Nicole's Adventures: November 2011

I thought I would share with you the story of my labour with little Liam :)

Here we go!

I woke up at about 3:30 am on November 5 with cramps. I didn't think too much of it cause I'd been having cramps off and on all week. After going to the bathroom and generally not feeling well I thought maybe what we had for supper just wasn't sitting well. I got back into bed, but the cramps just got worse and I thought maybe I had a contraction. I started timing the contractions and by 4am they were about 45 seconds long and 4 minutes apart! I couldn't believe it! I woke Simon and decided to have a warm bath to ease the pain. After a very short time in the bath and after the contractions just kept coming every 4 minutes I decided to call the hospital to see if we should go in yet. I was told that we should go to the hospital when the contractions were 5 minutes apart, one minute long and had been occurring for an hour. I talked to the nurse in the birthing unit and she said we should come in. It just happens that Simon's brother Adam was here visiting us for the weekend so Simon sent him a text message to let him know we were leaving and Adam decided to come with us to the hospital.

By the time we got to the hospital at around 5:30 am I was still having contractions about 4 minutes apart and a minute long. After I was checked in and such the nurse informed us that I was already 4cm dilated! It was all happening so fast! They also told us that my doctor was on that morning! Lucky us! So we were left alone for awhile to have contractions and "get comfortable". There was someone else who came in the same time as us who had an emergency cesarean so we really were left to ourselves (well I had my one nurse).

Around 8 am I decided it was time for an epidural. Contractions were about 2 minutes apart and hurt real bad! Since it was shift change I was lucky to get one when I did. It was wonderful! Well after the whole needle in the back thing and when the drugs kicked in. My doctor came to see me before she left and at this time I was 8 cm dilated! Woah! I spent the next couple hours relaxing and enjoying the epidural. I may have even slept for about half an hour.

About 10 am I was fully dilated and could push when I felt like I needed to. I think I started to push somewhere around 10:30. Baby's head was really low to start with so they thought it shouldn't take too long. After an hour or so of pushing with not too much happening, the doctors figured out that baby's head was slightly tilted and couldn't get past the pelvic bone. This was frustrating! Another while later they started oxytocin. Since nothing was really working and I was getting tired (and in pain even though the epidural was still in effect) they told me to take a half hour rest (!) from pushing! This was hard!! I lay there and tried not to push and was in lotsa pain! After that half hour and when the oxytocin had done some work I started to push again and at 1:52 Liam was born! I'm not sure how long this pushing was, but the baby was out yay! And they didn't have to use any interventions!

Liam was put right on my chest and kept sliding into my chin cause he was all gooey! After a bit the nurse took him and cleaned him up and then daddy got to hold him.

That's that!
About 10 hours of labour, including 3 hours of pushing and Voila!