a second birth story - part nine

The story the the beautiful girl's birth so far is on the birth stories page . . .

I'd booked into hospital as high risk

after my waters went with meconium in them.

I was now just in that waiting bit of labour

where contractions increase in length and intensity.

I'd decided to try gas and air

as I was finding it harder to get through with just breathing.

The gas and air didn't seem to do very much for the pain

but it did give me something to focus on.

With the help of my blinking light on the ceiling

I was counting in my head

and breathing deeply on the entonox to get through.

And I managed to get some calm back,

for about half an hour anyway.

Then things felt like they went crazy.

The contractions continued to get more intense

and I continued to puff away on the gas and air

but I felt like I was literally ripping in two.

Laura helped me move the bed from a reclined position

into more of a seated one.

She then had to disconnect me from all the monitors so I could use the toilet.

I made it to the toilet

but being vertical made the contractions even stronger

and I had to be helped back to the bed

because the pains were so strong that I could hardly walk.

The bed was moved repeatedly in some attempt to get me into a position where I was comfortable

but to no avail.

I was only really happy slumped forward with my bump between my legs

and my head hanging forward,

but in that position the monitors couldn't pick up my baby's heart beat.

Everything seemed to escalate,

and fast.

I was moaning and crying through each contraction

and miserably sobbing in between.

As I was losing the plot

my baby's heart rate was starting to dip slightly with the contractions

and everything I tried to do to help myself

hindered the midwife's efforts to monitor my baby.

Laura kept telling me that she really needed to get a trace on the baby

and for a decent length of time

in order to say for certain that everything was still okay.

But I simply couldn't stay in the position she needed me to.

With desperate eyes and a pathetic voice,

I asked the hubby to come and sit next to me on the bed

and I practically crumpled into his lap in tears.

I was terrified.

I didn't feel like I was coping with the pain at all.

I was letting our baby down by interrupting the monitoring.

I felt like I was letting him down,

by being so incredibly rubbish at having babies.

And all I could say was “I'm so sorry”

and “I'm so scared”,

along with mumbling repeatedly about how it was like last time

and I couldn't cope again.

Laura could clearly see that I was falling apart

and asked me whether I would even consider pethidine,

as she really felt it might help me to calm down.

This set me off on another hysterical bout of crying

and my husband was left to explain that I really didn't want it.

As my next contraction faded

Laura crouched on the floor in front of me

and looked me square in the face.

She said that I needed to calm down

and that I had to let her get the monitor onto my bump properly.

She said she could tell that things had changed dramatically

and that if I wanted she could do another internal examination 

to see if I was at 4cm yet and ready for the epidural.

But she also warned me that she would be doing the examination early

and if I hadn't dilated enough yet

then I would really need to consider other pain relief options

as I clearly wasn't coping.

You can read the next part here.