Hey lovelies!
Life as a mum to a newborn has been delightful so far; really grateful for all the support from my loved ones who’ve made it a lot easier to handle. Today I want to share how labour was like for me; primarily because this area of life is shrouded in secrecy so most times you never really know what you’re getting into till you’re there, but also because I want women to be better informed of their choices and healthcare rights going in.
Important to remember: every labour experience is unique – even the same mum can have two very different experiences with labour between her children – that said there may be similarities which you may recognize as you read my experience – enjoy!
Day 1: I was 4 days till my due date and life was as peachy as ever. Every day that week felt like it could be the day! I had my hospital suitcase pre-packed using labeled packing bags that my friend gifted me – this helped other people readily locate things in the suitcase for me when I wasn’t able to get them myself so I definitely recommend these! My mom-in-law (MIL) had arrived in London from Lagos that morning and my parents had kindly driven her from the airport to our home in Nottingham as Samuel couldn’t get the day off and I couldn’t risk giving birth on the motorway haha.
My dad and I were out getting household DIY equipment for some tasks he had assigned to himself around our house (he loves home improvement projects lol) when I realized – I hadn’t felt any kicks at all that day. I still waited another hour but when I didn’t notice any – compared to the usual football practice my son would use my womb for everyday – I decided to go into the hospital as it’s one of the signs they tell expecting mothers to report for check up. I honestly thought it was no big deal and figured maybe he was having a long rest but just so it wasn’t anything else, I went in with my mum.
We waited for 4.5 hours to be seen! When they finally reviewed me, my really kind midwife let me know that my baby was moving as normal – but that I was already in labour and my cervix was dilated to 1cm. I was shocked – I couldn’t feel any of the contractions that the machine was charting so I had no clue that labour had started. Me that was awaiting a dramatic gush of water as my sign of labour like in the movies haha. Anyways they advised that due to my presentation and the fact that labour has started – I should be admitted, so I agreed. Finally got taken to the ward at 7pm and the midwife who saw me was coincidentally the midwife that taught my antenatal class the week before – so it was cute to see a familiar face. She told me they were understaffed for the night so they will wait till tomorrow to review me. Being an NHS Staff myself I understood the issue and said no problem. By this time Samuel had brought my hospital suitcase from home and slept at the hospital with me, so my mum could get some rest.
Day 2:
Day 2 was the day I could and should have gone home – because literally no medical or nursing care was provided after the doctors came to see me at 11am and made the decision to place an oxytocin pessary in my body to help move the labour along. From the point when they said this, no one actually came to put it in all day even though I kept asking the health care assistant who came to check my blood pressure/temperature every 4 hours. I even went out to McDonalds coz I was getting so bored of the hospital food. The only saving grace was that I was still pain free at this point.
Day 3:
So after 2 days of basically no interventions I was finally moved to the induction lounge and an oxytocin pessary was inserted.
As soon as it was in me, the pain began.
Now, my uterine contractions over the bump remained painless – it was the feeling of bearing down that hurt. It felt like heavy pressure on my pelvic floor that mounted into a peak every 15 minutes. Like when you have been constipated for a while and you feel it finally about to pass out – like that but the pain just keeps rising and holding you at the worst part for what feels like forever before it passes.
At first I could distract myself with the breathing techniques I had learnt in antenatal classes, but as the time with the pessary increased, the pain became much more heavier and less bearable. Only for the midwife to come back and say they’ll have to remove the pessary because they were understaffed that evening (AGAIN) and couldn’t legally defend themselves if they left it in and didn’t have the staff to support the labour. At this point I was rather emotional because them taking out the pessary doesn’t stop the labor pains – but I was just in pain for nothing as my body wasn’t progressing towards full dilatation on its own. So from 6pm when they took it out till the next day – I was in the same level of pain.
The bearing down pressure meant that I needed to pee every 15 minutes so I didn’t get any sleep. As this was day 3 and he had been with me for the first two nights, Samuel swapped with my mum for the night shift and she was angelic. She came with me to the toilet every single time, she helped massage my back because that was where the pain was referring to and it felt like I had a stitch there every 15 minutes. Gosh it was such a long night, I eventually started taking pain medication and that was how I found out I’m allergic to codeine – it made me vomit so violently they had to stab my thigh with an anti-sickness medication that was so hot! Please if you ever have to administer IM ondasetron give your patients a heads up!!
Day 4:
Seeing the sunrise this day felt like wow, joy truly comes in the morning because by this time I was limp and just praying the weekday medical team would come and take over my care (hospitals are better staffed during the week than on weekends). I had vomited out all the lovely pepper soup Anu and Efosa had made for me and could barely hold down even water. So there was no single energy left in me and this was supposed to be the body that would push out a baby shortly. Hmm.
The midwife came to check me after my sleepless night of agony only to realize that my cervix had dilated to the grand total of 1 CENTIMETRE. The same 1cm since day 1??? At this point they decide to rupture my membranes aka break my waters manually and when they did the waters were stained with my baby’s poo which is an early sign of distress. Because it was the only sign of distress and he was still doing fine on other monitors they were like let’s wait and see if the labour moves along by itself with this stimulation. I tried various positions too, sat upright, went down on my knees – I was just doing anything I remembered to try help the labour move along.
Brethren, the labour did not move along one bit.
So the next thing was to hook me up to a machine that delivered oxytocin directly into my bloodstream (compared to the earlier pessary that was placed in my birth canal). Now because I know just how intense the pain becomes with this procedure from patients I’ve given it to before – I asked for an epidural to be sited alongside. I had it in my mind that getting an epidural was a very painful experience but actually it didn’t hurt anymore than any regular injection felt like – once the area was numbed I didn’t feel the actual epidural catheter going in.
Though the epidural was successfully placed, the pain from the oxytocin still intensified. I can only assume that without the epidural it would have been worse. It felt like I had a constant muscle pull in my lower back and it was only partially relieved by my husband making a chopping like massage motion along my back. Thinking back, there’s no way that massage in itself took away the pain – but it gave me something to focus on and distract from the pain instead. A few hours later the midwife came to check my progress and I had dilated to *drum roll please*…2 cm.
At this point the medical team were called in and only then did they properly examine me to find that my baby never engaged beyond bishop stage -3 in the pelvis. This plus signs on the tracing machine that my baby was starting to get tired led them to organize an emergency caesarean section for me – which I gladly signed for as it was evidently the only way I was going to get my baby out.
I was in and out of the theatre in 40 minutes with a healthy strong baby that cried immediately and I cried tears of joy along with him haha. I was relieved that it was all over and it was nice to have a doctor that I had worked with be the person to do my operation, she stitched me up so tidily afterwards too!
While I’m of course super grateful to have my son and my life intact, I did really wonder what went wrong as to why my body just couldn’t progress through labor naturally. All pregnancy long I was doing all the exercises that would make my core strong to help with the pushing, I started holding squats for a minute every day so I could practice birthing in a squat position – like mentally I was READY but my body just said no. Thankfully my loved ones were with me all through the process and kept my mind on the positives – it wasn’t until I had an elderly visitor who “joked” saying “oh you were too lazy to push?” that all these thoughts came rushing back. Anyways, maybe I’ll get the chance to give birth naturally next time, till then I’ll focus on loving and thanking God for life.
Next post I’ll tell you about the early recovery process as this one has turned out to be rather long haha.
Till next time,
Dr ETK xo
