I had a baby!

Meet Mr Z! Born 18th May 2015 @ 6:10am, weighing 5lb 9½ oz.

On Sunday 17th May at about 4:30pm, I started to feel a bit funny - nauseous and light headed. Then I felt a pain and a pressure like I needed to poop. 36 weeks pregnant - was this Braxton Hicks? I'd only made it to 32 weeks before, so was in unfamiliar territory and decided to call the Women's Assessment Unit and ask to come in and be checked. Most people would be told to take painkillers and see what happens, but because of my previous history with placental abruption and premature birth I wasn't going to accept that as an answer and luckily they told me to come in. I had my Dad on standby to come over and look after Miss L so told him yep he was definitely needed, Mum did her bedtime routine and we left when she had fallen asleep.

They attached me to the monitors and could tell I was having contractions. The doctor come and did a swab test for infection, then came back to check my cervix and found I was 3cm dilated! So I got taken to Labour & Delivery. The midwife there wasn't very nice and basically told me I wasn't in labour, she gave me pain relief tablets and a big jug of water and told me to drink it quickly and my contractions would stop. Well they didn't stop, they got a bit further apart but were more intense. She then gave me pethidine and again that did absolutely nothing for the pain. I wanted an epidural but I wasn't allowed to be checked again until 4am to see how dilated I was - which was another 4 hours away. Finally 4 o'clock came and I was 6cm! YAY! Epidural time! First my water had to be broken, which was the funniest feeling and I couldn't stop laughing. By 5 o'clock, I was getting the epidural - I could feel it working straight away, my feet went numb. Apparently this wasn't a good sign. It meant that the needle had gone too far into my spine and that spinal fluid would be leak out which would cause head pain worse than a migraine. Awesome! (More about that in another post).
Things started to go downhill from there. Instead of slowing things down, I dilated very quickly and was soon at 9.5cms. Little Mister became distressed, so they started prepping me for an emergency section. They were hoping when we got into theatre that I would be fully dilated and be able to push him out, but then his heart rate dropped and they had to get him out. Because I'd had the epi at least I was awake this time and saw him moments after he was delivered (unlike with Miss L where I was knocked out and it was hours before I got to see her for the first time.) Apparently my placenta was abrupting again and my previous uterus wound was opening. I am no longer able to try and have a vaginal birth - but that's OK as I'm done having babies, it's obviously too dangerous for the both of us.

Next up - my recovery and an update on Mr Z.