Throwback to the hours leading up to my active labour…
While Wednesday had been a good day and I had felt energetic – went to the gym, cooked and tidied our home – Thursday was not so great. I had a pounding headache all day, probably from sleep deprivation, and I so stayed at home making wedding plans and doing online Christmas shopping.
I stayed up most of Thursday night (again) and having gone to bed at 4am I felt devastated waking up already at 7am on Friday morning (December 1st) to lower back pain and bad stomach cramps. Only during the second contraction I realised what was going on. They kept coming about every 20-minutes for two hours. Before leaving for work my fiancé helped me set up the mama tens machine, which helped a little, at least as a distraction. At 9am the contractions stopped and I fell asleep…
Waking up early afternoon I felt puzzled – what was going on?! Can labour start and then stop?
Since I felt better, I went out to pick up keys to our new house (!) and to buy some Christmas presents – only to find myself crouching on the side of the street with yet another painful contraction. Turned out it was just a one off, strangely enough, and I made it home without further troubles. I even took what ended up being my very last bump update photo!
The evening passed in a more relaxed manner, our baby actively kicking and moving in the bump. Sometime after 9pm though it started getting more painful again…
I started timing the contractions at 11pm when I had realised that I had had three painful ones in an hour and downloaded an app to time them. By 3am I was having contractions every 7-minutes, but the frequency had varied between 7 and 17-minutes. But boy was it starting to hurt! Yes I’ve had uncomfortable and painful Braxton Hicks contractions during the past few weeks but this was different. It felt like the worst kind of period pain and lower back pain combined with the tightening of the belly. And yes, they came as a wave, just like my midwife has described.
My fiancé called the midwives’ helpline a few times to describe the situation and our progress. I took paracetamol, a warm bath, and used the tens machine – all which provided some relief but not notable to be honest. The midwife told us to stay at home until the frequency of the contractions was 2-minutes and they’d last for about 30 seconds only – short but intense. At 6am I lost what was left of my mucus plug in one “bloody show”.
By the morning I was exhausted and in tears and after another call to the hospital we decided to go to the Maternity Assessment Unit (MAU) to get checked up and to get some pain relief (Codeine tablets).
At 8.30am on Saturday morning December 2nd we got to the MAU at UCLH. I was 2cm dilated and the labour was progressing slowly but surely. She would be born the same day! Our baby’s heart beat was strong and she was still moving and being active. We knew it was too early to get admitted to the birthing centre but the midwife was uncertain about how long it would take to get to 4cm which they consider active labour – anything from two to four hours. We could go home or hang around nearby. I couldn’t face the taxi ride (although short) again and so we spent the next 4 hours in the waiting area at the hospital. We both felt more comfortable knowing help would be near when my labour would start speeding up.
At 12.30pm we went upstairs to the birthing centre where I was directed into a birthing room. I was still only 3cm dilated and my waters had not broken but the intensity of the contractions jumped up a gear and I found myself squealing aloud now rather than just huffing and puffing.
We were in active labour.
To be continued!
xoxoxo,
Sini