I was due on 11th August, My waters went when I was 36+1 so doctors said they would induce me at 37weeks because I would be at risk of infection.

On the 21st July I went to hospital they examined me and said my cervix was still very thick and far back so they gave me the prostaglandin gel at 11am and said they would review in 6 hours. At 5pm I hadn’t even had a twinge so they said I would be going up to the labour ward and started on a drip of oxytocin however it was busy so there would be a wait. At around midnight I transferred to the labour ward and started on 6mg an hour of oxytocin and gradually increased it every 30 minutes. After around 3 hours I started getting 4 contractions in 10 minutes however I said they weren’t painful more uncomfortable. At this point the oxytocin was at the highest it can go without a doctor reviewing it at 60mg/hour. A senior midwife came in and examined me and said I was 1cm dilated at a push but decided she would try to break my waters. With great struggle and pain she did this however my contractions had completely stopped.

At around 5am a doctor came in to review my progress and said we could put the oxytocin up to 96mg/hour the highest the machine will let it go and that it’s pretty certain that would get things started, so I prepared for the impending agony. An hour passed and I had mild cramps but again I wasn’t in pain so I decided to try and sleep, which I could with ease. At around 8:40am the midwives changed shifts and I was due an examination to check my progress, to my surprise the midwife entered the room with 3 doctors, a surgeon, a consultant and an anaesthetist. I began to cry because it was a shock and I feared the worst. One of the doctors examined me and said I was around 1cm and a quarter and after they chatted amongst themselves advised me a c-section would be the best because we had been trying for so long, they assured me my baby was okay and quite happy but they had no intention of coming. At this point I didn’t care about having a c-section I agreed signed everything I needed to.

They gave my partner some scrubs and I went down to get my epidural, it had all become very real that in the next hour my baby would be here and my legs began to shake. The epidural wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Pretty much immediately after I felt numb they lay me down put the screen up and called my boyfriend in to the room. They began the C-section which was a very strange feeling literally like someone is rooting around inside you. The entire time I just looked at my boyfriend and we were guessing what gender we were going to get as this was a surprise. I could feel that they had been pulling for a while however no baby had come then the doctor said “forceps please” and I tried not to panic. One doctor pushed the top of my stomach whilst the other pulled for a good few minutes. Then I felt that they were out.

I just stared at my boyfriend whilst they held the baby up over the curtain. He looked at me and said “it’s a girl” and we both sobbed. All of a sudden they took our baby away and I couldn’t see her but I could hear her. I asked what was happening because I had asked that she be put straight onto me. The doctor explained that she was a bit shocked and was struggling with her breathing and my heart sank. My boyfriend went in to see her and said she’s beautiful and she had loads of hair. A few minutes later the midwife came and said the doctor was looking over the baby as it seemed she was working a bit to hard to breathe. They had began stitching me up but said I was losing quite a bit of blood and it had began to clot. It felt like it touch forever for them to sew me up. They took me to the recovery room and finally brought our baby girl put her in my arms and I put her to breast. She was born on 22nd July at 12:32pm a perfect 6lb4oz with a full head of hair and we didn’t even have a name for her.

We went back up to the labour ward and they put her in the little cot. Next a paediatric doctor came in to examine her and said that she was still working to hard with her breathing so she needed to go to the neonatal unit. They took her away I cried and was sick twice ( which when you’ve just had a c-section I can tell you is not pleasant). I was taken to the postnatal ward and had to wait 6 hours for the epidural to be fully worn off.

The minute it hit 6:30pm I was up and walked down to see her, she had a tube for oxygen, a feeding tube, a cannula with glucose running through her and various wires to monitor heart rate oxygen and resp rate and was under phototherapy for jaundice. I cried when I saw her but knew it was what would make her better.

Over the next 2 days I was hand expressing colostrum and bringing it down for her every few hours. When my milk came in I was going down every 3 hours to breastfeed her. Everyday she was getting stronger and the oxygen got turned down to just air, then the amount of oxygen she was receiving got less and less, I began breastfeeding her, they stopped giving her the glucose and finally removed the feeding tube. After 3 days the doctor said she could come to postnatal ward with me and I was overjoyed. She was still jaundice so had to be under a light still. We finally decided on her name: Amelia-Jane.

We got our feeding established and the midwife said we could go home, but then a doctor came down and said she still looked jaundice so she needed another 12 hours of phototherapy then 12 hours and they would retest. She failed the retest so we had another 12 hours of phototherapy, waited 12 hours and had a retest which she finally passed. After a week in hospital we finally got to take our baby girl home.

She is still a little jaundice so will probably back in for phototherapy next week, but we couldn’t be happier.