Mason Floyd Wyche and his grand arrival!

This is long so hold on to your hat!

On Monday night I went to bed a very tired very anxious mama to be. Booked in for induction for the next day at 42 weeks it's safe to say I was very nervous. I had made my peace with the induction but fully expected to end up with an epidural as I expected it to be a long drawn out process. I emailed my doula before bed promising to keep her informed , I had decided not to call her til labour was well established as she has 3 children of her own to care for. I asked her to pray for a miracle for me and then settled down for the night. As always my hypnotherapy cd sent me fast asleep and I got a good few hours rest . At about 4 am ( times will be very approximate as I wasn't really paying attention!) I woke up feeling uncomfortable. Different somehow. I lay in bed for another hour wondering what was happening before I finally decided to get up. The pools heater had actually been switched off the night before as we weren'tgoing to need it but it holds it's heat fairly well so I decided to have one last soak. It was about 33 degrees so nowhere near as warm as I would like but I whacked the heater on and hoped for the best. By this point I dared to hope that the impossible had happened and I had actually gone into labour naturally! Contractions werecoming about every ten minutes to begin with and actually started to get closer. Maybe this was actually it! I was calm and breathed through the surges ing a bit but nothing . I actually was managing yo put my face in the water and breathe out during the contractions , something the book suggested but I had never managed due to my fear of putting my face under the water!! Amazing!! Eventually Dave and the children got up and were very surprised to find me in the pool. Dave took the kids to my sisters and came back to start getting us prepared. He rang the hospital to check what time they wanted me in for induction. I kept saying 'no! I 'm in labour! ' he obviously wasn't convinced! Lol! So I was told to come in to triage at 11.

So I continued to labour in the pool, I told dave that I had no intention of going into hospital at all. They would just have to send someone out . Dave was really not keen on that idea and started to get worried. He decided to ring the hospital again and they could hear me moaning through contractions so asked us to come in. I think this was around 9 am? I kept sayng to Dave I don't want to go everything will stop , but I knew it was time to head in really. When we arrived at the triage ward the contractions were still coming but I was coping with them well. a little too well actually as the midwife said that looking at my notes and how I was actingit was very unlikely I was labouring.the best we could hope for was that I was dialated enough for the pessary to be inserted. So I agreed to a ve and tried not get my hopes up. Midwife was silent throughout the exam and then said 'well I have good news! You are 5cms and your waters are bulging!' at that point I started ing and Dave did a little happy dance! I requested again to use the birthpool in the midwife led unit but unfortunately I was STILL classed as high risk so had to be transferred to delivery suite. Ah well my baby was on his way and to be honest I wasjust so happy I didn't care! We were handed over to the midwife who would deliver my baby and she was very keen to allow me to go as naturally as possible , no more exams and just see what happened. Again she was amazed at how calm I seemed. We talked about positions for birth etc and agreed upon trying to birth standing up if that's what felt comfortable. I was still able to chat and answer questions throughout , using my tens machine and breathing techniques we were getting on just fine!

So on with labour we went. Midwife mainly stayed quiet in the room while I paced around swaying my hips , chatting to Dave pausing only when a contraction hit to concentrate on my breathing . I even managed to drink a couple of cups of coffee. I expressed concern a couple of times that contractions didn't seem to be getting closer or stronger but the midwife assured me that it was all going well and I was doing great. No idea how long that went on for really but at some point the midwife brought in another midwife to cover her lunch . She said 'no giving birth before I'm back' to which I responded 'no chance I'll be here for a while yet!' new midwife agreed with me and said 'yes you are far to comfortable to be giving birth just yet ' oh I forgot to mention that I have been on constant monitoring the whole time due to the trace not quite being regular. Luckily I was still able to move around so it didn't bother me at all. Not long after midwife one had gone to lunch my contractions kicked up a gear and was offered gas and air. I readily accepted as I was becoming quite noisy and that gave me something to focus on. Previous labours I had hated gas and air but this time I really got the hang of it . Again I credit this to all the breathing exercises I hadn't practiced in the run up. Tho the contractions were really very painful by now I was still very much in control and able to chat along to Dave. the midwife nipped out for a bit and told us to press the button if we needed her. While she was gone there seemed to be a lull in the pains and I said to dave ' oh with the next contraction my waters will go' and lo and behold with the next pain I felt a pop a huge gush of waters went everywhere. As I was stood resting my head on dave's chest it went all over his shoes! Oooppps! The contractions immediately seemed on top of each other . We pressed the buzzer and the midwife rushed back in surprised to see how things had progressed. This is when she noticed that my waters were very brown and requested that I get up on the bed. I got up on the bed on all fours and there seemed to be no gap at all between contractions.

I suddenly felt very frightened. At the peak of every contraction they lost the babies heart rate. I had started feeling the urge to push but was out of control and was screaming in agony. I heard the midwife say ' I think cord must be around babies neck , time to get baby out' at this point I was sobbing and screaming 'i can't do this , please be ok, my baby' Midwife kept reassuring me baby would be ok but I needed to listen. I was instructed to lie on my back. The paed team were called in and the room seemed very crowded. With every contraction I pushed and screamed . I genuinely thought I must me tearing in two . It was becoming unbearable and I was terrified. Baby didn't appear to be moving down. Midwife kept repeating 'she has spd be careful , she doesn't want to be cut, be careful' Finally babies head began to appear , his head was turned to the side but I was relieved as I knew once his head appeared the rest was easy. Except not this time. Unfortunately his shoulders were well and truly stuck . I was screaming hysterically and apologising for the noise. Again the midwife was amazing and kept telling me to stop saying sorry and that I was amazing. Apparently his shoulders were stuck for ten minutes but I finally pushed him out just before the doctor was going to cut. Relief flooded my body and I was calm again. My baby boy was here! A quick check over confirmed he was fine. . The drama wasn't over tho . I couldn't hold him yet as I was bleeding and my placenta was stuck. I think it took about 40 mins for the placenta to come away even after agreeing to the injection at the last minute. Finally tho I was handed my son and he went straight to the breast and fed for 20 mins. So things didn't quite go to plan, I didn't quite manage to stay in control . But he is here . He is safe . And I'm in love .