Worst Labour Experience EVER

It started when I was nine days overdue. I was excited because that morning I'd had a show, and had been having strong Braxton hicks for weeks. I called the hospital, expecting them to tell me to come straight in. I was quite surprised when they said it would be a while yet, and to call back when the contractions were strong and 5 minutes apart.

I spent that Saturday mooching around, each contraction getting stronger than the last. At 10pm that night I deemed the pain to be practically unbearable. Each one stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away.

What rubbish! I thought. How can she possibly know what pain I'm going through? I arrived at the hospital at around 11pm, in what I thought was agony.

The first midwife I saw examined me and said I was just over 1cm dilated. She looked at me with distain and asked how old I was. To be honest I know I looked like a school child, but there was no need for these people to be so judgemental.

The thought that this was only the beginning shocked me. I started to try and concentrate on each contraction, really focusing on trying to breathe through them. Then the midwife encouraged me to try gas & air.

It made me feel really sick and dizzy. I was all too aware of the pain but couldn't focus my mind on dealing with it. It blurred everything, but everyone in the room kept forcing it in my mouth, saying I wasn't taking enough of it before each contraction.

At about 3am, they examined me again.

2 cm dilated.

I was in excruciating pain. I rolled on my side into a ball and sobbed quietly. Out of nowhere a nurse jabbed me in my thigh with pethadine.

If the gas & air hadn't helped, the pethadine made it worse. I was dizzy and nauseous, and was throwing up after an hour. All I was aware of was pain. Everywhere there was pain, and I just couldn't focus on dealing with it.

I cried and cried for an epidural, but they said they couldn't give me one till I was 4cm dilated, which I reached at about 7am if memory serves. The anaesthetist came and spoke to me. Did I know there were risks associated with epidural? He told me I could be paralysed and it wasn't guaranteed to work etc.

"Cut my spine in half." I said."Kill me." I said. I remember at that point I really wanted to die.

The epidural was put in but I didn't understand why the pain didn't go away. My legs became a bit tingly, and I was totally immobilised, but it did nothing for the pain.

At about 9am I was 5cm dilated. A midwife came in and spoke to me about breaking my waters. She said that the pain might increase but it would speed things up. I reasoned (in my tired, drugged mind) that I couldn't be in any more pain so told her to go ahead.

I remember vividly the moment my waters broke, the pain I was in instantly doubled. If I could somehow have moved, I'd have taken myself off and killed myself. I actually would have done.

It was at around that point that the midwife from hell appeared. She told me off for getting pregnant, told me this is what happened when "you young girls get yourself in trouble" I remember watching her long, black straggly hair fall all over the place, and her not putting gloves on her henna tattooed hands at any point.

After about an hour she was really angry that the contractions seemed to be slowing down, which was my fault because I'd had an epidural. I had a drip put in to speed things up.

At 12pm, I was 10cm dilated, but when she examined me she said there was something wrong and I wasn't able to push. I didn't feel the urge to push anyway, I wasn't even feeling contractions anymore. There was just a constant band of pain from the tops of my knees to the middle of my back.

Ceaseless pain, no end in sight, lost all bodily control, I couldn't so much as lift my head every time I was sick. It was like dreaming. I wasn't quite conscious, wasn't quite asleep. Until that point I'd been practically silent, but somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered a singer talking on the telly about channelling energy through your diaphragm to make sound.

I don't know why, but I started to try and do this, to make sing-song noises with each outward breath. I focused on it and got louder and louder - it gave me something else outside the world of pain. Then my mother bent over me and whispered gently in my ear.

"Sshh.. think of the other women."

I fell silent again.

At 3pm I'd been 10cm dilated for over 3 hours. I'd been in hard labour for 16 hours. I couldn't so much as lift my hand to keep my hair out of my face as I threw up and the midwife from hell kept shouting at me that she wanted this baby born, but not to push because of problems with my cervix.

At that point the alarms started to go off. The baby's heart beat had dropped to 15 beats per minute.

Everything was very surreal. The room filled with people. I remember looking at the reflection in the surgeon's glasses as he gave me an episiotomy. I remember him attaching the ventouse to the baby's head - then just as he was ready to pull he said:

"Where's the handle?"

From the hospital bed, I stared at this group of highly trained doctors and nurses as they looked blankly from one to the other. The ventouse was incomplete, and not usable.

It took five minutes for someone to rush round the labour ward and find one of the 'old ones'.

What happened next is like something from the story The Giant Turnip: He pulled and he pulled and he pulled. I'm surprised they all didn't form a line to try and pull the baby out.

Eventually he put his foot on the edge of the bed and heaved with all his might. There was a huge crunching noise. Then the baby was born. I don't know what went wrong with my body, but it was clear to everyone that I would never have stood a chance of birthing him on my own.

The baby was whisked away, but was thankfully, and amazingly fine.

They brought him back and gave him to me. I held him in my arms and stared at him, and I just loved him. After all of that, he became my whole world in one second: The Boy.

It took me five years to get over that experience and be able to talk about it without crying. I am pleased to say I went on to have a really, honestly and truthfully brilliant labour experience. During my second pregnancy I built up a great relationship with my midwife, and spoke to her in detail about labour. I read and watched as much as I could and had a definite picture of what I wanted - which mainly was to be in control.

My second labour experience was just as remarkable as the first, and I'll be posting it up at the end of this week.