I graduated: Queue jumping my own induction plus epidural and emergency caesarian [very long!]

TL;DR: I went into labour on my own on the morning I was scheduled for induction. After 12 hours or so of labour I got an epidural. My baby's head got stuck sideways in my pelvis at the pushing stage and I ended up getting a caesarian. I had a little boy who we named Thomas. I feel quite positive about his birth despite interventions that I wasn't expecting to need.

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I was scheduled for induction on Thursday September 3 at 7 AM. However at 1.00AM that morning I woke up feeling mild cramps. I had a crampy feeling every 15 mins or so and each time I felt like I needed to go to the toilet. When I wiped there was some blood and I freaked out a little thinking ’Is this my bloody show?’ At 1:45 AM so I decided to wake my husband who was sleeping in the spare bed (due to him being a light sleeper and me being a snorer and all the pregnant things - body pillow, frequent toilet trips etc). I told my husband “I think I'm having contractions! Can I sleep with you? I don’t want to be by myself”. Though we didn't really sleep because every time I had a contraction I had an urge to go and sit on the toilet. Sometimes I actually needed to use the toilet and sometimes I just sat there. I had hired a TENS machine and started using that from about 3.00AM. I found that it was a good distraction but I don't know that the pain was lessened much really.

By about 5:45 AM my contractions were 7 minutes apart and lasting for about a minute so we called the hospital and explained what was happening and that we had been scheduled for induction that morning. The hospital said to come at the time originally scheduled. My husband got up and made me some porridge for breakfast. I managed to eat some of it while he put our bags in the car.

When we arrived at the hospital we were taken to the birthing suite where we waited for the obstetrician who was due to check me at 8am. There was a midwife and a student midwife who were both pretty helpful whilst I waited. I was pacing back and forth and using the TENS machine. The obstetrician arrived and checked my cervix dilation. This hurt a lot, more than I was expecting - I actually cried out in pain! But good news: I was 4 cm dilation and officially in labour! I had some urine and blood taken for testing.

I continued to use the TENS machine but after a while noticed that it wasn't doing much and instead of the dial ramping up to 10 when I pressed the button, it only went to 4. We decided to change the battery and see if that helped. My husband was putting in the new battery but everything was still connected to me and I got a bit of a jolt! Once we sorted out the battery change, it was better. But after a while I felt that I could not relax properly between contractions due to the tingling of the TENS machine. I tried a little bit of gas + air, but I didn’t really feel like it was helping at all. It just made my mouth dry and I felt a little queasy from it. I decided to take the TENS machine off and get in the shower.

My husband changed into his board shorts and joined me in the shower. I was trying to use techniques from Juju Sundin’s Birth Skills. The main things I did were stomping my feet and listening to the sound of them splashing in the water, and shouting an “Aaah” sound and getting louder when the pain was worse. Each time a contraction came I would stand up, shut my eyes, hold onto my husband's shoulder, stamp my feet and say/shout the “Aaah” sound while my husband directed warm water onto my belly. As the contraction wound down I would turn away from my husband and ask him to spray warm water onto my lower back. Once the contraction had finished I sat down in a chair in the shower and my husband sprayed water on my back. I tried the gas and air again, whilst I was in the shower but I felt that it wasn't doing anything and I couldn't shout properly (which I felt was more helpful for me).

I was told that the obstetrician would be back at midday to check how I was going. At around 11.30AM or so, I decided I would wait to see what the obstetrician said and if I was less than 6cm dilated I would ask for an epidural. The obstetrician didn’t come until 12.30PM. In the meantime my contraction pain had gone from just being across my belly to being belly and lower back - like a band encircling my middle. Every contraction was agonising and I was getting exhausted. I changed my mind and said I would like an epidural regardless of how dilated I was. So they called an anaesthetist and he came in and everything was getting organised, then he asked for my blood results from the morning and apparently they hadn’t been done. He said he couldn’t do the epidural until he had my platelet count back from pathology. At this point the obstetrician came in and checked my cervix - again very very painful for me - but amazingly I was 8cm dilated. The obstetrician also broke my water after checking my cervix. The obstetrician was angry at the pathology department for the delay in my getting an epidural - he said something to the midwife along the lines of “My patient should not have to pay the pathology bill! It was marked urgent this morning, she is in pain and they have made her wait for pain relief.”

The obstetrician said he would be back around 5pm to check how I was doing. Just as he was about to leave, the platelet count came back as normal and the anaesthetist was able to put the epidural in at about 1.00PM. After that I had to stay on the bed. I had some monitoring equipment put on my belly (for baby’s heart rate and my contractions), and IV drip in my hand for fluids and a urinary catheter inserted. The epidural was great - I couldn’t feel any pain from my contractions but I still had some movement in my legs. Only downside was I had to be on the bed and not in the shower anymore.

Around 4.00PM or so, I started to get a few reflux-like vurps (vomit-burps) and asked the midwife if they had anything for indigestion/reflux. She asked if I thought I would vomit. I said no. So she went to get some mylanta. When she came back in, I said “Oh, I feel sick”. The midwife grabbed a sick bag and gave it to me in the nick of time - clearly she'd seen it before and knew that I was going to vomit before I did! I threw up everything in my stomach and then got uncontrollably shaky. Midwife checked my cervix - 10cm! Woohoo - I was allowed to start pushing!

