On the 14th of November I woke up at bout 5am. I knew I had to head into the RBWH (Royal Brisbane & Woman’s Hospital In Australia) from my cousins house at some point that day for clinic. Rang the hospital, they said to come in at about 1pm. We jumped on the train and headed in. I’d had a bit of an achy stomach and back since the night before, but didn’t think anything of it as I had SPD and baby had dropped.
We got into see the doctor at 1:30pm, he checked my blood pressure, it was all over the place. He didn’t seem overly bothered though. I told him I’d been having some cramping and he told me that it was probably just Braxton Hicks and not to worry too much about it. We left the clinic and headed home; the train ride is about half an hour. Me being a smart ass turned to Michael and told him how funny it would be if I went into labour once we were back on the other side of town.
I’ve learnt that I jinx myself all the time…
We got into Woodridge (where we were staying) and i had the overwhelming need to go to the toilet, I honestly thought I had to have a bowel movement. Well nothing was budging on that toilet, so I gave up on that idea and just assumed I had constipation (which I did). Went back out to Michael and told him that the cramps were getting worse and that I was pretty sure I was in labour. This was about 2:30pm. We rang the midwives at the hospital and they told us only to come in if the contractions were 2-3minutes apart or if I couldn’t talk through them. So that was alright, we started counting contractions. They were already 2minutes apart but they felt like an eternity apart! I didn’t want it to be false labour again so we decided to walk the 2km to the shopping centre. Rang the family on the way, figured this would be it. Got about half way and was only just able to finish the conversation on the phone with my sister. Finally got to the supermarket and Michael got me a cup of water from Donut King (of all the places to get water). I’m sitting there looking absolutely hilarious, puffing and panting and I think I was going red in the face.
We rang my cousin and she came to pick me up from work, we had to stop back at her place (where we were staying) to pack my hospital bag and get to the hospital. She was terrified my waters were going to break in the 20 mins it took to drive to the hospital. They didn’t though.
We got there about 3:30 and they put me in an assessment room whilst they found a birthing suite. After about 10 minutes of being very tired and emotionally drained (complications about bub had arisen a week prior) I started crying and asked Michael to see if they could get me an epidural. they said yes, and whilst I was on my way to birthing suite (walking no less) they went to find an anaesthetist. I got to the birthing suite and got into something a bit more comfy. They set me up with some wireless baby heart rate monitors and got me in the shower. It was amazing! However the monitors glitched so I ended up back on the bed. I was 3cm when I got to the hospital. I went 4hrs of established labour without pain relief, just moaning and breathing.
At sometime between 8pm and 10pm I got started on the gas and air. Brilliant stuff. Vomited everywhere but it felt good. At about 1am I had the urge to push (they were thinking of breaking my waters as i was 5cm dilated), so I pushed and broke my waters, I started apologizing thinking I’d done the wrong thing.
After that they gave me a shot of morphine in the leg. Ouchies! That was about 1:15am.
Then after watching ponies running around the room (oh yes gas and air is good stuff), I needed to push again (I’d gone from 5cm to 10cm the moment my waters broke). So I started pushing. another midwife came in and pushed my leg into my hip (I was labouring on my side with a back2back baby) and told me to push. I just wanted to sleep.
She started to crown and I’d sleep in-between the 3 pushes (it felt like sleep but it was barely a minute lol!) The midwife that hurt my leg told me to put my hand down and help my daughter into the world (my normal midwife was brilliant, this other lady was an old bat) and I screamed at her, in no uncertain terms ‘NO!’.
3 minutes after starting to push Keziah-May Danielle was born screaming her lungs out (which was good because there had been meconium in the waters), we didn’t get delayed cord cutting like we wanted, because of the meconium, but Michael cut the cord and they cleaned her up and checked her over and brought her back to be.
First attempt at breastfeeding went miserably. Michael dressed her whilst I went to the toilet. Came back out cuddled her for a bit more then she had to be taken to the special care nursery. Had a shower, went down for a smoke (after that I needed one!) and went back up to the SCN and gave breastfeeding another go.
Inspiring Birth Stories 