I started to feel contractions friday evening.  They were kinda sporadic, I think, I didn't think they were contractions so I wasn't really paying attention, just aware that my belly hurt.  Thad joked that I was having the baby, but said that I couldn't have it then 'cause he hadn't had any sleep!  By around midnight, the contractions were roughly 5 mins apart, and stayed like that all night long, with me going back and forth to the bathroom, and before long I deciding to just stay in the living room and try to sleep on the sofa, but sleeping proved impossible, as I had to stand up every 5 mins!

Around 5am Thad woke up to the sound of me whimpering, I heard him get up and go and look in Dylan's room (as not so long ago he must have heard me whimpering in there after hours of trying to soothe Dylan to sleep and being tired, in pain and frustrated) and then he confusedly came into the living room asking if I was ok.  He was kinda horrified and panicked to discover that I had been having contractions all through the night, he started to time them, and on the third one he was all like "right, thats it, I am calling the ambulance and Melissa" which I didn't want.  I told Thad it was too early to bother Melissa to come and care for Dylan, we should wait for a more reasonable hour, and that if he called an ambulance I thought the contractions would stop flat!  But nope, I couldn't persuade him.  So off I went with the blues going, much to my embarrassment. 

When we got to the hospital I was put on a CTG monitor, and yup, there they were, every 5 mins, but not very strong, and even though by then it had been every 5 mins for 6 hours, I was only 1 cm dilated!  This really worried me as I was unable to sleep, but aware that it can take days to get to 3.  How on earth do people sleep through that?

Anyway, we went home, and arranged with Melissa that she come back at 3pm, when we would go back and see how I was getting on, so I spent most of the day walking in circles, and sitting in the shower.  It was around 4pm that we started to walk to the hospital (there was no way I was going in an ambulance again, and I figured walking would help, both with the pain, and getting to 3 cm, I would have been just as happy if they stopped, but there was no way I could deal with staying at less than 3 cm as sleeping really was impossible.

When we got there, I was put onto a CTG machine yet again, contractions still were 5 mins apart, but were reading higher on the graph.  After that I had another vaginal examination, and was 2cm dilated, but the contractions were quite hard, so they decided to admit me.  The doctor tried to put a cannula in, but in spite of me saying whereabouts to put it, he tried to put it in the one place that never works. Needless to say, it failed.  The second (successful) attempt was on the back of my right hand.  I was then put on the prenatal ward for more CTG monitoring as they were worried about my uterine wall rupturing.  The doctor really panicked me then, as he told me that I was to spend my whole labour attached to the CTG machine as it was the only clue they would have had that I had ruptured, but that they only did static epidurals or opiates.  Apparently Gas and Air only exists in the UK.  I was left frightened and scared as I couldn't imagine a static labour, giving the laps I had been doing to get me through so far, but at the same time, knowing there was no way I was going to get through the pain without some kind of relief.

It was around 6pm I think that I reached 3cm, and was moved to the delivery suite, where I met my midwife, who instantly calmed me down, saying that with her I could walk or perhaps sit on the birthing ball, even stay in the bath whilst she did CTG's! They wouldn't be constant, but they would be more often that the average mum would get. She offered me a homeopathic remedy, not sure what for actually, she just told me that from what she had seen of me so far pulsatilla was her recommendation.  After that she went and started to run the bath whilst I sat and rolled my hips on the ball. 

It wasn't long before I was at 5cm, (I think) and then 7cm, she started to think that with my contractions being what they were, and how quickly I went from 3 to 7, that baby would be coming within an hour or two, but no such luck.  Everything slowed down, and the contractions, although now becoming unmanageable, were actually getting a little farther apart.  When the midwife checked me a bit later (cant tell you how much later, I really have so little memory of the times between things already) I was still at 7cm.  She put some belladonna suppositories in my vagina telling me this would help things along, I don't remember what she said they would help with.

When I got to 8cm, she examined me and told me that baby had actually gone back the wrong way a bit, and to the side, so there was no pressure anymore to help me dilate.  She laid me on my side to try and help him move, this was where I stopped being nice and quiet, stopped with the just screwing my face up or breathing through the contractions, and was almost crying (or I was - I don't know).  She now offered me pain killers again, which I ummed and ahhed about, and agreed to an opiate ("like morphine"), kinda reluctantly, but it appeared to be obvious that this was going to take much longer, and I was exhausted with pain that made me cry out.

By the time she came back having asked for permission by the doctor, and got the keys, I was making all kinds of weird whimpery squealy noises, but as she walked over to me my waters broke, which for a short while felt like a relief of pressure, she checked me and I was at 9cm, so once again, I said, hang on on the drugs as I was worried about it making baby sleepy anyway.

