Birth Announcements & Birth Stories

little*red · Jul 6th, 2007, 08:31 AM

Evie Donna Ann Lorraine Gellatly's Birth Story
The day I went into labour
On 29th March I had a midwife appointment as I was 4 days overdue. We discussed the mild cramp pains I had been feeling since the night before, how I didn’t want to be induced if baby was more than 10 days late and I got a membrane sweep done. I was told that my cervix was only about 1cm dilated but it was still behind the baby but she managed to pull it forward, she didn’t know if it would work as it wasn’t favourable but was unfavourable either. She then took my blood pressure and it was quite high, so she made an appointment for me at the hospital the next day.
After that Brian and I went shopping and then home. We got home and had tea and then Brian went to bed as he had a migraine. The mild cramp pains had been happening all day but were beginning to get stronger now so I took some paracetamol. At around 8pm I had a bloody show but didn’t take too much notice as I knew labour could happen days after a show, and I put it down to the fact I had the sweep. However the cramping pains were getting stronger and stronger by now so I started to time them. By this time they were quite bad and taking my breath away and making me unable to sit, so I phoned the hospital maternity ward and they told me it was probably early labour and to phone them back if my waters broke. I put down the phone to them and literally 2 minutes later I had a really sore contraction and then WHOOSH my waters broke, this was at 10.45pm.
So I went and woke Brian up and he phoned the maternity ward to let them know my waters had gone because I couldn’t speak during contractions, they were coming every 3 minutes or so and lasting around about 40 seconds . The plan was to stay at home for as long as I could stand the pain, so I tried a bath but I felt really enclosed and couldn’t sit down during the contraction so I had to get out. By midnight I couldn’t stand the pain any longer and was begging Brian to get me to the hospital. So Brian phoned his dad and he got us down to the hospital in about 10 minutes.
In the hospital
When we got to the hospital we were put in an observation room and I was attached to a monitor to check to baby’s heart rate for 30min. During that time the midwife checked to see how dilated I was and I was about 3cm, she also said my water hadn’t gone it was just my hind water that went earlier, so she broke my waters to get things moving along. Around about 12.45am I was moved to an overflow room on the postnatal ward as the labour ward was so busy. By this time I still had no pain relief other than the paracetamol I took earlier, so the midwife gave me some co-codemol, but they didn’t even touch the pain. As the contractions were coming I was asking Brian to go get the midwife and tell her I wanted a c-section and I hadn’t even tried the gas and air yet! So Brian went and got the midwife and I asked for some pain relief and all she offered was a TENS machine, at this point I freaked out as I didn’t want a TENS machine I wanted drugs! So she said she would go get some gas and air and a TENS machine too. As soon as I got the gas and air it was great and totally took away all the pain. It made me feel really drunk so I can really remember much after that. It made the labour painless but if I got too sleepy I would forget to breathe it in and would eventually be woke up by the contraction, so Brian had to keep reminding me to breathe it in! As the contractions got stronger the gas and air wasn’t working sp well, so I got a 5mg shot of diamorphine. Also as they only gave me half a tank of gas and air to start with I went through it pretty quickly and could feel it running out. So Brian went off to find the midwife again and ask for more, but they took about 15-20 minutes to get it so by that time I was shouting for them to hurry up. Eventually they replaced it at around 2.30am when I was about 7cm dilated so they took me down to a disused room in the labour ward. I progressed to the second stage by 3.50am when I felt the overwhelming urge to push. I remember repeatedly saying that I needed to poo and that I had done one, but Brian and the midwife had to keep telling me that I hadn’t and it was just the baby I was feeling. By about 4.10am the baby’s head had crowned and it took 10 minutes to push the baby out. On 30th March at 4.20am my beautiful baby was born and kindly decided to poo all over me and the midwife! My husband then told me that we had a little girl and then she was cleaned and wrapped up and given to mummy and daddy for a cuddle. She was then given her first bottle from mummy and weighed; we were told she was a healthy 7lb 2oz. The midwife said I had a first degree tear but it didn’t need any stitches so she just left it to heal on its own. I also got the injection to speed up the placenta delivery and it was out within 10 minutes, so the midwife let me see it before she took it away.
Mummy then went off for a shower and baby was left with daddy, when mummy got back she was taken up to the maternity ward for some much needed sleep and daddy went off home for some sleep too.
Here are some photos of my little lady:
Our first picture together (minutes after she was born)

Mummy and Daddy with their little Princess

A few more of our little cutie