2nd September 2008 20:28
My story - 13th March 2008
This should be fairly short – as the whole thing was over in about 6 hours! I woke at 3am on March 13th, with what I thought were wind/constipation pains, so after about half an hour of trying to sleep through them, I went downstairs for a cup of tea to get things moving. I watched some tv, bounced on my yoga ball and even knitted a few rows of a baby cardigan (I had been shopping the day before and bought nice wool for a cardigan to bring the baby home in!!) At this stage I didn’t really think it was anything happening – I still had 16 days to go, but after trying a bath, lying down (to check for false labour) I was getting a bit worried. I couldn’t really time the pains though, because they didn’t really go away. They got a bit stronger and weaker alright but they certainly didn’t feel like I thought they would. I woke DH about 5 and he just followed me around the house trying to help. At this point I had a dose of diarrhoea and in between going to the bathroom, was wandering around with a banana in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. (Strange how you can be in such pain and still hungry.) I also got a little blood on the tissue, so thought it might be a show. DH was supposed to leave for work at 6 so I rang the hospital to see what they thought. The midwife said it could be a bug or it could be early labour, and to come in when the pains got unbearable. We live about an hour away from the hospital and DH was worried about traffic, so he suggested we take a trip in and at least find out if I was starting.
The drive into Cork was horrendous – I was getting really bad pains about every 5 minutes, and I’d say DH was grey by the time we go there. I was put on the monitors and was examined. The monitors weren’t really measuring any contractions, and the midwife who examined me said that the head was well down which was what was causing the pain, but that I was only 1 cm dilated. I nearly cried at that, because I knew it could take days from that point, and I didn’t know how much more pain I could take. The nurses changed shift at 8, and another girl came to take a look at me. She gave me 2 paracetamol, which was a start. She didn’t think the readings on the monitor were accurate and checked them out – turned out it wasn’t working properly. So she examined me, disappeared for a minute, and came ack to know if she could examine me again. At that point she told me that she thought I was fully dilated, popped me into a wheelchair and hurried me to the delivery room. There was time for no more than gas and air at that stage, and Claire was born at 9:22. She needed to be helped out by vacuum as her heart rate was dropping so I have a nice collection of stitches! I also gave myself a fright when I looked in the mirror, my face was covered in red spots – I was after bursting loads of blood vessels, and my eyes were all bloodshot!!It took quite a while for me to believe that she was actually here, but I have the black bags under my eyes to remind me now if I need it!!
And I have to agree with the other girs who said that the tea and toast after was the best ever! Or anyone going to CUMH, from my experience you have nothing to worry about – everyone was just fantastic there.
OK, not as short as planned - but where Claire is concerned, I just can't stop going on about her!!!