My Water Broke While I Was
4:20AM Woke up as per usual to urinate & noticed that I had wet my side of the bed. My immediate thought was “did my water break or is this pee?”. Even with minimal leakage as I stood up I was still not convinced that my water had broke because I didn’t experience that gushing waterfall feeling or the sudden pop. Yet again, I was sleeping when it happened. There was a tiny trace of blood jelly though which is a normal occurrence towards end of pregnancy. It means that the cervix has started to prepare for labour.
The Call
5:00AM Made a call to the birthing unit to inform them of what just happened & was advised to come in for a urine test to determine whether or not my water broke. I was told that it’d be a 40min check-up, chances are they’ll send me home & hopefully I will go into labour naturally. If contractions don’t start within 24hrs of water breaking, they will then induce me to reduce risk of infection to both baby & me.
So here I am thinking.. no sign of cramps nor contractions & they’ll send me home shortly after this test anyway so maybe I should just go on my own instead of waking Daniel or my parents (who will look over Nova during my labour). I ended up waking Daniel up cause his work alarm was gonna go off at 6AM anyways. He immediately got dressed as if he was going out on a date. I’m talking.. did his hair, shaved, put on his new shoes & my favourite sweater LOL Called my mum (no answer, even though I’ve respectively asked for her to leave her phone on loud close by at night for this kind of emergency ), called my brother (no answer), luckily my dad picked up & made his way over.
Checked-In
6:00AM The water came gushing out as I made my way down the hallway to the birthing unit, this time it was not clear but light pink in colour. While the midwife ran the urine test, the cramps kicked in. She placed straps around my belly to monitor baby’s heartbeat/movements + frequency & length of my contractions. After about 30mins later she said “you’re not going anywhere sweety, you’re going to have your baby today”. I straight up said “I want epidural”. She told me that there’s going to be a vaginal examination to check how far dilated I am, but she’s not going to do that because her shift is ending so the midwives that are taking over will do it instead.
7:45AM I get informed by a student who’s doing work placement that she’ll be participating in my labour/delivery. Still have not done my vaginal examination. My water broke awhile ago so I was becoming incredibly impatient. For Nova, they had to break my water & once they did everything happened really quickly so I was certain that I was more than 5cm dilated at this stage. I needed that epidural right now before it’s too late.
After finally having my vaginal examination done at whatever time it was (I stopped checking) because contractions had gotten more intense. The midwife stated “it’s too late for epidural, you could have this baby anytime now”, “you can’t have morphine either because we give that out at a certain time for it to not be at risk to baby’s breathing & it’s too late for that”. Gave myself a moment of silence & turned to Daniel for comfort otherwise I would’ve lost my shhhh. I kind of have mentally prepared myself for this rejection, but still. I was forking pissed. I was about to blow the roof off that hospital & send everyone shooting off on airbag seats LOL FYI I’m referring to the airbag prank scene from “Bad Neighbours” if you don’t already know. Maybe this affected my contractions too because they suddenly became irregular & less intense which apparently was not a good sign. As a result, I was given oxytocin to stimulate contractions & that’s the reason for the hand syringe.
So you see.. not only did I not get my epidural, but I was given oxytocin to stimulate contractions. ARE YOU FORKING KIDDING ME?!
I think Daniel read it very well how furious I was & tried to calm me “it’s ok, you just generate all that anger into every push” which was exactly what I did. Even when I wasn’t feeling the contractions I pushed as if I did.
Welcoming A New Moon
It wasn’t long until I saw baby’s head! It motivated me to push harder & longer due to thoughts of Luna getting closer & closer to being with us. One last push & there she was. Placed on my chest. It only took 2hrs 47mins for this precious moment. We welcomed Luna at 9:44AM on 3rd March 2021, weighing in at 3.42kg & 53cm. Honestly one of the best feelings in the world & it really does make you forget all the pain you’ve just went through.
I was surprisingly pretty energised after delivery. I was messaging our dearest friends & family, took some photos & even had an appetite lOl I asked for a sandwich, water & juice. They gave me juice that was 2weeks overdue though like c’mon.. is there anything else I can’t have today?
Recovery
They wanted me to stretch naturally to minimise tearing. Hurt like a biaaaaatch though, but I didn’t tear at all so no stitches this time. I’ve healed in less than half the time vs first pp which is incredibly fast. I did experience a stitch-like pain in my lower left abdomen & was told that it could potentially be an infection, but it’s almost gone now so that’s a relief.
Medical Pain Relief
Nothing. I did inhale the gas a few times, but that’s about it. FYI the gas only makes you drowsy, it does not relieve pain whatsoever. I think I deserve a whole year worth vacay on a resort island really, I mean all women do for having to go through pregnancy/labour/deliver.
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