SM’s CS birth story
My Son was born by emergency c section. A surprisingly calm experience but one that left me feeling disappointed. I had prepared well for labour using relaxing techniques, raspberry leaf tea, pregnancy yoga, perrineal massage and lots of reading. I hurt my back at 38 weeks and this meant I was a lot less active than I would have liked. Baby’s head was engaged from 32 weeks though so I did not expect there to be any problems.
I had an unsuccessful sweep at 41 weeks and then I was persuaded to be induced at 41+5. I had the prostaglandin gel at 9.30pm and was then monitored lying on my back for an hour. I began getting period pains straight away and then was having contractions by 11pm. At 1pm I asked to be checked as I was struggling to cope (probably because I was all alone in the maternity ward in a small bay trying to stay quiet so as not to disturb the mums and babies in the same ward). I was not even dilating yet so I asked for pethadine to help me sleep. This did not help me sleep just made me woozy.
At 5am I asked to be checked again after spending 4 hours breathing through the contractions while kneeling over the head of my bed. I was 3-4cm and they said they would call hubby and I could go to labour and delivery. Once there I had some gas and air and was monitored again (what is this obsession with monitoring!) I stayed standing though so that I could lean forward on the bed to breathe through my contractions. Once my hubby arrived and they were happy with the monitor results I went into the pool.
Unfortunately (due to baby’s position apparently) I was very slow to progress further and I started getting the urge to push while only 5cm. This resulted in the cervix swelling and slowed things down. I was advised to have an epidural, this resulted in baby’s heart rate dropping and the decision was made that a section should be performed. They did say that I had by this point moved to 7cm but that I was not going to progress any further and baby was in distress. My c section was a calm experience but my baby was wrapped in a blanket with a hat on before I saw him and the epidural top up went too high so I could not feel my arms and struggled to breathe. This meant that I had to wait to go to recovery before I could hold my baby and although they put him on me skin to skin to feed I could not feel any of it. I did however have a very healthy baby boy and I did still bond very easily with my son and breastfed him until he was a year so I am very grateful for that.
