Erik’s birth story – vacuum exctraction

I gave birth at 01:20, Saturday the 3rd of August. I was almost a week overdue but I realized something was happening since Tuesday night the 29th July. That’s when I started feeling period like cramps every night since I went into labour. On Thursday night, the cramp pains were getting stronger and more frequent, but a bit irregular. I assumed they were contractins. They would go from every 30′ all the way down to every 7′ and then every 5′, and then go back to a weird 6′ and then 7′ and so on. So although I felt I was in labour, according to what we had been told and what I read, I couldn’t be. The contractions were irregular.

We waited for the morning to come, and go to the hospital for our scheduled appointment to check the baby’s and my condition. But we went to the hospital a bit earlier than planned, around 09:00, just to be on the safe side.

I went to the monitor, to check how often the contractions come and go, and the midwife told me that we still have time but confirmed I was in labour. I could go home if I wanted to and come in later, when the contractions would be 5′ apart, but I might as well just stay in the hospital and go check how much dilated am I.

I decided to go for the second option, cause as we were about to leave the antenatal clinic, the contractions were coming more often and were stronger. I went to the delivery suite to be checked by a midwife, and if I correctly remember I was 4 cm dilated. So we stayed in the hospital, Roy went to pick up my stuff from the car and we started preparing ourselves for the big moment.

I wasn’t supposed to eat, but I was starving, so I had a small breakfast before entering the delivery suite. After that, everything seemed to progress terribly slowly. One of the two midwives that were with me asked me if I agree to let her break the water to speed up the process. I said yes, but till to this day, I am not sure if that was a good decision.

The contractions were bearable and it took a while before I started using the gas. The gas made me feel like getting stoned. But it eased the pain for a short while. When I was 5cm dilated I was going mental, felt I was dying, so I asked for an epidural. The anesthtologist was very good, success with the syringe on the first attempt, and he didn’t hurt me. After that, I was more or less in heaven. I could feel the contractions but almost no pain.

That lasted for a couple of hours but although they were expecting me to give birth sometime around 20:00, we were getting close to 23:00 and there was still no progress. I still had irregular contractions and I was far from giving birth. So they decided to stop the epidural. That was terrible. From feeling almost no pain, waves of pain started hitting me big time. I was 10 cm dilated. I don’t remember much from these terrible hours other than biting Roy’s arm, getting angry with a midwife who spoke in Maltese and I didn’t understand what was she talking about, I admit I swore and screamed a bit, and felt I could not push Erik out. Something felt wrong.

I was telling the midwives to do an episiotomy and get him out but since Erik didn’t seem distressed and my blood pressure was fine, they insisted I could do it. After 2h of no success, I was about to faint, and in what felt like seconds the doctor came in (a very good doctor that I had seen often during my pregnancy visits), performed an episiotomy and Vacuum extraction to get Erik out. Erik turned out that he was descending with the big part of his head, and luckily my pelvic bone was wide enought to extract him out without the need of an emergency cesarean, and with the umbilical cord all around his neck. There was no chance I could push him out on my own. Erik luckily started crying right after they cut it while he was placed on a table to be examined, Roy started crying next to me, and I lied down relieved.

After that, although exhausted, I somehow found some extra energy reserves and all I wanted was to take him in my arms and nurse him. Although his head was bruised and he must have suffered big time, he was super strong and took the breast right away. He was a big, cute boy, with just a little bit of red hair, weighing 3.8 kg. He smelt and felt so sweet againg my skin. After going through what felt like hell, I was elevated in heaven <3

Malta Mum – Liza

Category: Birth Stories, Countdown to Erik's birth