39 weeks 3 days Monday 6 March:
I felt relatively normal all day. Took EPO as usual. I think I went
shopping. On Monday afternoon I got slightly energetic and decided to
cook. A curry of course - Murgh Makhani (Butter Chicken). I could
feel lots of pressure & heaviness whenever I was standing so, I stood
up from about 4pm 'til 9pm hoping something would happen. Went to bed
about 11 and slept 'til 5.30am.
39 weeks 4 days Tuesday 7 March
I was woken up suddenly by the usual painful urge to pee. Went to the
loo and evacuated everything in there. However, I didn't feel any
better afterward. Sat in a comfy chair and tried to make the pain go
away. Started having pains that felt like period pain low in front,
then a hardening of my tummy and a pain low in my back. Decided to
wait for the false labour to peter out. emailed you guys at about
6.30am thinking that maybe something was happening. I then showered,
washed hair, tidied the house and packed a few more things in my bag.
Stuie and Callum were snoring their heads off. At about 8am I woke
Stuart, told him to get ready and that I was about to phone Mum to
mind Callum. The contrax. were not very painful, but regular and
lasting about 30 secs. Mum arrived at about 8.45am. Stuart was
drinking coffee and lounging around. The contrax were getting
annoyingly painful but easy to handle. Callum was imitating me as I
stomped through each one. We pretended we were playing a "marching
game". I kept asking Mum if she thought it was real or false labour
and she kept smiling and saying "Hmmm yes, it looks real". She was as
calm as could be, playing with Callum etc. When each contraction
finished, I felt fine so Stu was still just lounging around.
Eventually I had to yell at him to have a shower. I yelled at him
through the door about 3 times during contrax. to hurry, hurry,
hurry. He wanted to stop at the bank on the way to the hospital but I
eventually convinced him we had better go straight in.
As soon as we got through the hospital doors, I felt great. No more contrax. At the desk I said that I had thought I was in labour but it had stopped now. They took me to L&D anyway to get checked.
9.45am Once we hit the L&D floor, the contrax. started again. The midwife on duty, Kath, was an aquaintance of mine from playgroup and the teacher of the ante-natal classes I attended for Callum's birth - it was nice to see a friendly face. She had a student midwife with her, Aleisha, who was also lovely. Kath checked me and I was already 6cm so she called the Doc. and my very own favourite Dr Sugarpockets, Rahoul, strolled through the doors, things were looking good!
Because of the polyhydramnios and the baby's head not being engaged fully, Rahoul did a controlled AROM. He made a small hole. blocked it with his fingers and let the water come out as slowly as it could - there was a flood when he was finished, everything was saturated. He wanted to control the baby's head coming down onto my cervix to avoid a cord prolapse as, with polyhydramnios, this is a possibility if the water breaks with a huge gush. The monitor was on me during this procedure and the baby handled it well. I was very worried during the AROM and when the water started to come out I was yelling at everyone to tell me what colour it was - it was, thankfully, clear so I was happy.
