My very first pregnancy & birth story...

mariahswind · #1 (**permalink**) 28-02-2007, 02:03 PM

My husband and I had decided in Jul 2004 that if a bub were to make and appearance it would be nice and stopped all contraception... but neither did we go all out and try to get pregnant as I have suffered from anxiety for a few years now and waiting every month to see if I am would have just added to that. Anyhow 15 months later I had pretty much thought either of us was most likely not very fertile and that it would take a bit more effort. So it was quite a surprise when I had the first signs of pregnancy. The week of conception I became extremely tired... I'd get up and an hour or so later I would fall back into bed!

And as the weeks started to pass I was increasingly suspicious but didn't think on it too deeply as I have had many neg preg tests in the past due to late periods! But by the time I was 3 weeks pregnant I was 99.9% sure I would test positive. Sure enough on the 23rd of Oct 05 I went for a walk to the chemist and picked up a double test. Walked home, feeling very nervous! Took the test and sure enough it was positive. What's so cool is that our 7th anniversary was the 24th of Oct!!! And I had several years ago decided I'd like to be with my husband 7 yrs before we have a baby. As I feel it's very important to know your partner well and to have lots of time of just us.

How did I feel in the beginning...? Nauseas to high heavan! It was the worst experience of my life. 95% of the time I was so sick to my stomach that I had to just sleep through it. I even had to lay down to watch telly. I was trying to finish up at TAFE with heaps of assignments and exams, so it was very difficult ( I passed them all despite this) Anyhow I couldn't eat much of anything, not that I was vomiting, I just felt so horrid that a growling stomach was more appealing than the nausea! I lost 10kg because of this in 4 months. I only vomited when I was trying to expectorate phlegm and gagged in the process... very odd and extremely frustrating! Anyhow by Feb things were much better on that front! Oh by the way I discovered that I was due the 28th of June. My own b-day is 1st of Jul and this coming one I would turn 30th... my other desire was to have my first bub before turning 30! So how planned is that (yet unplanned)!

I spent 6 days in hospital due to my pre-existing Hypertension needing to be treated and brought under control. This was a good experience for me as it introduced me to the ante-natal ward which is the same as the post-natal ward pretty much.

My pregnancy over all was good, all through bub did beautifully! She was growing well etc... I found I had all sorts of aches and pains to cope with though. The elastin seemed to be coming full force starting in Jan as I was getting some pretty interesting pelvic pain even then (similar to what it feels like to ride a horse for hours when ur not used to it), this only increased to at times being difficult to even walk. I also started to break out in this pimply rash all over my back, under my chin etc. My heartburn started out bearable but increased to the worst by the time I was full term. Even rennie wasn't working anymore. Also towards the end I was getting up almost every hour to go wee and take more rennie! Ok enough of that... lets get on to the good stuff!

My waters broke with no warning on the 25th of Jun at 10 am. I was getting out of the car at church... all dressed up to boot! (We had just gotten my parents the night before, they'd flown in from the USA). So off to Delivery suite we go (after going home to get my bags) I spent a bit of time in D-Suite and since I wasn't going into labour and I lived an hour away from hospital they decided to send me to the ward instead of home to await labour starting. So during Sun night I would have a contraction, breath through it and fall back to sleep almost immediately. Strangest night I've ever spent!

During Mon the contractions got stronger and closer together. I was told that if I didn't go into spontaneous labour in 48 hrs they would induce me. By 5pm I was pretty uncomfortable and took a long shower with hubby spraying my back with the hot water. My tea came while in there. I came out and took one bite to eat and I proceed to loose my lunch! From that point I was getting more and more pains. I had two people on either side of my holding my hands and rubbing them, this helped me immensely to focus, and breath through the pains. I was really concerned during this time that I wouldn't get into real labour before 9pm (time for visitors to leave the ward) I knew

I couldn't cope with out my support, but the mid-wife was insistent that I couldn't go up to D-Suite unitl I was in established labour! Anyhow she was kind enough to do an internal exam to see how far along I was, I say this was a good thing because she discovered I was 3 cm and could then send me to D-Suite, even though I wasn't in est. labour yet. But by 10pm I was! This was when things got really interesting! I had a heat pack, I couldn't walk around as I had the trace on and they had me on drip too. Plus they had to check my BP all the time. So I could lie on my back or my side. I spent most of it on my side Here's the funny bit... I asked my mother to rub my back, she proceeded to do this, it was feeling really good and helping. She asks is that good? I said yes! And she stopped... strange eh? She meant good as in enough!

Hahahah.. i really told her what I thought... not nasty though... just forthright and with a big dose of my humour which I don't use too often. Anyhow I soon was thinking I would just go straight to morphine and bypass the gas... my midwife highly encouraged giving the gas a go first. So I did.

And glad I did! I was able to get through the rest of it with just the gas! I soon found I had the urge to bear down. The midwife said to breath through them to resiste the urge as I wasn't fully dialated yet. I found that breathing the gas was really helpful in this excercise as I had to really force myself to breath in when the urge to push came in order to fight it!

The next thing I know I am so high on the gas I'm too stubborn to move from my side to my back when asked... they then said bub wasn't happy (i found out later that she was in distress at this point) as soon as they said she wasn't happy I moved quick smart! It was long after this that I was allowed to bear down. This became difficult as They wanted me to breath in as much as I could whilst pulling back on my legs etc.... I couldn't get enough air in my lungs to push long enough on each push. From what I can tell the Dr. didn't want me to push too long or something because she did a small episiotomy which did the trick and with one more push she was out! Now the problems started. I had two bleeders and a placenta that wasn't going to come away! Dr. was stitching me up from the episiotomy and they tear I got between my urethra and clitoris (ended up needing a catheter for that to get stitched up without stitching my urethra). She got my bleeders stitched too but the placenta wasn't coming. So off to Operating theatre I went. A few hours later I awake to the anastesioligist asking me if I was aware that my throat colapses while under general anastetic. Um... no cuz I haven't done that before. Anyhow they had a dickens of a time intubating me as a result. Then whilst removing my placenta the Dr. tore my new stitches to the bleeders and had to fix that. So a half hour procedure took an hour or more. But I was great, the next few hours were great. I was on a high or something despite not having any pain killers just the gas during labor.

Anyhow it all came crashing down when my little baby became jaundiced at a few hours old. And they took her away from me to NICU at about 12 hours old..... this leads into the frustrating, fiasco to which I don't know if I should trust Drs or not. They took such good care of me for my pregancy and birth but now this jaundice thing happened and ruined all faith that I so fragilly and begrudgingly had built up during the pregnancy. That can be a story to be told another day!