Having an emergency cesarean in real life was so much worse than I could have imagined it was going to be. I went into natural slow labour on the Saturday, went to bed, managed to get some sleep. Went to the birthing centre at 7am and was told I was 3cm dilated. I was breathing through the pain and even made it into the birthing pool (my dream labour) everything seemed to be going so well. All of a sudden I was asked to get out of the pool because the midwife and student believed the baby was distressed. I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance on my own so mum and Darren had each other, I cried in the ambulance with the paramedic with me. In hospital I dilated to 9cm very slowly. Given all of the morphine, then an epidural, then an hour of pushing.... no baby. Finally at 4:30am I was taken to theatre - I was absolutely off my head on drugs, almost awake for 24 hours. A few failed forcep attempts later and the emergency cesarean was carried out. My body was trembling in fear, Darren was crying because I was crying - for some reason I had it in my head that the baby had not survived.
Out she came, our baby Willow. They held her up and her faeces fell onto me - not quite the lion king moment I imagined. She cried, we cried. They took her away to clean her and I demanded Darren went with her. I couldn't move my legs, where the hell were they taking my baby. Breathing seemed fine but they believed she had ingested meconium. We were taken to the post natal ward and at 6am my mum and Darren left so we could all get some rest. I don't think I slept a wink that day.....
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To be continued
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