At 7am on Saturday 4th April 2009 I woke up and realised that it appeared my waters had broke. It wasn’t the normal “gush” so I didn’t know for sure if that is what had happened. I called the hospital about an hour later and was told to take my time, pack my bags and come into the hospital and they would check things out.
We arrived at the hospital at about 11am and I was taken straight into a delivery suite. As it was the weekend, unfortunately Dr Whelan (my obstetrician) was not on call so I was told that Dr Stephen Cook was the obstetrician on call. He happened to be at the hospital when I arrived so he gave me an internal exam shortly after I arrived and said I was 3cm dilated. I was not getting regular contractions yet so the midwife, Pat, told me we would wait and see if the contractions would start on their own. An hour or two later the contractions had still not arrived with regularity so Pat told me to go and walk around the hospital and go up and down the stairs to see if that would bring them on. After about 45mins of walking still no luck!
At 2:30 there was a change in shift and a new midwife was assigned to me named Robyn. She went and called Dr Cook to see what to do about the fact that the contractions hadn’t started. Dr Cook advised to put in a hormone drip to force the contractions to start. The drip was put in (it took 2 attempts because the first needle in my vein had popped out and boy did the first attempt hurt!!) and an hour later I was officially in “active” labour.
Stage 2 of the labour process was not too bad. The contractions were strong but bearable. I had decided going into the whole process that I wanted to try and go through labour as naturally as possible and only use pain relief if absolutely necessary. Stage 2 moved onto the transition stage and that is when the fun began. I have never experienced anything like that in my entire life!! It felt like my entire body was going to explode from the inside out and it only got worse from there!! David and my mum were a great help fanning me and helping me keep cool. Dr Cook came and did another internal exam and said I was 7cm dilated – almost there!! It was at this point that I was assigned another midwife named Carly. She was so fantastic in helping me get through the transition stage and the delivery itself.
Finally, at 10:00pm it was time to push. At this point I had made it through with no pain relief – not even any gas. I started pushing and again the pain was incredible. I pushed and pushed and 1 ½ hours later Dr Cook came back in and did another internal exam. The pain of that exam was the worst pain of the entire process. Eventually I screamed out at him to stop because I felt like I was going to pass out. It was at this point that he advised me that Mia's head would not fit through my pelvis on its own. He told me I had done a great job pushing but that there was nothing more that I could do and Mia was starting to get a bit distressed so he advised I would have to be taken into theatre where I would be given an epidural and they would try a forceps delivery and if that didn’t work I would have to have a caesarean. It was such a shame that I had to have the epidural because I had done so well to make it through to that point without having any pain relief!
The anethetist Dr Len Cox arrived and walked me through the epidural process. By this point I was pushing every 30 seconds and was completely exhausted. They took me into theatre and it felt like the longest time before Dr Cox got the epidural in but when the drugs started flowing it was the best feeling in the world! The pain was gone. They put my legs up in stirrups and it was the weirdest feeling because I couldn’t feel a thing. All I could see was people lifting my legs and I couldn’t feel it! Dr Cook then told me that I needed to push. I said “how can I push when I don’t feel anything?” He said he would tell me when to push and he did. I pushed twice more and Dr Cook managed to deliver Mia using the forceps. David then got to cut the cord.
It was strange. It seemed so real and yet I had dreamed of that moment for so long. It was the most incredible feeling when they gave Mia to me. I fell completely and utterly in love with her. I knew she was mine. I knew we were meant for each other. The love I felt for her was like nothing I have experienced before.
Mia was born at 00:17am on 5th April weighing 3340g and 50cm in length. We named her Mia Jacqueline Hooper. Her middle name, Jacqueline, was my Memere's name (my dad's mother).
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