I am sitting at home today feeling rather cross and am still pregnant!
After spending 5 hours at the Day Assessment Unit (DAU) on Friday, (for what was supposed to be a routine check-up after my hind-waters broke and I had some bleeding last weekend – I’d spent 3 days in hospital and was told I had to have a check-up every 3-4 days until the end of the pregnancy) the DAU doctor decided that I should be induced then and there because of all the problems with the pregnancy. Panic phone call to Joe then followed. However, they changed their mind about it and decided to wait until today to start things off so I was supposed to be going back at lunch-time today.
However, the minute I got home on Friday, the mild contractions I’d been having since my waters broke got a lot worse and they continued getting worse – culminating in a very grumpy Hannah bouncing on a birthing ball at 3am getting cross with a very tired Joe.
Joe was lovely and made himself useful – taking the compost out to the bin at the bottom of the garden in the middle of the night, blowing up a birthing ball manually because the pump wouldn’t work, making tea, working out how the car seat works, working out how the tens machine works and not getting cross with me.
About 3.30 we thought it might be time to go to the hospital as my contractions were every 6-7 minutes and lasting about 30-40 secs and, as I need to be on IV antibiotics during labour because of this Group B Strep infection I have, we didn’t want to go in too late. Anyway, the ‘Masters’ genes’ then took hold and things slowed down again (as baby is lying back-to back). But by 10am we’d gone into hospital as the contractions were still coming and I’d had some more bleeding.
When we got to hospital, it was decided within minutes that I’d have to be induced right away. I was supposed to be induced at 11am, but then several emergencies came in and I was moved to a side room to wait. We waited a total of 8 hours where next to nothing was done. At one point Joe asked if there was a chance that they’d cancel the induction and send us home, but they were adamant that I was to have it and I was actually their priority the minute a delivery room became available. We did get moved from the awful side room with no bed to the very comfy ‘home-from-home’ room for a few hours and were able to watch TV snuggled up on a double bed.
Then, at 7pm, a midwife came in to move us to the delivery suite. When we got there, everything happened really fast. I had to change, had the monitor put on, had my tens machine put on and the drip to stimulate the contractions was started. Joe was asked to get out a babygro, vest, nappy and hat and put them in the cot ready. It was really scary, but so exciting.
However, when they came to examine my cervix and break any remaining membranes around the baby’s head, they discovered that they couldn’t reach the cervix and that it was very much ‘not ready’. The doctor decided that the drip should be stopped and the induction stalled until I could see the consultant in the morning. However, no-one had told my uterus this! The contractions came very strongly about every 2 minutes – but nothing progressed. Joe and I had to stay on the delivery suite all night – with Joe getting only about 1-2 hours sleep in a hard chair!
When the doctor came round in the morning, she decided that the only way to get my labour going was to use the prostin gels to ripen my cervix. However, the state the cervix was in (4 weeks before due date) meant that it would take 3-4 days of having a gel put in every 6 hours in order to get anything going. Since this was likely to cause distress to the baby and end up with me probably having a casaeren, she decided not to try inducing me for the time being.
All this was so very disappointing. Joe had to pack up the baby clothes and nappy which was really upsetting. Also, the staff change-over happened and the midwives who’d started my induction came in. This was upsetting because one of them had asked if she could come an visit the baby and me on the post-natal ward in the morning – and there I was, still in delivery with no baby. I should have been coming home with the baby last night, but instead was sent home still pregnant.
All-in-all it was rather a spectacular and upsetting waste of time and energy. I’m still having mild contractions but they’re very much unproductive. The only good thing that came out of the whole business was that a problem with the placenta was picked up on the mobile scan that the consultant did yesterday.
The placenta is looking very old for its dates and there is, therefore, a possibility that it could stop working properly fairly soon. I have to go back for another scan on Thursday to check everything and to make sure that the baby is still getting oxygen and food. The consultant doesn’t want things to be left for much longer because of the risk to the baby so I might get my induction next week. By that point I’ll be 37 weeks and the baby will be considered full-term.
In the meantime I’m trying to keep upright as much as possible and am going to start taking Evening Primrose Oil to see if that helps the cervix to ripen (I can’t do a lot of the other thing that people do (you know what I mean) because of the risk of infection now that the hind-waters have gone). Also I’m trying all sorts of techniques to get the baby to move into a better position for labour. Hopefully something will work and we’ll have a healthy baby very soon.
Two words: “Good luck!”