It’s been a crazy 36 hours which started with some painful, regular contractions on Sunday evening. (yay, finally right?) It was fairly manageable at first so I tried to sleep it off but this is a very thoughtful baby who woke me up at 3am with some good old fashioned pain in the uterus so I could watch the World Cup finals. I love a good game of soccer but frankly, given the state I was in, I enjoyed that match just about as much as I enjoy a bare-handed fist fight with an alligator.
By 7 in the morning, the contractions were about 10 minutes apart and the pain was getting out of control so I woke the husband to send me down to the hospital. I wanted to hulk smash everything in my way but I was also excited to finally give birth. It’s a cathartic mixture of rage and excitement.
9am, got warded and hooked up to the CTG, which recorded erratic contractions ranging from 7 minutes to 15 minutes apart.
I was asked about the pain level. “About 5-6”, I said.
How do people rate pain anyway? Should a 10 be having your arm ripped out by a shark? Or getting stabbed by a fork in the eye – is that just like a 9.27 on the universal pain scale? Or maybe walking barefoot on a minefield of lego pieces on fire – that should be a solid 10 in my books. Also, people who say childbirth without epidural is “relatively painless” or “quite ok”? Shut up, you’re ruining it for the rest of us.
Most of the time, anything above a 7 counts as “STOP TALKING AND MEDICATE ME NOW!!” anyway so 5-6 was in the range of dangerously close but imma put on a brave face and power through so I don’t look like a big baby.
And then came the super fun cervix check. By 2 different people (double yay). I’v never had so much attention given to my cervix. There was like a conference regarding the length of my cervix going on in the delivery ward, complete with grave looks and thoughtful nods.
“Not even the slightest bit dilated” was the official diagnosis.
Now this is my cervix being a jerk. My uterus finally had a turn of heart and decided to get on with the program, albeit reluctantly, so it was all like “ok fine, you want contractions, here you go, here’s more pain for you” but then my cervix had to be all “HELL NO!! NOTHING’S GETTING OUT OF HERE, NOT ON MY WATCH!” so my uterus got all confused and isn’t quite sure what to do with all the useless contractions.
So I’m stuck with erratic contractions ranging from a pain level of 3-5 but not much else. I had to be on the CTG machine every 4 hours in case it escalates, which it might, because with Finn, I went from 1-10 cm in like 2 hours. Apparently, I could be in this state for hours or days or weeks!!??
My options are a c-section (awful recovery), induction (increased risk of wound rupture) or to just wait it out. I’d like to choose none of the above but that’s not one of the options.
Looks like it’s gonna be a waiting game for now.
8 Comments
Hi! Good luck! One of the best suggestions i heard was to visualise a flower opening at your cervix everytime a rush (contraction) comes!!! I didn’t do it for my birthing but i was doing lotsa breathing and movements (I teach prenatal yoga with active birthing;)) so i forgot the flower! Try the flower and also imagine that you are cooling a bowl.of hot soup with your breath! Good luck again!:)
Thanks for the tip! I don’t know if I can ever picture my cervix as a flower but at this point, I’ll try anything that works!
There’s this old wives tale about opening the drawers in your room and you’ll have a quick delivery. Call home and ask the kids to do it! who knows.. :)
Hahahah that’s the wildest one I’ve heard so far. My kids are opening the drawers all the time as it is :)
Jia you Daphne!
Thanks babe!!
you hang in there daph! And theo erm.. you come hang out with us outside soon ya!
Haha thanks andrea! Theo does not care much about being outside. too shiok already.