Pregnancy, Labour, Delivery & Recovery

I found out I was pregnant on Mother's Day in May 2017, though I had known I was pregnant for about two weeks despite doing four pregnancy tests which all came back as negative.  You hear that some women just know - it would seem that I was one of these women.  Blood tests and an ultrasound confirmed what the pee test had said.  I had a single intrauterine pregnancy with an expected due date of 18 January 2018.

I didn't have the easiest pregnancy.  I had morning sickness in my first trimester like most women do but thankfully it was mild and went away around 13 weeks in.  Unfortunately, from 10 weeks I had sacroiliac instability thanks to the relaxin hormone which the body produces during pregnancy.  This caused a sharp stabbing pain in my tailbone pretty much every time I moved and meant I couldn't sit/stand/lie in any one position for very long.  I was given a really stylish pelvic belt to wear which helped with the pain but I was told that really there was nothing they could do and that it would resolve itself after birth.  

I was then diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 26 weeks, though I am not entirely convinced I actually had it as I was tested twice and got both a positive and a negative result.  They chose to err on the side of caution and treat it as positive.  Either way, it was managed with diet alone and I was lucky not to need insulin injections.  I was told that because of the gestational diabetes they wouldn't let me go over my due date so if I didn't go into labour naturally before then, I would be induced.

From 30 weeks I began suffering awful hip pain which turned out to be bursitis.  I'd had bursitis in my shoulder a few years earlier so knew the road I had go down.  Sadly though, while pregnant you can't have the cortico-steroid injection they would usually give you so again I was told I would just have to suffer through and that it would probably resolve once the baby was born.

I also suffered with the usual round ligament pain though seemed to have it almost constantly.  All these things combined meant I really didn't like being pregnant and I felt a little disconnected from it.  I had to stop work at 34 weeks because the pain made it near impossible to sit at my desk all day so I spent six weeks at home mostly binge-watching Netflix because I couldn't do much else.  My due date couldn't come soon enough.

I didn't go into labour naturally so I was admitted for induction at 3pm on Thursday, 18 January 2018.  The plan was to insert Cervidil tape (hormone impregnated tape inserted into the cervix to trigger softening and dilation), give me a sleeping tablet so I could get a good night's sleep, then break my waters in the morning.  At around 5pm they inserted the Cervidil, told me I was already dilated enough to insert a finger tip, and my mother and husband went home while I settled in for the night.  Within about half an hour I had started having contractions and before long I was having 8-9 contractions in 10 minutes. The Cervidil had hyperstimulated my uterus (a known but not necessarily common side effect). With every contraction bub’s heart rate would go up however because the contractions were so close together he didn’t have time for his heart rate to settle so the doctors were concerned.  They said they would see how it went but that they might have to take the tape out but they were reluctant to jump to that because it could stop everything.

Around 9pm bub’s heart rate still wasn’t stabilising so they made the decision to pull the tape out.  The tape was removed and I was told it had worked well enough that they would still be able to break my waters in the morning.  Unfortunately, the contractions didn’t stop after the tape was removed so they transferred me over to birth suite for the night.  I was monitored constantly but the contractions weren’t settling down enough so they gave me Fentanyl via my IV – which gave me horrid palpitations.  The Fentanyl worked to slow the contractions and they told me I was now just in active labour.  That was around 11pm and I told my mum and husband to come back to the hospital.  I was then transferred to a bigger birthing room.

The contractions continued through the night getting more intense.  I ended up having morphine for the pain which worked well but made me very spacey.  They told me to try to sleep but I couldn’t.

Around 7am the doctor came in to break my waters and hooked me up to the Syntocinon drip to keep my labour progressing. Breaking my waters ended up being a two person job.  Bub was still sitting up rather high in the birth canal and so they had a midwife push the top of my uterus while the doctor ruptured the membranes to prevent the umbilical cord prolapsing. Once broken I got to wear a really stylish adult diaper to catch any further leaks - it pretty much just felt like I was peeing my pants every contraction.  The contractions were still intensifying so I asked for more morphine.  The morphine wasn’t super effective this time around as I was now having back labour (all my contractions were felt in my low back and hips rather than my stomach) – which really, really sucked. I cannot begin to explain how painful back labour was.  Every contraction I would end up on my tip toes squeezing my butt cheeks together as hard as I could because for some reason that seemed to dull them ever so slightly, which is the exact opposite of what everyone tells you do - you're supposed to relax and breathe through the contractions and you are told that tensing just makes the pain worse.  Yeah, well, I'll try to remember that next time... I was still only dilated 3-4cm (I cried and begged for a c-section when I found out) so I asked for an epidural.

The anaesthetist was really lovely.  He had a bit of trouble getting the catheter in my spine and it took a couple of goes to get in.  Once it was in it was great relief though!  Epidurals are truly some kind of black magic.  Unfortunately, the epidural stopped working after about 45 minutes and the contractions were back in full force.  The anaesthetist came back and tried a few things to get it working again but in the end he said he would need to re-site the epidural.  He managed to get it in first go this time and then the epidural worked perfectly.   I was still not able to sleep but at least I could rest.

