My Turn! - Always trust your gut!

Baby boy is 8 days old today! I loved reading birth stories while pregnant as it made me feel prepared for anything so heres mine!

On wed 18th i went in for a checkup at around 12am as i started to bleed very runny bright red blood. Was “checked” by midwife, she basically told me it was my bloody show that if it were my waters i would have wet the pad on the way and i didnt. She had me lay down for 20 minutes while the baby was monitored and after that she checked my pad again, it was dry so i was sent home. No internal check or swab or anything done.

The next day, i continued to have what i would describe as runny pink discharge. I called in and again just waved it off as bloody show but honestly it just didn’t feel like the answer to me.

Friday comes along and the pink was gone and i was having what id describe as runny clear discharge all day which sometimes felt like a trickle but it wasnt leaking as i could go hours with a dry pad. I call in at the end of the day because i just knew i wouldnt be able to sleep without being reassured it wasn’t my waters. I was told its probably just discharge but come in if you feel you need to (which made me feel like i was over the top for going in) but i did.

Thank god when i got to the hospital the midwife that saw me opened his mind to the possibility that i might not be the common case of waters breaking and continue to leak and he actually checked me with a speculum and saw that my waters had actually broken. They did a scan and saw that i didn’t have much left either.

Because i wasn’t checked this way the first time i went on the wednesday, they couldnt rule out when they had broken and if they had broken wednesday i would be at risk of infection. So i was admitted on the Friday, they started me on antibiotics and as i was induced Sat morning.

7 hours of labour (being induced is so intense the contractions are ruthless) 1 hour pushing and managed to pull through with gas and air and one shot of diamorphine! Ill admit though i was crying for an epidural after my third contraction (15 mins into being induced lol) but every time the midwife asked if im sure (as i had told her i didn’t want one) i would say after the next one and well i kept saying that for 8 hours and ended up not getting one 🤷🏽‍♀️😂 i got a second degree tear but didn’t notice the stitching at all (for any of you who are worrying about that because i did)

My little guy was born Sat 21st September at 16:08, 7.5lbs, 51cms 💙 i was 38+5.

Its been said 1000 times before by many mums but seriously, listen to your gut. I could have put my babies life in danger if i hadn’t listened to mine.