At my 39 week appointment my midwife had a good feel of my tummy and said that the baby was still far too high and I looked far too good (!!!!) for anything to happen in the next few days so she would see us at my 40 week appointment the following week.
The next morning 6 days before my due date I was taking my daughter to school and as I was getting in the car I felt a funny ache in my lower back which I had never felt before, I thought it was odd but didn’t think much more than that.
After dropping my daughter at school my DS1 and I went to do some Christmas shopping at the local shopping centre. After a few hours I realised I was walking a bit funny and leaning quite heavily on the pram and also that my back was really starting to bother me. Only when I stopped to breathe through a “backache” in Darrell Lee and the shop attendant asked if I was ok, did I realise that I was quite possibly in labour…doh!!
In hindsight it was obvious, but at the time I was still dismissing it because with both my previous labours my waters had broken first and I had rapid labours (under 2 hours). So I had never felt the back ache and wasn’t in any “pain” as such so didn’t initially put it down to labour.
I continued to wander around the shops, just in case it was labour, as I am a big believer in walking to get things happening and we got home an hour later at about 1pm and I let my DH know this might be it!
At 3pm I rang our babysitter and got her to come just in case we had to leave the kids at home in a hurry as my DH was starting to get a bit nervous watching me stop to breath even though the "pain" wasn’t really painful at this point just quite uncomfortable.
So when she arrived we left for the hospital arriving at 3:30pm. I had an internal when I arrived and was 3cm dilated and the amniotic sac was still sitting up very high, even though my cervix was apparently "extremely stretchy"
. We had the monitors on and once they were off we paced around for a while eventually ending up in the shower, which was nowhere near hot enough and just made me cold!
An hour later my OB arrived and he did another internal and I was 10cm!! I had gone from 3cm to 10cm in an hour and I felt completely in control which was an enormous change to my previous two labours, I can only guess that because the baby was sitting up so high there wasn’t really much pressure on my lower body at that point.
My OB wanted to break my waters and I refused as I didn’t want any intervention at all so we paced around for another 40 minutes, breathing through contractions and then wondering what to do in the minutes in between. It really was very surreal to be 10cm dilated and feel completely normal and have conversations like it was just another day at the park…I even got my DH to take photos and video to document the bizarre scenario
I looked at the clock after a contraction and it was now 5pm! I was so impatient at this point that I gave in and got my OB to check me again and when he said my bag of waters was still quite high and it would possibly be another hour of waiting I agreed to have him break it. So at 5:11pm they exploded with a gush and the midwives started warning me that once the waters are broken labour would pick up and the contractions would be much more intense. So as soon as my waters were broken I stood up leaning over the bed to get ready for the next contraction. My OB and the two attending midwives walked out of the room and stood out at the nurses desk chatting (I could hear them from our room).
I was standing waiting for the next “intense” contraction and instead I got a tremendous urge to push! Beyond anything I have ever felt before in my life, I think the look on my face would have been priceless! My immediate reaction was to cross my legs and I told my DH that I needed to push NOW!!! There was nothing underneath me and I knew if I opened my legs a baby would drop out so I had to physically hold the baby in by crossing my legs in a very awkward fashion, as you can imagine with an enormous tummy and that sort of pressure pushing down!!
My DH had split second timing to decide whether he should stay and deliver our baby on the floor or risk going out to get my OB and as he reached the door they must have heard something as they saw his face and I just heard lots of running footsteps, I don’t think he even said anything! I heard my OB shout at the midwife as he was running in that “you never turn your back on a third timer!!”
My OB told me to get on the bed....I could barely move my legs at this point so it was a very difficult manoeuvre to get back on the bed with my legs still crossed! Everyone was madly rushing to get ready and as soon as I opened my legs I pushed once and Charlie’s head came out and I pushed a second time and my DH caught the rest of his body at 5:14pm! He was born 3 minutes after my waters were broken and less than 2 hours after we arrived at hospital only 3cm dilated!
Charlie is now 11 weeks old and is just the most placid beautiful baby! We are absolutely besotted with him and he has just slotted into our family like he has always been here! I cannot believe how lucky we are to have such a good sleeper this time around and it certainly hasn’t made it easy to argue with my DH against having a 4th
Casey
Me - 33
DH - 33
DD - 5
DS1 - 3
