Birth Story

Thought I should post my birth story. Of course it is mega long, so I won't do it all at once.

Day One
It all began at 7.30 am on Sunday the 1st July, 2007. We went into WAU (womens's assessment unit) at Auckland Hospital for an induction. Somewhat naively we anticipated holding our baby by that night…it was not to be quite that way.

I had an examination which found that my cervix, while perhaps 1 or 2 cm dilated, was still really long, so they were unable to do anything other than insert gel at that stage. They also prepared the lure (I think that is what it is called?) in my hand, for any fluids or the syntocin drip they anticipated I would need. Gel was inserted and we began the wait. And we waited, and waited and waited. About the only thing to happen was I developed some back pain (oh joy). There weren’t even really any tightenings or anything. So we sat in the room, listening to music, ate, went for walks down to the shops and café (great chai latte and yummy pies), I bounced on the Swiss ball, we read trashy magazines – you get the picture.

Meanwhile they monitored bubs about every hour for 20 minutes to check that there was no distress.

At about 2 pm they did another internal and surprise! Nothing had happened (I could have told them that). So another lot of gel was inserted, and a stretch and sweep performed. This one was a lot more successful. There were lots more tightenings and the wheat pack was really helpful at this time. Otherwise the afternoon was a replay of the morning…

Another VE at around 8pm showed some success- the cervix was shortening – hooray! Unfortunately I had had the total amount of gel I was allowed that day, so it was decided to let me sleep that night and kick things off in the morning. I jumped in the bath for about an hour and a half as the tightenings were still uncomfortable at that time. That was really nice. My friend went home to get some sleep and Jim settled down to sleep in the comfy armchair in the room.

About 2 am I found Jim asleep in the bathroom on the floor – that side effect of pregnancy meant my snores had driven him away! So I sent him home to get some sleep with the promise that nothing was going to happen all of a sudden!