If I have another baby, I’ll be having an elective section. No way am I ever being induced again. My baby was, what’s known in technical terms as, an unco-operative little shit.
When I was told I was being induced, I was given a leaflet about how it works. The phrase “uncomfortable but not painful” cropped on this leaflet a couple of times. Bullshit. Tell that to the midwife who was so distressed at my screaming, she cried. At Whiston they give you a series of gels over a few days and these are meant to dilate and efface your cervix so that your waters can be broken. These gels are applied to the cervix using a syringe operated by a heavy handed midwife who seems to think she’s unblocking a sink.
Myself and another girl were taken to the ante-natal ward and given our first gel at 6pm. It was not uncomfortable, it was painful. As you’d expect, someone shoving syringes up you as far as they’ll go isn’t just slightly bothersome. After the gel has been administered you can’t just crack on with your day. The gels cause you to have contractions. But not akin to labour where you have a break in between contractions. They are constant contractions, one after the other, no break, for six hours. The midwife did say that the gels are harder than labour so, as I was doing “so well” with these pains, I’d find labour a breeze.
I woke at 5am to the girl who’d had her gel with me effing and blinding. She was 5cm dilated and off to delivery. Oh good, wouldn’t be much longer for me then. Ha. I was checked at 9am and told I hadn’t dilated, effaced, nothing. I was clamped shut and it was time for another gel hurrah. There were new people coming on the ward and one (who has since become a friend) was also there to be induced. I don’t think we spoke until the evening, due to me spending the day knelt on the floor, rocking. At my evening examination I was given great news. I still wasn’t dilated so I’d be having another gel applied right away. Double bubble.
Double gel day hadn’t been particularly enjoyable, I’ll be honest. It was about to get even worse with the arrival of Steph. Steph’s baby was measuring small (nothing to do with the amount of time she spent either outside having a fag or in the toilets throwing up 18 bags of crisps). Steph wanted to be induced, she claimed, because her baby wasn’t getting any food from her placenta (it later transpired that Steph wanted to be induced because she had a party to go to where alcohol would be involved). The midwife, quite bluntly (though extremely politely, given the way Steph had spoken to her) explained that Steph’s baby was feeding just fine otherwise the baby would be dead. She suggested that if Steph was so concerned about this baby she should spend less time “going for a walk downstairs”. Steph refused the hospital food as she’d bought B&M out of Walker’s multipacks (I say bought, her boyfriend was wanted by the police so who knows) but she did opt to pay for the bedside TV. Which must have left her with no money to buy earphones. The TV was on all night. Steph munched crisps all night. Steph had two phones – one to constantly receive texts all night and the other to play Candy Crush on. All night. These phones didn’t have silent mode, it seemed. Steph was -another technical term – a gobshite. She eventually got induced and social services were waiting as she left hospital.
The next day was a rest day for me from gels. Relief. I just had to listen to the other poor girls in pain, which is so hard when you know exactly how they’re feeling. Tomorrow would be my last gel. If nothing happened I’d be booked in for a Caesarean. The last gel had to be administered by a doctor who would also examine me later on. So, on the 8th January, the doctor decreed that my waters were finally accessible and I could go to delivery as soon as a room became available. I was next on the list. That’s ‘next on the list’ like ‘your taxi’s just turning your corner’. They must have only had one room if I was next on the list. I’d walk past the midwive’s desk all casual, just in case they’d forgotten that there was a list and I was next. Hoping they’d go “Oh! You! You’re the girl who’s next on the list! We’d forgotten about you, come with us.” They didn’t. They just kept saying, “Are you still waiting? I’ll ring down….They’re full right now but you’re next on the list.” By the evening, I really felt like telling them to fuck off, I’d been in hospital for four days, I was fed up and it was my birthday the next day. When the midwife came to do the last checks at 11pm, she promised I’d have my baby the following day. Just like the community midwife had done at my first overdue appointment.
The next day was my birthday and being in hospital was rubbish but at least I’d finally meet my baby. Mid afternoon I decided I deserved birthday cake and went downstairs to the Costa Coffee. The midwives on the desk assured me they’d come and get me when they were ready for me. They didn’t come. So I walked past the desk a few times to more “Are you still here?” and it got to teatime. Unless the baby was going to just drop out (turns out it doesn’t work like that, sorry) there was no way it was being born at term plus 14. At 10pm my partner had gone home and I just felt really depressed so I sat on the bed and cried. The other girls on the ward were so lovely and sympathetic, not like the midwife who came in to do the checks and pretended she couldn’t see I was crying. She told one of the girls who asked for painkillers that she was “pregnant, it’s not meant to be a breeze.”
At 3am I got up to go to the loo and bitchface midwife was on the desk. I’d long since given up walking past wearing my “I’m next on the list remember” t shirt. When I came out of the toilet, she shouted me over. “Yes, I’m still here”, I said. It turned out a lady had just delivered so, providing everything was OK with her and her baby, they expected her to be shipped out on to post-natal by 6am and I could have her room. I could have kissed this midwife. Four hours ago she’d been an ignorant bitch who I hated, now I loved the bones of her. I skipped back to bed, as much as a 58 week pregnant woman can, and waited for 6am.
mymummytales 