At 40 weeks and 1 day I'd had a midwife appointment and they found my blood pressure was slightly raised, there were traces of blood, protein and leukocytes in my urine and baby had turned back to back making it hard to hear her heartbeat. I'd also mentioned that her movements had changed although not reduced so my midwife phone the hospital and told them they were sending me up and she wanted me induced. I didn't really believe it so after my appointment I called Carl, my partner, and said I'd call him if he needed to come to the hospital and then called his mum and asked her to drop me off at the hospital. She decided to stay with me while I was in the assessment unit and they put me on a monitor, although I'd not felt many movements they said baby's heart rate was fine but organised an emergency scan for me which also showed everything was fine. The consultant at the hospital then decided to go against my midwifes request and not induce me but offered me a sweep and booked my induction for 12 days over instead of 14. Again, the midwife who performed the sweep said she would put money on me being back that evening to give birth so Carl and I went to the cinema after the hospital to waste time but nothing happened (obviously!).
By 40 weeks and 5 days I had headache and I felt so exhausted I wanted to cry, but I had tried every old wives tale for inducing labour by now and I had accepted that I wouldn't go into labour naturally and would need inducing so stopped trying - not that I could be bothered, I felt so ill.
Feeling ill carried on over the weekend and I carried on complaining to Carl and crying lots, I also had some blurred vision and on the Sunday (41 weeks) I had slightly swollen feet which got worse on the Monday. Nonetheless, Carl and I walked 3 miles to the local garden centre on the Sunday to have some fresh air.
On Monday I had a lie in (although all my sleep was broken so I felt like I hadn't slept in weeks!), walked to the local bakery and cleaned the kitchen. When Carl got home from work we needed to go food shopping but couldn't be bothered so we nipped to my mums house to borrow a pillow (an attempt to make sleeping a little easier!) and just got 1 meal for that evening rather than doing a weeks worth of shopping and we got home about 9pm. Carl made tea and I was watching the soaps and just as I was watching the last episode of Coronations street I had stomach ache and thought I needed to toilet but couldn't go but the stomach ache kept coming and going. I text a friend and she said it could be labour so I started timing the pains and they were immediately lasting about 40 seconds and about 4 minutes apart so we decided to go to bed and try and get some sleep but by the time I had got ready for bed the pains were a lot more intense that I couldn't settle and Carl decided to call the hospital who said we should go in to be checked. I hadn't packed my hospital bag fully so we had to quickly finish before going.
I went to the midwife led birth centre and they examined me and took my observations, they said I was only 1-2cm dilated and would probably have to go home but then my blood pressure showed to be high and my urine sample showed proteins so they sent me to the assessment unit to have my blood pressure monitored as they were struggling to get a reading between my contractions.
At the assessment unit they put a monitor on my stomach to check baby's heart rate and hooked me up to a blood pressure cuff to keep checking that and my own heart rate but by now the pains were quite bad and my body was going into shock and I was shaking from the pain and kept going hot and cold. I asked for pain relief but the midwife in charge kept avoiding giving me any saying I could have codeine soon. By now I noticed that the monitor on my stomach was showing that the baby's heart rate was dropping with my contractions but the midwife was taking no notice saying she "thought" it was probably the monitor losing contact as my stomach contracted. They still couldn't get a proper blood pressure reading for me.
Another midwife came and immediately took concern with the readings for baby's heart rate and called a consultant up immediately. The consultant decided to give me labetolol to try and get my blood pressure under control and decided to take me to delivery and requested a canula be put in. The first midwife (who'd not been concerned by the baby's heart rate reading) tried to put the canula in but did it wrong so they decided to try again in delivery and wheeled me down.
At delivery they did another internal check and said I was 4cm and I could have gas and air. My mum arrived at this point to support Carl and I. When they bought the gas and air in they decided to break my waters and put another canula in but when they broke my waters they saw that baby had opened her bowels inside me and so decided to rush me to theatre. I got put into a hospital gown and wheeled down to theatre where the new canula got caught in the door and ripped out of my hand but on my way I started pushing and when we got to theatre they decided to do a forceps delivery and they put another canula in (which hit my wrist bone), my labour had gone from 4cm to fully dilated in 28 minutes.
They asked if I wanted my mum in theatre as she was eager to come in to me but I'd heard them say that baby's heart rate was worryingly low so I refused as I was focused on getting her out.
It took 20 minutes to get baby out with an episiotomy, an additional tear and forceps but I also lost more than a litre of blood but immediately after she was born I requested my mum came in. Baby had breathed in some meconium and had opened her bowels again on the way out so they took her immediately to be cleaned up and try and clear her airways which was successful. They asked me if I wanted to hold her while they stitched me up but I felt too weak, in the end I held her with my mum holding my arms for me so I didn't drop her but as they were stitching me the local anaesthetic was wearing off so my mum took baby and I had gas and air to get through the stitching process.
I was then wheeled into recovery where Carl finally met his daughter.
Introducing Isla Elizabeth, born 8th December 2015 weighing 6 lb 7 oz.
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