Fiona's story

Fiona was born May 24th 2008, and is now going to be a big sister. I never got round to posting her story, so here it is...

She was due on Monday May 26th. On Thursday 22nd DH and I took a long walk, then went to bed. I woke up at 3am and felt leaky. I was pretty sure it was not pee. I lay down on a towel and went back to sleep. 

About half an hour later I was woken up by what felt like a cramp. I hadn't had noticeable BH contractions or anything up to now, so I thought it could be that, ignored it went back to sleep. Fifteen minutes later I was awake with another one. I started to feel excited, and dozed between paying attention to when they were coming.

By 6.30am they were about 10-15 minutes apart, and more noticeable. I was too excited and woke DH to talk about what we should do. We called the doctor at about 8am as by now the leaking was more of a steady flow. We were told that we could come in now, or wait longer if I was comfortable. We arrived at the hospital at about 10am

I was checked out, and by now I was flooding all over the place. My doctor didnt even need to do an exam to tell me my water had broken and I was staying. I was 3cm, contractions still about 10 minutes apart, very manageable.

We got checked in, and started to walk around to try to get the contractions going as we were now on an official timeline. By 3pm things were much the same (I was at 4cm) and the pitocin talk started. I wanted to try a natural birth, and was concerned about beginning interventions, so my doctor suggested some other thigns to try first... nipple stimulation, using the ball, etc. By 5pm, my contractions were weaker and further apart. Pitocin was strongly reccomended, and it had been 14 hours since my water started leaking, so we started that.

The pitocin was increased over the next 5 1/2 hours until I was maxed out. They were using an internal monitor and could tell that the contractions were at the strength they'd see if I'd been dialated to 10. I'd held out and still hadn't had any pain relievers, and knew that I should be 10 by now, and hopefully I was getting close to being ready. Fiona was posterior and I had back labour the whole time. Monstly I managed the contractions by leaning over the bed and swaying while DH pressed on my back with tennis balls in a sock, and fed me ice chips in between.

Fiona's heartrate was going way too fast, so they made me lie down on my side to try and have her calm down. Lying down the contractions were excruciatingly painful. I felt like if I had not made any progress yet, and they were going to force me to lie down, I'd need something for the pain. 

The doctor checked me at 10.30pm and I was still at a 4. 

I got the epidural. I think I could have managed without it if I'd been making any progress whatsoever, and had been allowed to stand up, but only managing to progress 1cm in 12 hours killed my confidence, and the thought of making it through these pitocin contractions lying down for infinity was too much to bear.

By 11.30 I was at 10cm. The nurse thinks the epi made my body able to relax and dialate. We started pushing.

During the pusing it became clear that there was meconium. Fiona was still posterior, and was not descending. the doctor said she was banging her head into my pelvis. My blood pressure was way up, and her heart was still racing. The c-section talk started.

After another pushing attempt people started getting a little panicked about Fiona's heartrate, and we were told that a c-section would be safest for her, snd she needed to come out... right now.

At 1.52am on May 24th 2008, weighting 7lb, 10oz, Fiona was born by c-section. She was  just fine, no ill effects from the stress or meconium. She's now 14 months old, and I'm hoping for a vbac for number 2...we'll see if things go according to plan next time!