Wednesday 9 January 2019

1st baby and 2nd baby labor – Differences and similarities


After having such an easy labor for my first baby birth I was very hopeful to have an even quicker one for the second time but also scared as we never know what is in store for us, we can make plans but the reality is that we should take things as it comes when talking about labor.

One my 1st labor as I wrote before all happened quickly and I only had 1 hour and 40 minutes in the hospital before meeting my baby girl. I didn’t have to use any analgesia but did have a 3rd degree tear, which is far from ideal, so the weeks after it were quite painful with stiches and taking antibiotics to heal. Still I considered it to be perfect as all was even better than I expected.

On the 2nd labor I planned to do all the same, labor at home as much as possible and go to the hospital at the very end just to deliver the baby. I booked the birth center, as I didn’t see the need of a delivery suite, so the plan was to have all as natural as possible.

But as plans are only plans at 40 weeks my baby was not giving many signs of coming out and the doctors worried about his lack of movement, so they booked an induction at 40 weeks +1 day (My birthday, what a gift 😊 ). The plan was to make the body start labor as I was already 2cm dilated they broke my water at 9am and made me walk, I went to have some coffee and little shopping around the hospital for 2 hours, but unfortunately this didn’t start the labor so I had to start taking the drip and at this time the birth center was out of question. They started giving me the hormone for contractions ( Syntocinon ) at 11:30am and until 1pm I didn’t feel a thing.

At 2pm the contraction started to be regular and very constant every 1 -2 minutes and that was the biggest difference, I didn’t have the 3 minutes rest between contraction they were very intense and very quick. I did the same as I did on my last labor and didn’t stop moving having a very active birth but the pain was really strong so I asked the midwife to check how many cm dilated I was and she said 4cm, so I still had some time to go so she put a little clip on baby’s head to get the baby’s heart beat while I was moving around the room.

At 3pm I was tired but started to have the urge to push, the midwife was quite sure was too early but let me try but when she checked I was still only 6cm dilated so she told me to stop pushing but unfortunately, I could not stop pushing. For that reason, she tried giving me gas which I refused, and she called the OB, he came at 3:30pm to try to calm me down but I told him the baby was coming. He decided to check again and “voila” I was 10cm dilated and ready to have the baby ( I told so)… so I started pushing but having irregular contractions did no help much as they were only 30sec long, so I could not push the baby out all the way, after 2 pushes things changed the doctor just told me: “Baby is coming out but it is stuck, his heart beat went flat so we have to do a episiotomy and vacuum him on the next contraction”. I had no way to say anything other than “DO IT” if his life was at risk, I could not deny anything. He gave me some local anesthetic, did the cut and another contraction came so he said: “push for your life” …or something like this and I did push even after the contraction stopped and at 3:52pm my baby was out without even the need for the vacuum.

My baby boy was immobile for a couple of seconds and the whole room stopped with him, the doctor said to give him a chance to recover by himself and couple of seconds later he started coughing and was able to spit out some water and started crying. This was the biggest relief of my life.

After an very eventful and quick labor I had another baby in my hands. This time I all I wanted was to go home so the next day in the morning in less than 24 hours after having my baby I was going home relief and accomplished for being able to have another baby healthy and without much intervention ( just an episiotomy which I would do it again as it made my recovery much easier than my 3rd degree tear from the first baby) 😊

I can’t thank enough the midwifes, doctors and staff of St George Hospital, they were as good as the staff at Royal Randwick. Both are amazing (PUBLIC) hospitals and I am very proud of being in their hands.



A mom for the second time after 30 and now even closer to 40 :)

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