As our little Georgie Girl is nearly one, I decided it was a good time to share her birth story with my Mama Geek readers! Georgiana Alice Corkhill was born at 1:25 pm on Sunday May 1st, 2011 – almost a year ago now!
Georgie was due on April 29th 2011 – aka the day of the Royal Wedding! My contractions started the day before she was due, erratically at first but then becoming regular by the evening. My waters broke at 1 am on Friday morning and we waited around for a bit at home before heading into hospital in the early morning to get things checked out, but went home so I could labour in peace whilst things progressed. To be honest, the nurses and midwives on the ward were paying far more attention to the live footage of the Royal Wedding than they were to any of their patients!
We returned to the hospital on Saturday morning after a night of regular and increasingly frequent contractions (and not much sleep!), but I was still just 1 cm dilated, so the doctors decided to start the induction procedure. This was pretty much a big fat failure as the pessary they put in fell out just after an hour later (within 10 minutes of me standing up!). It actually fell out in WH Smiths in the new hospital next door, which I find incredibly comical! The docs were called when we returned to the ward and they decided to give up on the whole induction idea and go with the flow instead, as I was already labouring too much naturally for it to stay put.
By that evening I was up to 2 cm dilated, then was 3 cm at 7 in the morning on Sunday. That night was pretty bad as the midwives were very slow at giving me pain medication when I was due it (we’re talking many hours too slow), and I wasn’t allowed gas & air on the ward, so I had nothing to help with the labour pains.
Things started to speed up a bit at last though, as I was 4 cm dilated by half 8, which made me a delighted girly as I had been told that 4 was the magic number for going down to delivery… although since the doctor who examined me forgot to tell anyone I didn’t get to go down until several hours later! It wasn’t until 11am that James went off to find out how much longer it was going to be, as I was falling asleep between contractions by then and was in a complete state – all of which was being ignored by the midwives. A surprised midwife informed him that I wasn’t down as needing to go to the delivery suite because I wasn’t dilated enough, and when he told her otherwise they came to examine me to find that I was 5cm dilated and my contractions were thick & fast. We were taken to the delivery suite within about 15 minutes!
I was extremely happy about finally getting to go to my delivery room because I was finally allowed some gas & air! And let me tell you, that stuff is magical. The only pain relief I had for the 58 hours between my waters breaking & that moment was low doses of co-dydramol which is frankly a bit rubbish (especially since my body was quite used to having high doses of co-codamol on a regular basis), so getting to puff away on gas & air for two hours made me a very happy girl.
Things sped up rather dramatically at this point, with my dilation jumping from 5 cm to 9 cm in an hour and a half, and our little Georgie arriving less than an hour later. I quite enjoyed the last few hours in the delivery suite after the horrible night of pain I’d had, and the midwife informed me that I was the only woman she had ever seen give a massive smile less than 30 seconds after the baby crowning… although I did let out my only scream when she crowned. She was weighed in at 7 lb 11 oz & was 54 cm long… and has stayed skinny & long ever since!
Due to the length of time between my waters breaking and the delivery, there was a higher risk of infection so Georgie & myself had to be kept in overnight for observations, but we were discharged the next afternoon and I was incredibly happy to get out of the hospital finally!
I look back on Georgie’s birth as one of the most frustrating, amazing, emotional and tough experiences of my life. I am always looked at with a sideways “you’re bonkers” look when I tell people that the last bit was by far the easiest part for me; but it is because of the labour taking so long with little to no pain relief which makes that the case. I was just so exhausted by the time I got to the delivery suite that having two hours to just rest and concentrate on my breathing, and have the gas & air to take away the pain, was heavenly after that long night and endless morning!
It can’t have been too bad after all… cos I want to do it all over again at least once! I would prefer a quicker labour next time around though 😛