Around 9pm (Friday night) they came in and did another exam.  Bub was still sitting up high but I was more or less fully dilated.  They said they would give it another hour and then have me try pushing to move him down.  About 10pm they came back and had me push for an hour.  Unfortunately, bub still didn’t move down enough and there was swelling in my cervix which created a lip that he couldn’t get his head past.  He was also posterior which was making it difficult for him to descend.  They said they would now be sending me down to theatre for "instrumental delivery +/- c-section".  They got me prepped and wheeled me down but on arrival I was told another woman who was worse off needed to go first so I was sent back upstairs.

They came back and got me just before midnight.  I was taken down and prepped and then my husband was brought in wearing scrubs.  It was all hectic in there, everyone moving around, injecting me with things here and there.  Baby Henry was born at 12:20am on 20 January 2018.  His initial APGAR was 5 and he needed some oxygen so he was whisked away pretty quickly but my husband could see him the whole time and gave me updates. His second APGAR was 9.  He was brought over to me wrapped up and put on my chest so I could see him.  This tiny, beautiful, perfect baby.  All I wanted to do was stare at him but I was struggling to keep my eyes open. 

They then said they would take him and Stuart into recovery and I would meet them there when they finished sewing me back together.  I haemorrhaged 1130mL of blood during surgery, not enough for a blood transfusion though apparently.  My mum later told me that one of the midwives had said I almost would have been better off bleeding a bit more so I qualified for a transfusion, as I probably wouldn't have been as exhausted.  I was stitched up and moved into recovery where I got to give Henry his first breast feed.  They checked my obs regularly and I was put back on the Syntocinon drip as my uterus was floppy and needed a bit of help contracting back down.  I was then taken back up to the ward with Henry.  The ward was slightly full so I was put into a shared room which meant that my husband wasn't able to stay the night with me, so he and my mother went home around 3am so that we could sleep.  Sleep didn't really come though, aside from just being in a hospital, we were both having very regular observation checks (him every hour for blood sugars, me every two) so I really didn't get to sleep at all.

By the time it was all over I hadn't slept for two days and I'd barely eaten for 36 hours.  I had no colour in my face due to blood loss, I looked like crap, I hadn't brushed my teeth for 36 hours (and had been vomiting during labour - GROSS), I was covered in I don't know how many different bodily fluids, I had a urinary catheter in because I couldn't get out of bed and because the didn't put underwear on my after surgery I was lying on an absorbent bed pad (essentially) with a wad of thick hospital pads between my legs to catch the post birth bleeding - yes, you still have that post-birth uterine bleeding (lochia) after a c-section.  I will be forever thankful to the midwife who helped me have a sponge bath, get dressed and brush my teeth without ever leaving my bed before my in-laws visited at 10am. 

I have since read that apparently there are women out there who think having a c-section in the "easy way out" when it comes to giving birth.  To those women I say FUCK YOU.  Those women have clearly never had major surgery.  Aside from the general pain of surgery, and the lack of core strength any woman has after giving birth, regardless of the method, every movement hurts.  EVERY. MOVEMENT.  You can't get out of bed without help, for days.  Sitting down and standing up hurts.  You walk hunched over because standing up straight pulls at your incision.  You aren't allowed to drive for 6 weeks because the lower abdominal muscles you use to move your legs from pedal to the other don't work very well, and it hurts to use them.  I felt every tiny bump in the road on the way home from hospital.  You are told you can't lift anything heavier than your baby for at least 6 weeks, but lifting your baby still hurts, and holding them for any length of time also hurts.  Your breast milk can take a little longer to come in after a c-section so there is a lot of stress around feeding and having a hungry baby.  Breast-feeding is painful because your baby sits up against your stomach and that pressure hurts.  I couldn't go for walks around our house because where we live has a lot of hills, and I wasn't allowed to push/pull the pram up and down hills, and I couldn't drive, so I was essentially housebound for 6 weeks.  

Emotionally, I was a bit of a wreck. I had the usual baby blues that most mothers get and that feeling of being overwhelmed what with lack of sleep and such.  My husband was great and the first few nights I was home he insisted I go to bed and sleep at night and he would bring Henry into me when he needed feeding so that my body had a chance to recover.  While I appreciated this immensely it left me feeling guilty and like I was putting my needs over my baby's.  I also felt guilty because I was his mother and felt that I was supposed to be up with my baby when he was crying at night.  I beat myself up a lot in those early weeks and I really shouldn't have.

Two weeks post-partum my incision got a small infection, so the pain was back again.  Thankfully a course of oral antibiotics got it sorted pretty quickly, but it slowed the recovery down.

After 6 weeks I was given the all clear to drive, I had freedom and it was a massive relief. 

I am now three months on and I'm still feeling my c-section.  My incision still twinges occasionally - like when you have a scratch that is healing and the skin pulls. I have an "apron" over my incision site which feels permanently bruised on the sides and is completely numb in the middle as a result having to cut through the nerves.  I've been told those sensations may never completely go away.

So... That was that.