Why Cervical Dilations Checks don’t tell the Truth – Jo and Emeline
“At 37+5 weeks I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on 19th September 2016. I thought I would send you the traditional “birth story“.
We are currently in the process of moving house and on the Sunday we’d had a busy day of house moving and had just settled down for a picnic in the garden. Completely out of nowhere my waters broke. I’d had the odd twinge but nothing to make me think labour was on the way!
To cut a long story short I went in to hospital and decided not to be induced, went home then 10 minutes later had some bright red blood. The midwives requested I go back to hospital but this proved to be normal and so I was back at home 20 minutes later. It was now around 01:20am and I had contractions that were irregular and uncomfortable but certainly not painful.
This soon changed! After two long contractions with 8 minutes between each one I went straight to vomiting and contractions lasting a minute happening every 4 minutes. I stayed at home as long as I could, around an hour and half. I was using a tens machine for the pain and thinking about the breathing techniques you taught me. The pain was manageable. I then had a really strong contraction and knew I had to get to hospital. When I got there I was examined almost straight away and the cervical dilation was found to be 3cm. I was gutted, I thought I would be much further on the contractions were so strong and now around 2 minutes between them.
They continued to get stronger and stronger and I was given Entonox, at first I didn’t like it as it made me light headed but it helped me to focus on my breathing techniques and keep control. I was examined just an hour later on, and found to be 5cm, at this point there wasn’t really a gap between contractions it was just constant. I was taken immediately to the delivery suite and 20 minutes later I was 10cm and pushing!
After around 90 minutes of pushing I had my beautiful baby daughter placed on my chest, the feeling was incredible. I had managed to push with no painkillers and had only had Entonox for a short period of time. I think the breathing techniques and the ability to focus gained from yoga were invaluable so thank you. I had a smile to myself whilst pushing as I thought of the goddess you told us about (Kali??) and I wondered what the midwives would think if I stuck out my tongue and went cross eyed!
Thanks Julie, looking forward to getting the baby massage dates!
See you soon,
Jo
