Mum to be here.
Well, I'm kind of glad that we went on the tour of the hospital facilities recently since I ended up there on Wednesday night...
I had had aching upper abdomen pains, under my ribs, since Tuesday, and on Wednesday they increased a notch. All day I just couldn't get comfortable sitting leaning over my pilates ball or lying down flat.
At tea time the pain was uncomfortable but not too bad and so I encouraged F___ to keep his arrangement with his dad to go and see the new Bond movie. By 9pm I was really in quite a lot of pain and so decided to sit and bounce on my pilates ball to try and encourage the baby to move a bit lower in case this helped. I decided to try and get some sleep but still couldn't get comfortable and the pain was getting worse... queue more bouncing on the ball... further attempts to try and get some rest...
F was home by this point and checked on me at midnight, by which time just trying to turn over in bed was agony and I couldn't sit up by myself as it hurt too much. I didn't think I was in labour as all the pain was above my belly button. My upper stomach was tender to touch and felt rock hard. I can cope with pain but at this point (35w + 3) you really want to know what is going on and whether the baby is ok. We didn't really know what to do and tried checking out the NHS Direct website....BIG MISTAKE.
The problem with NHS Direct is that in an increaingly litigious society they don't want to get sued if someone follows the advice and drops dead or something, and so pretty much every entry tells you to go to hospital! You can start of with a grazed knee and by the time you have read their website you have convinced yourself that you have some tropical disease or something. Anyway the advice for abdominal pain in pregnancy was, needless to say, 'seek medical advice'. I really don't like having to call the midwife as I don't want to be one of those people who trouble them over nothing but by this point I had been in agony for four hours and we really didn't know what to do. So we called and she asked me some questions and advised us to call the Central Delivery Suite at the hospital and let them know we were coming.
Having been on the hospital tour we knew the drill for arriving in the middle of the night (it was about 1am by this point) and made our way up to maternity. I was put straight on monitoring - a pressure sensor to detect contraction activity, a heart-rate monitor for the baby and a button to press whenever I felt the baby move. My blood pressure, blood and urine sample were checked.
Well, I'm kind of glad that we went on the tour of the hospital facilities recently since I ended up there on Wednesday night...
I had had aching upper abdomen pains, under my ribs, since Tuesday, and on Wednesday they increased a notch. All day I just couldn't get comfortable sitting leaning over my pilates ball or lying down flat.
At tea time the pain was uncomfortable but not too bad and so I encouraged F___ to keep his arrangement with his dad to go and see the new Bond movie. By 9pm I was really in quite a lot of pain and so decided to sit and bounce on my pilates ball to try and encourage the baby to move a bit lower in case this helped. I decided to try and get some sleep but still couldn't get comfortable and the pain was getting worse... queue more bouncing on the ball... further attempts to try and get some rest...
F was home by this point and checked on me at midnight, by which time just trying to turn over in bed was agony and I couldn't sit up by myself as it hurt too much. I didn't think I was in labour as all the pain was above my belly button. My upper stomach was tender to touch and felt rock hard. I can cope with pain but at this point (35w + 3) you really want to know what is going on and whether the baby is ok. We didn't really know what to do and tried checking out the NHS Direct website....BIG MISTAKE.
The problem with NHS Direct is that in an increaingly litigious society they don't want to get sued if someone follows the advice and drops dead or something, and so pretty much every entry tells you to go to hospital! You can start of with a grazed knee and by the time you have read their website you have convinced yourself that you have some tropical disease or something. Anyway the advice for abdominal pain in pregnancy was, needless to say, 'seek medical advice'. I really don't like having to call the midwife as I don't want to be one of those people who trouble them over nothing but by this point I had been in agony for four hours and we really didn't know what to do. So we called and she asked me some questions and advised us to call the Central Delivery Suite at the hospital and let them know we were coming.
Having been on the hospital tour we knew the drill for arriving in the middle of the night (it was about 1am by this point) and made our way up to maternity. I was put straight on monitoring - a pressure sensor to detect contraction activity, a heart-rate monitor for the baby and a button to press whenever I felt the baby move. My blood pressure, blood and urine sample were checked.
The doctors seemed most worried about placental abruption, where the placenta comes away from the uterus which can have very serious consequences for both mother and baby, but the position of my placenta and my initial monitoring results indicated that this wasn't the case. The baby had a good range of heart-rate and was moving well. I had always thought that they were looking for a good steady constant heart-rate but they were actually looking for good variation. Our baby had a rate which varied between 135 and 160 beats per minute which they seemed very happy with. There was a brief discussion about whether to administer a steriod injection to develop the baby's lungs in case of premature delivery. They decided against it as I was almost 36 weeks and so the baby would be fairly well developed and able to cope well if she did decide to put in an early appearance. I was offered Pethadine but really didn't want to take anything that could give me side effects in addition to crossing the placenta to the baby, so I declined. Somehow the pain seemed easier to cope with now we knew the baby was ok.
The doctors didn't really come to a firm diagnosis about what was wrong but it's likely that either the baby was laying on some part of my anatomy or my uterus was inflamed for some reason. The doctors wanted to keep me in for monitoring but agreed that I would stay for a few more hours and if the pain was worse I would stay overnight. If it got better, I could go home as long as I came back if there was any worsening of symptoms and that I kept my routine midwife appointment the next day. So then we were left alone in a delivery room to try and get some rest and continue the monitoring.
We'd seen the delivery rooms on the tour and never really thought we would end up in one. They are very unwelcoming places really and I definitely hope that I don't end up giving birth in one. After a few more hours the baby was very active and the pain was subsiding - maybe she got off whatever she was laying on - and the doctors agreed we could go home. I have to say the all the staff were very kind and helpful, especially the main midwife who was lovely and very reassuring in explaining what was going on, and my thanks go to everyone who looked after us. Although this hospital experience was fine, I still feel though that it isn't the place for me as far as a routine labour and delivery goes. I am glad that there doesn't seem to be any lingering medical problems that will mean that I cannot have a home birth.
So a bit of drama there but now I am back home to take it easy. Still a bit of niggling stomach pain but nothing like that evening. Now just waiting for the baby to come...
The doctors didn't really come to a firm diagnosis about what was wrong but it's likely that either the baby was laying on some part of my anatomy or my uterus was inflamed for some reason. The doctors wanted to keep me in for monitoring but agreed that I would stay for a few more hours and if the pain was worse I would stay overnight. If it got better, I could go home as long as I came back if there was any worsening of symptoms and that I kept my routine midwife appointment the next day. So then we were left alone in a delivery room to try and get some rest and continue the monitoring.
We'd seen the delivery rooms on the tour and never really thought we would end up in one. They are very unwelcoming places really and I definitely hope that I don't end up giving birth in one. After a few more hours the baby was very active and the pain was subsiding - maybe she got off whatever she was laying on - and the doctors agreed we could go home. I have to say the all the staff were very kind and helpful, especially the main midwife who was lovely and very reassuring in explaining what was going on, and my thanks go to everyone who looked after us. Although this hospital experience was fine, I still feel though that it isn't the place for me as far as a routine labour and delivery goes. I am glad that there doesn't seem to be any lingering medical problems that will mean that I cannot have a home birth.
So a bit of drama there but now I am back home to take it easy. Still a bit of niggling stomach pain but nothing like that evening. Now just waiting for the baby to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment