A little late but I had to share:
9th Aug – K's birthday – 39weeks + 3days – Growth scan at hospital. I'd been measuring quite small. My bump was measuring below the 10th centile but fluid level was fine and her estimated weight was measuring just on the 10th centile so I was having weekly scans towards the end of my pregnancy. Today the growth had slowed though and her estimated weight had dropped below the 10th centile. They booked me in for an induction on 15th Aug, but also gave me a stretch and sweep where it was discovered that I was 3cm dilated.
K decided he was going to stay out that night, and if I went into labour he'd meet me at the hospital. I had this odd feeling I was going to go into labour that night and felt I needed him there. After lots of crying and arguing on the phone he got the last train back to mine.
10th Aug – I'd not gone into labour overnight. In fact I woke up feeling like the stretch and sweep wasn't going to work. I was tempted to tell K to go home to the boat. I felt like he didn't want to be here.
6:15-6:30pm – K had just spent ages cooking lots of food. I picked up the gravy and had a really bad pain. I went to the toilet, my mucus plug is hanging out, then had another pain. I was having quite strong 20-30second contractions every 6-7 minutes.
6:50pm – called the hospital. I have bad signal in my flat so was stood outside in the rain. I was told someone would ring me back in 10 mins as they were changing shifts.
7:10pm – I called them back as no one called back. They told me I needed to take paracetamol and have a bath, that I needed to stay at home a few hours. I took paracetamol thinking they weren't strong enough and put my boiler on so I could have a bath.
7:30pm – I called the hospital again, the contractions were now 30seconds long and coming every 5 minutes. I told them I had a 12mile journey and was scared I wouldn't make it. I was told that it was very unlikely I was in established labour so quick with my first, and that the paracetamol hadn't had enough time to work, they'd just be pains. My boiler was still heating the water up so I was told to have a shower.
8:00pm – I got out of the shower with pains so strong I could hardly walk. I was crawling around on my hands and knees trying to get dressed.
8:15pm – called the hospital again, they finally agreed I might be ready to set off!
8:30pm – I got in the taxi, sat on a towel in case my waters broke on the way. The driver was new, it was his dad's taxi. He didn't know the way to the hospital.
8:45pm – We're half way there, then suddenly we get to a queue of traffic. The road's closed. We drive around the queue to speak to the police. She tells us there's no way we can get through the road, we'll have to drive round, through this tiny village on country roads only wide enough for one car. We get to a fork, naturally we take the direction that we need to be going. We end up at a dead end with 2 houses, one being Paddy from Emmerdale's. (Our friend S is friends with him and once S took K up there) Someone came out and directed us the right way. Back to the fork and the driver scratches both sides of the car.
9:00pm and we're finally on a road back down to the main road, but there's another queue. The contractions change, my waters explode, I can feel the head coming out. I pass K my phone, tell him to call 999. He does, they start asking loads of questions, they're clearly not taking us seriously. He hangs up. The driver goes around the queue, 999 call us back, we're with the police at the other side of the diversion, K gets out, a police-man tells me to lie down and K passes him my phone. All the neighbours are looking out of their windows to try find out about the road accident, so luckily the policeman just happens to be outside a midwife's house when he says, “we need a midwife urgently”. She obviously heard and runs outside. I'm really confused for a minute over why there's a midwife here now. She tells me that there's an ambulance on the way so I should try to stop pushing, I tell her that I'm not choosing to push. She removes my trousers and underwear, shouts to someone, “This baby isn't going to wait, get me some gloves and some towels.” She gets gloves from the police and sends someone into her house where there's a suitcase full of towels in the front room as she'd just got back from her holiday. A few pushes and our little one's out, wiped with a Man Utd towel (which K keeps as a souvenir), and placed on my chest. I'm so glad she's ok as the ambulance still isn't here.
9:20pm – someone asks if we got a time of birth. No one had so we decided on 9:15pm, although I'm sure it could have been 9:10pm. An ambulance arrives with gas and air, I have some anyway.
9:40pm – the cord is cut and the placenta is birthed. We keep the placenta for K to bury on the full moon (13th Aug, our due date)
I got carried into the ambulance, checked for shock and taken to the hospital.
I was in shock and I was very frustrated that no one was believing me when I was in labour.
I stayed in hospital 2 nights just so I was confident with breastfeeding.
The road was closed as there had been a big crash, a 29 year old had died, an 18 year old was critical but stable. A few days later we find out that the 29 year old was K's cousin's boyfriend and the 18 year is another friend of our friend S.
