How it all started

It's been a while since I thought about starting a blog. I guess it started with my beautiful son's birth. Well maybe it started with his conception more like, but we'll not go there. Or maybe it started with my friend Paula's starting her own blog about her doll's houses a few days ago, and that reminded me that I wanted to do something similar about motherhood.

The first event that made me want to share my experiences as a mum was Logan's birth as it wasn't at all as the midwives described it. So it would be nice if someone told mums-to-be about LATENT LABOUR and it might as well be someone who's experienced it, i.e. ME.

Nobody told ME about Latent labour. So when at due date plus 6 I lost the plug and started to have contractions, I thought "that's it, Logan is coming out, yee'ha!". Contractions started at 7.30 pm on Tuesday, first pretty erratically, nothing was regular and they didn't last long. Anyway, bedtime came and after 2 hours of lying in bed not able to sleep due to pain shooting through my body every 10 to 15 minutes, I decided to go downstairs and lie on the sofa watching telly for the rest of the night. Around 3 am on Wednesday morning, after hours of timing the contractions, they had started to become sort of regular so I called the hospital. I was promptly told to stay home and call again in 2 hours. I waited 4 hours and called back. At that stage they were roughly every 5 minutes, but still not quite fully regular, and they lasted 30 seconds each. So at 7 am I am told to wait another hour and call again at 8 am. That's me now in pain for 12 hours.

At 8 am I call back, and have a contraction on the phone to the midwife. It lasts 30 seconds. She says to me "are they always this short?" THIS SHORT??? I've been having them for 12.5 hours!! Anyway she agrees to let me go to the hospital. At that stage they were 5 minutes apart. The transfer from home to the hospital lasts 25 mnutes, I have ONE contraction during that time. Now I start to think there's something not quite right with my contractions. When I get there, I am transferred to the Assessment area to be assessed. And I'm told I'm NOT in labour. I could have killed everybody. The midwife does a membrane sweep and sends me back home with a couple of powerful painkillers.

Back home I manage to sleep for 2 hours (remember I didn't sleep at all last night) and wake up to the sound of my own moaning as proper contractions have now started (that's what a membrane sweep is meant to provoke). It is now 4 pm or so on Wednesday afternoon. I have been having contractions for 21 hours.

I wait as I was told during the antenatal classes (where noone told us expectant mothers about LATENT LABOUR) for the contractions, now REAL, to be 5 minutes apart. When they reach 8 minutes apart I cannae wait any longer and call the hospital, begging them to let me come and give me some painkillers. I am told to eat (it is now 8 pm), which I do but it doesn't stay in my stomach unfortunately. At 9.30 pm we get to the hospital and again I am assessed. Now when we left home they were 8 minutes apart. When we got to the hospital, they got to 5 minutes apart. While waiting to be assessed (half an hour!!) they got to 2.5 minutes apart! I thought I was going to give birth in the waiting room! 

During the assessment my waters break (what a bloody wet mess, literally!). Once the waters have broken, contractions are even more PAINFUL. I am made to WALK!!!!! to the labour ward. By that stage I have been in pain for 27 hours and my plans of a nice waterbirth have gone down the drain and I desperately want an epidural. For this I have to wait too, using gas and air (which by the way does not help relieve the pain AT ALL in my experience, but it gave me something to do while in pain so took my mind off the pain very slightly) as the anaesthesist is in theatre with another mum. 

Once the epidural is put in place (they had to butcher my hand for this, I had a huge big blue bruise for 2 weeks afterwards) around 12.30 am on Thursday morning, I am more or less told to go to sleep until my cervix is open enough. This took until 5 am. During this time I was free to top up my epidural as I needed, which was great. However once the pushing starts I was not allowed to touch it. This was horrendous! 

Logan, who was by then 8 days late, took 2.5 hours of hard pushing to come out. Altogether that's 36 hours of labour. But apart from a slightly elongated skull making him look a bit like an Alien, he was (and still is) perfect. 

So to summarise, beware of latent labour and don't worry about puting your birth plan in the bin: intentions are great but at the end of the day, you will do what you feel on the day, not what you planned a month in advance. I regret not having had my waterbirth but there was no way I was going to go through that pain with only warm water, gas & air after 27 hours. 

This is a long and graphic first blog, they won't all be like this!