It was hard to feel which muscles to use to push because of the epidural. The midwife put her fingers just in my vagina and said to push towards them, but like I was doing a poo. I did some pushing but it didn’t seem to be moving baby’s head down much. Then just before 5.00PM, baby’s heart rate started to drop when I was pushing. So the midwife phoned the obstetrician and he said that I should stop pushing and see if baby would descend by itself, to call back if the heart rate dropped whilst I wasn’t pushing, and he would come in around 7.00PM.

At 7.00PM, the obstetrician came back. He checked and said that baby’s head wasn’t very far descended and that perhaps we could try forceps or we’d have to do a c-section. Either way, I would get a top up on my epidural or a spinal block and we’d go up to theatre anyway in case a caesarian was needed. So he called up to theatre and all the staff to get everything ready. Then he got a phone call from another obstetrician at the same hospital with a patient needing an emergency caesarian too, asking if they could go first. Since my baby’s heart rate was still strong and stable when I wasn’t pushing, I had to wait. I felt ok about it, since I could see from the heart rate monitor that baby was ok.

Around 7.15PM, I was wheeled up to theatre and met another anaesthetist who said that topping up epidurals can sometimes not work so well and he would prefer giving me a spinal block to ensure pain relief was adequate. At this point either I’d been unhooked from the epidural or it was starting to wear off, because I could feel contractions again. So I was just happy to have some more pain relief! The spinal was put in and once it started working, everything felt numb from about the middle of my ribs downwards.

Then my husband was given scrubs to wear, I was wheeled into theatre and he sat at my head and held my hand. The obstetrician checked and said the baby was still too high up to be able to use forceps so we would have to have a caesarian. I felt, and still feel, complete trust in my obstetrician, I hadn’t had any particular worry about caesarians and my labour ‘plan’ was just ‘be open to anything’, so I felt ok about it.

The midwife asked if we wanted photographs of everything, but we opted not to. I didn’t really want to see myself cut open etc. (and still don’t). They asked if my husband wanted to cut the cord, but he said no (he gets queasy/faint with blood sometimes). I could feel some pressure and tugging, but no pain, and then they brought out our son from behind the curtain - at first he was a bit purple but very quickly he turned pink and we heard him cry. They said, he’s a beautiful healthy boy! I started crying because I was just so relieved he was out and ok. The obstetrician said just after he was pulled out that there was no way that he would have come out vaginally - his head was transverse obstructed (not sure if that’s the correct medical jargon but basically head stuck facing sideways in my pelvis) - he had originally been posterior presentation and had not rotated properly.

My husband said later that he had thought our baby was a girl the whole pregnancy and at first when they said we had a son he thought they’d got some other baby from somewhere and was waiting for them to bring ‘our girl’ to us. :) One of the midwives asked if we’d had a name chosen, which we had - Thomas. Husband was taken down to recovery with Thomas and after I was stitched up, I was wheeled down to have some skin to skin with him.

We stayed in the hospital for 5 days. The midwives in the maternity ward were so fantastic at looking after us and showing us how to care for Thomas. It was hard the first few days because I was very sore. My husband had to help me get out of bed, and toilet and shower, and he did all the nappy changing etc. and I just did breastfeeding.

I'm so glad to be home now. Things are mostly going well though husband and I are incredibly tired, of course. Plus breastfeeding is still very hard. Thomas had two modes in the beginning: latched but then fell asleep, or frustrated screaming/crying and too distressed to even latch. It is very hard to relax (to have milk let-down) when that’s happening! He cries and I cry and it just wasn’t working great for the first 2 weeks. We had a home visit from the hospital midwife who suggested we exclusively pump for a week and to do skin to skin just for the cuddles so he and I could learn to relax and enjoy each other rather than having so much pressure to ‘get breastfeeding to work’. So I did pumping and bottle feeding for the last week. I’m fortunate that my milk supply is good. We had another home visit on Tuesday, this time from the maternal and child health nurse who helped me use a nipple shield with Thomas and we managed to get the best breastfeed we've ever done! :) So far I can do one breastfeed a day and pump the rest of the time. I'm hopeful that things will continue to improve.

My tips so far:

1. My legs/ankles/feet were quite swollen after Thomas' birth. I hadn't had any swelling in pregnancy but it happened after the birth and lasted just over a week. So I recommend bringing thongs (that’s flip flops for all the non-Australians out there - I don’t advocate thong underwear, unless that’s what you are most comfortable in!!)

2. On that note, high-waisted granny undies are a good idea if you've had a caesarian - the waist band of my usual bikini style undies was right on my caesar wound line and the high waisted undies are a lot more comfortable (though considerably uglier!)

3. The first few nights home from the hospital it was difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position. I had a rolled up quilt and all our spare cushions propped up so I could sleep sitting up in bed. I had to sleep that way for maybe 4 or 5 nights until it was comfortable to lay flat on my back. I use a rolled up towel to brace across my caesar wound area when I get in and out of bed. I’m only just able to start to lie on my side.

Edit: moved TL;DR to top, for those who can't be arsed scrolling down. :)