt every kilo of it.
At 32 weeks I started having very regular and quite painful contractions. The hospital suspected I was in early labour and we had to discuss some very frightening options of what would happen if Leo arrived so prematurely. Thankfully everything stopped on it's own and that was our only real scare the entire pregnancy.
My doctor was sure that a) baby would be big and b) I wouldn't make it to 40 weeks. At 37 weeks pregnant Leopold went from being fully engaged to transverse so our birth plans changed completely. Now considered 'high risk' due to baby's position and my doctor's fear of him being an ill fit for my pelvis I was going to have to deliver at the bigger hospital near us, as opposed to the small, local one that had been my first choice.
Labour: Part 1-
Despite my doctor's predictions I was nearly 40 weeks pregnant and very much fed up. For the last 10 days I had been experiencing regular, but bearable contractions. I wanted them to either go away entirely or amp up and neither of these things seemed to be happening. The night before my EDD I accepted that he would not be arriving any time soon and enjoyed a lovely night with G's family, laughing lots and eating good food.
I went to bed at around 11pm that night feeling tired and happy. At 4.30am I awoke to a very big contraction. I got up to go to the bathroom and realised I had lost my plug (actually the second time I had lost it during pregnancy) and had my 'bloody show'. Suddenly I was very aware that I would be having this baby, and soon, and my nerves really set in. Crying and scared I woke G up to let him know that things were happening. I had another contraction at 4.45am and decided to call my MIL to tell her what was going on. She was very excited and told me to give the midwives a quick call to ask their advice. After being informed by the midwife to rest while I could, I hopped back into bed nervous and excited and got a couple of hours broken sleep between 5am and 7am, contracting every 15 minutes or so.
G called into work in the morning to let them know he would be staying home with me. It was Monday the 20th of June 2011, my EDD and we relaxed at home all day, pottering around and getting some things finished like packing my hospital bag and cleaning. My contractions gradually got closer together and stronger. MIL brought over some lunch at around noon and I was contracting every 8 minutes or so, but still able to talk through them. To be honest I think we were all a bit more excited than we should have been and thought that my contractions would be helping me progress well regardless of how strong (or in this case 'weak') they were. I was determined to stay home until I felt Leo turn from transverse, the one thing I was sure of was that I did not want a c section, and after an hour or so of time spent crawling around on my hands and knees I felt him make one big turn and settle into my pelvis.
At 4pm we decided to go get checked out at our local hospital to ensure his heart rate was good and that I was still contracting regularly. The hospital confirmed everything was fine and the contractions were coming every 4 minutes. They were getting a little more painful now, but still not really that strong. We went to MIL's house with the plan to hang out for awhile and have a nice dinner then head from there to the hospital when they were coming every 3 minutes or so.
Birth story to be continued...
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| 13 weeks |
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| 20 weeks |
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| 23ish weeks |
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| 37 weeks |
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| 39 weeks |
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