Special Delivery Spring/Summer 2016 | Page 28

Pregnancy & Birth

“I think we might have to induce you but we’ll wait for the blood results first” ..... Um, What!!! I was 37 weeks pregnant, and after a routine trip to the doctor I found myself, not for the first time, strapped up to a monitor on a bed in the Day Assessment Unit of Kingston Hospital.

Up to this stage in my pregnancy I hadn’t had an easy ride, but I had a very happy, active, healthy little ‘Q-Tip’ and I was getting on with it. I finished working at 32 weeks pregnant as I was feeling and looking like a rather large beached whale, and found standing for long periods of time very challenging. My size never bothered me, I assumed I was carrying lots of fluid. The weather was humid and horrid making me swell up, my feet and ankles being the worst of it increasing from a 7 1/2 shoe to a chunky size 10 flip flop. But it was this increase in size, and my rising blood pressure that made my doctor send me off to the hospital at my check up.

So there I was sat in the DAU panicking about being induced, when the blood results come back. “Its not pre-eclampsia but we need to keep an eye on you, come back in 2 days to be monitored and we have booked you in with the doctor on the 14th August to see what she thinks it best” My due date was the 23rd August so I still had time to go into labour naturally.

I spent the next 5 days keeping my blood pressure down through lots of relaxing, breathing, stretching and reflexology and holding on to my dream of a natural, birthing pool, gas and air only birth. The 14th arrived and Jake and I went off to the hospital. I was anxious, as you can imagine, and this was reflected in my blood pressure which managed to go through the roof again. Lots of tutting and trying to get me to relax, yeah right, and I finally managed to convince them to hold of my induction until the 4th September, nearly 2

weeks after my due date as I was convinced my original due date was wrong and that I should be due on the 1st.

So my due date came, and instead of a Q-tip making his appearance, he moved, got comfortable on a nerve and I ended up with Bells Palsy. So back we go to the doctors and getting shunted from pillar to post, as no one was able to tell me why my face was drooping, I couldn’t speak properly or close my eye, and drinking a glass of water was fun! Another specialist and another plea to let me keep my induction date as the 4th, and I was sent home!

As you could imagine, I was pretty sick of hospitals, so when my induction date rolled around I did whatever sane, 2 weeks overdue, mum to be does, I cried! I had woken up in the morning and still no baby! So, tearfully I make the phone call to the Maternity Unit. “Hi, My name is Danielle Lanning and I am phoning as I am meant to be being induced today” “Hi Mrs Lanning, we have a bed waiting for you, if you come straight in we can get you started” I froze “Mrs Lanning, are you there” Tearfully I replied “Yes, I’ll be right in, but my husband is in a meeting until 1pm, can we hold off until then?” “Ha Ha, we’ll get things started when you get here, but don’t panic these things normally take a good 24 hours”

24 hours? In all my research, organisation and preparation, how had I missed that an induction takes so long! Ha, little did I know! So my taxi arrives, and I grab my bags and head to the hospital, reassuring the driver that I was not, in fact, in labour! I am greeted by one of the nurses I had met at the DAU, given a bed, and hooked up to a monitor! I was then poked and prodded, and the first pessary was inserted at midday on Tuesday 4th September! By this point I had had 3, yes 3, sweeps so all dignity was gone, or so I thought!

My Birth Story

Dee Lanning gives an honest account of her birth experience to baby Joshua.