My waters went at 3am on the 4th after I had been up to settle Chloe who had kicked her covers off in her sleep. I woke J up and we started to run around the house packing last minute things and generally being in shock that it was all starting to happen 5 days early! My contractions started soon after and quickly became quite painful. I let my parents know they might be needed to watch Chloe - Dad wasn't amused as he had only just gone to bed after watching the Superbowl! At 5am I rang the labour ward to tell them what was going on. They told me to leave it a while and then call back, as I was managing ok and the contractions weren't really long enough or strong enough to warrant being checked.
At 6am the contractions had become quite a bit more painful so we called my parents and my mum came over to look after Chloe. We loaded the car and drove to the hospital; unfortunately the route included a lot of nasty speed bumps so we had to go very slowly as I was starting to really feel uncomfortable with each contraction. At the labour ward a lovely midwife came to talk to me and observe me having contractions. Unfortunately she wouldn't examine me to see how many cm dilated I was because my waters had gone and they didn't want to risk infection. Whilst I was there my contractions slowed down and were less intense so we were sent home, despite telling the midwives that my labour with Chloe progressed very rapidly.
On the drive home the contractions picked back up again and I only got to lie down for about an hour before J decided that I was in enough pain to go back to the hospital again. So off we went for the second time! This time when I arrived the contractions were so awful J had to drop me by the door to the hospital. I remember standing there waiting for him to park (it was really busy by this time) and people kept coming up to me to ask if I was ok, as I was clearly in a lot of pain! Finally we got the labour ward and things started moving very quickly!
This time I had a student midwife and her mentor looking after me, which wasn't a problem except that everything seemed to take a long time and a lot of discussion! I was soon asking for pain relief and was given gas and air. This took the edge off the contractions for a little while but I did begin to ask for an epidural too, knowing that it can take a while to get it all organised. Unfortunately my nightmare scenario happened and the anesthetist was unavailable in surgery so I was going to have to wait! Livia had other ideas and the contractions started coming very strongly and frequently.
Although my waters had gone earlier I still must have had some left (don't really understand this?!) and they went very dramatically at this point, hitting the student midwife! I'm sure I would have been embarrassed if I had been with it but I was well away with the gas and air. Very soon after this I had the urge to push and it was nothing like the count to 10 you see on the TV. I had no idea what I was doing - my body was doing it for me and was doing it very quickly! Livia was born less than 2 hours after we had arrived back at hospital.
I don't want to go into too much detail about what happened after this because it's not very nice reading but I had a few complications with blood loss and my uterus not contracting. Lots of people were suddenly rushed in and I think it gave J quite a scare. Sorting me out took almost as long as the labour in hospital and was quite a traumatic experience, which I have arranged to discuss with my midwife when I next see her because I'm still unclear on the details (I hung on to the gas and air throughout it so it's all very hazy!).
After this we had a short reprieve where I tried feeding Livia and she was weighed and checked over. Initially she was doing well but then started making some 'grunting' noises; sort of like she was trying to fill her nappy. I didn't think to much of it but the healthcare assistant who was with us said that she would need to get someone to check her out. She ended up being sent to SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit) and we were told that she needed some help with her breathing.
We ended up staying in hospital for nearly 6 days, as Livia showed signs of infection in her blood (the breathing sorted itself out very quickly). She had to have numerous tests and treatments, including a lumbar puncture and intravenous antibiotics. Thankfully she wasn't in special care for very long; after 3 nights there (2 nights for me on postnatal ward and one night in s private room) we were both moved to a transitional care ward so we could be together but still receive special attention. We found out at the end of our stay that Livia most probably had caught group B strep which causes pneumonia (which she had developed) and possibly meningitis (which she hadn't).
We came home on my due date - 9/02/13 - and we're now very happily getting used to life as a family of four!
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