From there nothing seemed to help.  I tried to walk around the room, lean over the ball, she tried some kind of bum wiggly massage, then I sat on a birthing stool.  I don't remember how this came about, but I do remember suggesting it, but I don't remember her saying if it was time for that or not.  I do remember her telling me to try and wee, which for some reason, I tried to do.  Sitting there with my husband behind me, a mat under me, and her in front (I am kinda embarrassed about that now) but nope, I had no wee in me.  In hindsight, thank god, what would my husband have thought of me if I had have peed on him!

Nope, the birthing stool was painful, so I knelt forward, and the ball was moved to under my chin and arms, pushing seemed to me to be doing nothing.  I would think that maybe I was getting somewhere, and then I would feel her examine me, and realise that her hand was still going way up there!  She tried to tell me I should have some hormones to make my contractions stronger, I kinda screamed "no!" as I couldn't imagine managing to deal with a stronger contractions, and I asked for pain killers again, but nope, it really was too late now, I kinda knew that, and in a way I think I wanted it to be too late so that I could scream for them to my hearts content to no avail.

She then told me that she had to be strict with me as I was struggling soo much, and she tried to get me on the bed, which I refused.  I heard her saying something about she shouldn't have really tried all these alternative positions with me anyway due to my history, and that as she had to get the doctor for the birth could I please get on the bed so she didn't get fired.  Amazingly (to me) I just stood up and complied.  I knelt on the bed some more with the ball under me, but nope, pushing still seemed to do nothing, she then had me lay on my side with Thad holding my knee his head, and me hugging him in a rounded way, she told me that I had to curve myself into a ball as much as possible, I kinda wished I hadn't refused this position a little earlier, as crushing Thad (I am sure I was) was helping me shift the pain.  I do remember her at one point asking Thad if he would like to look and see the head crown, but I screamed "No!", not 'cause I didn't want him to see (something I had previously made him promise not to do) but because I couldn't imagine letting go. At one point I felt the cannula on my right hand pull on something, Thad's hair I think.  So I took a look at it, to find it just dangling by a small part of the sticky cover!  I am sure that under normal circumstances that would have really hurt, as a week later my hand still feels bruised.  At the time though I felt no pain whatsoever.

I kept hearing the doctor tell me this position wasn't doing me any good, and I rolled onto my back, in the hold my knees and crunch up pushing position.  I swear I kept feeling baby go up and down, up and down, and was frightened to relax between contractions.  I was so tired that I didn't think I could repeat the work I had already done.  A few times over the doctor just appeared and told me he was putting in a hormonal nasal spray to help the contractions be more effective.  At one point my hand was moved and put on babies head, slightly sticking out, I snatched my hand away frightened I was going to accidentally push him back in!  I kept on begging them to pull (even though I know thats not possible) after I while I saw some scissors appear, and I jumped as I was snipped.  It surprised me how little that hurt, and at how loud it sounded.  I could feel fingers trying to desperately get around to help, and with my next big push, finally the head came out, another push, and the shoulders, and then he cried.  I'll just add that I kept on trying to push at all the wrong times, I was so tired I couldn't coordinate anything, not even timing when I pushed, refusing to stop pushing at the end of a contraction cause I thought it would help - it didn't!

Baby was laid on me, and I finally relaxed.  The cord wasn't cut till it stopped pulsing, Thad said it was surprisingly tough!  He washed Karl as I was sewed up.  The doctor at this time also found a small, but deep vaginal tear, I have no idea how that happened, or how it is even possible.  So he sewed that up too (I wonder if anyone would have seen it had I not had an episiotomy).  The midwife did make me feel a little better about being so unable to finish on my own by saying it was one of the toughest births she had seen in a while.  But I am sure she says that to all the mums! :)

Thad was a great birth partner, he was very supportive, although occasionally I did tell him to shut up!  Sorry Thad.  The midwife even welled up about how he was holding me at one point.

We were given Hot chocolate and some bread and jam whilst we waited the 2 hours before being moved to the other ward. After a short while Thad fell asleep on the floor, so I sent him home promising to text him my room number later (phones were permitted up there)

It was 5am when they finally came to move me. Karl and I both had a well deserved sleep.

I am surprised by how forgetful I have been already, I was sitting in the hospital, and noticed a bruise on my left arm, it was ages before I remembered about the failed cannula!  I am literally astounded by the difference in my memory between Dylan's and Karl's births. I would suggest that I can even now, remember more of Dylan's birth nearly 3 years ago.