a second birth story - part eight

You can read this story so far on the birth story page.

I booked into the hospital as high risk

when meconium was present in my waters.

I'd been given a no-nonsense but fantastic midwife

and was just in the waiting game now . . .

I was pretty blown away by how much quicker my contractions were intensifying this time around.

And within half an hour or so they were starting to get really painful.

I was trying with all my might to concentrate on staying calm and relaxed

and on breathing my way through each contraction,

but as they got closer together and longer in length

I was finding it harder and harder to keep on top of the pain.

And as I got more tense, the pain seemed to get worse.

I knew that staying calm and keeping tension out of my body

was the only way I would get though,

but it was getting more difficult to keep that tension at bay.

At about 2am Lynne was joined by another midwife Laura,

and they began to talk through the particulars of my labour

as Lynne needed to take her break.

I heard Lynne say that I was doing a brilliant job just breathing through my contractions,

and she said that I seemed really focused and was doing really well

as the contractions were coming thick and fast now.

I remember feeling so proud that she thought I was doing a good job

and also feeling relieved that I wasn't imagining the fact

that these contractions were becoming stronger all the time.

Both midwives came over to talk to me,

explaining that Lynne was going for an hour

but that Laura would be staying with me while she was gone.

Lynne said again what a great job I was doing

and she showed me the read out from the monitors

which showed how strong my contractions were.

She said that the baby was still doing fine

and that everything looked great,

and that they would do another internal exam at about 5am

and hopefully I would be ready for the epidural at that point.

My head was nodding in agreement,

but in my heart I was already starting to wonder

how I would ever last that long in the pain I was in.

I could feel fear creeping in

as the memories of how bad it got last time flooded back.

It was a pain that I had all but forgotten as soon as they had passed me my beautiful son,

but a pain which suddenly felt all too familiar again.

Laura asked if I was still okay to just breathe through the contractions

or whether I wanted to try some gas and air.

I had hated gas and air the first time around

and couldn't stand the drunk feeling that came over me,

the cloud it put me in

and the dryness it left in my mouth.

But at the same time 5am seemed like a long way away,

and I had been told time and time again

that you should treat each labour differently,

so I decided to give it a go.

Laura pulled a chair over to sit next to my bed,

and Lynne left telling me not to have that baby while she was gone.

You can read the next part here.