The morning of my best friend's wedding I woke up from a bad nights sleep, strangely feeling full of energy and ready to take on my role as bridesmaid.
I was 38+6 days pregnant and feeling a little nervous about being a week away from my due date. I had lost my plug a week ago and was having never-ending Braxton Hicks a few days before. A few hours into hair and makeup, I was getting severe back pain on and off, obliviously, I continued to enjoy the morning getting ready. Everything was going good, and I'd made it through to speeches. But then I started feeling really uncomfortable, I felt faint period pain and the back cramping was back. I got up for a dance to move my hips which helped and I started feeling good again.
9 pm came around, and we decided it was time to call it a night. We said our goodbyes and I kid you not we were on our way to our car, and I had my first real contraction. I couldn't walk or talk through it. No more came, so I got in the car to drive home. Half an hour from home and I said to my husband, "Ummm, can you get your timer out?" He gave me a weird look and asked why? I said: "I think I'm definitely in labour." I was utterly oblivious of being in early labour throughout the day. He was discretely looking panicked.
We made it home and spent the next few hours at home until I couldn't handle the pain. I was 4cm when I presented to the maternity ward around 11:30 pm on Saturday. Everything was going well, bubs was really low, and I was fully effaced. My body was ready, and I was coping with the birthing ball, showers and different positions. Four hours later, I had progressed to 5cm. I started the gas at this point as my contractions were so close together; it felt like I didn't catch a break. What felt like a whole day later (another 4 hours) there was so much pressure down there I felt like the baby was going to fall out. Sadly, after another internal, I hadn't progressed at all. Realising it was a long road ahead I asked for the morphine shot, which just took the edge off things.
Another 4 hours (we are now up to a total of about 15 hours of active labour) I had another internal. The morphine was wearing off, and I hadn't dilated any further. At this point, I was desperate and asked for the epidural. Finally, I could breathe. Fast forward another 4 hours and still no progression, so my waters were broken, and I was given the drip to speed up my labour. And yep, you guessed it... another 5 hours had passed and still nothing, I was still 5cm, and bubs had actually completely moved from being engaged. Twenty-five hours of labour and my body had stalled.
Shortly after we decided to proceed with an emergency c-section due to the labour not progressing, we met our beautiful boy Hamish, born at 39 weeks gestation, weighing 8.9 pounds, finally!
