Over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time preparing for our new baby, however, I haven’t done much to prepare for the actual being in hospital and giving birth part of the process. I feel as though no matter how much you prepare, you are never really going to know how it will all turn out, I’ve done it before, theoretically I should know how to do it again but it will probably be completely different anyway so I shouldn’t think too much about it… I’m not sure any of that makes sense to me either.
As part of getting ready to give birth again I thought it might be helpful to write Aston’s birth story, I don’t think I’ve included too much information but I know some of you might find it a bit awkward to read so feel free to skip these posts.
In the week or so before Aston’s official due date (11th March 2009) I was pretty laid back and calm, I was enjoying being pregnant, I wasn’t too uncomfortable, I was happy for him to decide when he wanted to arrive. His due date came and went and my relaxed, laid back attitude started to disappear. I was still keen for Aston to choose his own birthday but I also wished he would hurry up and do it!
At my 41 week appointment at the clinic (that’s one week after the due date), the obstetrician declared that if I ended up being 10 days overdue I would need to be induced. She booked me in for the induction and performed a “stretch and sweep” (stretching the cervix and sweeping the membranes with her fingers) without asking, something I was a bit cranky about.
The stretch and sweep must have worked though as the next day I had a couple of signs that perhaps labour may be happening soon.
The night before my induction appointment I woke up a few times with stomach cramps, they went away when I moved around and each time I was able to go back to sleep so I didn’t think much about them. At 5am I woke again and this time found it hard to go back to sleep, I thought the pains may be real contractions but they weren’t as painful or overwhelming as I thought they would be so I wasn’t sure. I decided to get up and have a shower as we were due to be at the hospital at 7am. It was 20th March 2009.
While in the shower the contractions continued, they were occurring fairly frequently so when I got out I decided to time them, they were 4-5 minutes apart.
At the hospital I told the midwife who was going to break my waters in order to induce me that I thought I might be in labour, however I didn’t think the contractions I was having were painful or strong enough to be real, they were just very frequent. She told me that I didn’t look like I was in labour. She hooked me up to a machine that monitored the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions, when she saw the readings she changed her mind and told me they were real contractions, I was also 3cm dilated so the induction was called off.
