Philippa Groover's Birth Story

I had the perfect pregnancy all the way through, no morning sickness, no sore boobs and only one slight craving, that was until I got to 31 weeks! A trip to the doctors to then be told I had to go straight to the hospital with a suspected urine/kidney infection and actually turned out to be DVT (deep vein thrombosis) in my leg and I could not go back to work and had to inject myself twice a day to thin my blood. They also told me that my labour could be more complicated as I could lose a lot of blood due to it being thinner and I couldn't have an epidural either, just what I wanted to hear in my first pregnancy! So my due date came and went and I was finally induced 10 days after, they inserted the pessory at 12pm and I was told that it was unlikely that anything would happen that day, even in the 24hrs as sometimes they have to insert another one to get things going, off we went up to the ward to wait. By 3pm I was having a few tummy pains and the midwife said that the pessory sometimes caused that and not to worry, and to walk about would help ease this. By 5pm the pains were getting really intense, I remember telling my husband that if this wasn't labour then I wouldn't survive the night! We called the midwife who put the monitor on me to check what was going on, "oh your having a contraction now, it's quite a strong one!" was all she said, then "quickly roll onto your left", I did as she said but had no idea why! She then said she would examine me to see how dilated I was, turned out I was 8cm and my babies heart rate was dropping every time I had a contraction, and we were then rushed over to the labour ward! Once arriving there my trousers were quickly removed and she re-examined me and said I was nearly fully dilated and might feel the urge to push! She gave me some gas and air but just moaned that I preferred to bite on the end instead of actually using it. I started pushing but not enough as it turned out my baby was "stuck in the u-bend" ( there words!) a doctor was quickly rushed in and said that they had to get my baby out quickly as he was getting distressed and that if I couldn't push him out then I would have to be prepped for a emergency c-section but due to not being allowed an epidural I would have to had been knocked out which was the last thing I wanted and I said so! We were prepped anyway in case, me stripped off and my husband into the surgical wear, once in theatre they said I had managed to push him a bit further down and they would try help him out with a ventouse but if this didn't work then it would have to be a c-section, the rest of my labour was a bit of a blur, I remember being told to push as hard as I could and they would pull at the same time, I remember the pain of the head coming out and thinking I'm never doing this again! Then he was here! He was quickly whisked off to check he was ok after being distressed but we could hear him crying and that was the best sound and worth the scary labour! So he was born at 6.56pm weighing 8lb 3oz. Now he's a happy mischievous little boy and I wouldn't change him for the world!

Philippa Groover.

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