Her Birth - Part II {At the Hospital}

After we were buzzed in to the birth suites, I was absolutely petrified. I felt like I shouldn't be there; it was probably a false alarm; it was the middle of the night; I'd be wasting the nurses' time... and it was too early. The midwife who I had spoken to on the phone was assigned to me, which was nice. She got me comfortable & told me that after doing a trace on the baby, they'd do an internal exam and see how things were going. I'll admit, this made me nervous too - I'd never had a cervical check before, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Baby was doing just fine & the CTG showed that I was experiencing contractions - things looked like they might have been happening! The midwife performed the internal {which didn't hurt} and proclaimed that my cervix was already effaced & that I was 2-3cm dilated. Turns out I wasn't exaggerating those cramps - I was in labour!

Keeping an eye on mama and baby.

It was at about this time when the midwives told me that my OB was actually away for the Easter holidays, so I would be having an alternate doctor deliver the baby. Surprisingly, this didn't bother me as much as I'd thought it would - I think I was too distracted by the fact that a) I was actually going to have a baby soon, and b) the contractions had started to HURT. 

The doctor recommended I get some fluids into me, as I was complaining of being super hot {as I always am} and so they could be given some IV antibiotics as well - because I was only 36 weeks, I hadn't taken the strep test, so they wanted to give them as a precaution. That was fine, except for the actual needle part - I'm not squeamish of needles by any means, but I have notoriously BAD veins.

I wasn't particularly impressed with being hooked up to an IV, as I'd had plans to be up and about during the labour - but thankfully, it was just the beginning of the experience, and things weren't too stressful. Hubby decided to try and have a sleep, since it was around 3am, and I laid back and focussed on getting through contractions by breathing & not making noise. It passed the time, though got harder as they got stronger.

At 7am, the nurses switched shifts, and we were introduced to our new midwife, Louise. She told us that there was only one other lady in labour, and that the ward was fairly quiet for the most part. I really liked her; she was very no nonsense, and encouraged getting up and moving, which was great, since the IV was long gone by then & I had to pee constantly thanks to all the fluids. They kept the cannula in, but I was free to move around at will.

Ugh. Cannulas. I think this picture about sums it up.

At some point in the morning, Louise asked if I wanted any kind of pain relief, as things were ramping up. I went into the birth without a plan. My birth plan was basically NOT to have a plan, and see how things progressed. I was interested in trying gas & air, but I didn't want to use it too early and have it not helpful later down the track. I put it off for a while, but then decided it was worth a try.

My verdict? The gas was awesome. It didn't make me nauseous at all, and I felt very 'in control' while using it... at first. Unfortunately, that control got a little wonky further down the track. ;) For the first few hours, I was using it just for the build-up & full hit of the contractions. It made me giggle and it also made me a little bit mental, as I found out later on, thanks to text messages I'd saved in my phone. The best one was to my brother, which said 'I think I'm going to name the baby GAS.' Oy, oy, oy.

It also made time feel like it was going by in slow motion - one contraction felt like it lasted for ages. {Not a bad thing when it didn't really hurt, but not good when you were counting down the minutes & feeling like you've been in labour forever.} I remember Jase leaving the room at one point to go and get a coffee, and it felt like he had been gone for hours - I was eating breakfast at the time, and couldn't figure out where he'd gone. I also buttered my toast with the gas and air tube instead of a knife, but that's another story altogether. When he came back, I was quite cranky with him & asked him where the hell he'd gone for that long while his wife was in labour? Yeah, he'd been gone all of five minutes. Whoops!

It was mid-morning when they did another internal check. This one hurt though, and I had to use the gas to keep calm. I was happy to learn that I'd hit 6cm, and baby was coping beautifully. Things were going well.

Missed part of Georgia's birth story?

Part I - At Home