I hit my 40 week appointment and I had hit my limit with pregnancy. I asked my OB to be induced. I got the vibe he would have been OK if I wanted to wait much longer. He performed a VE (with my consent). I was booked to go in the night before for Cervidil, then the next morning my waters would be broken and the drip would be started. He asked me if I wanted an early epidural. Based on experiences of other women and hearing the drip wasn’t overly nice, I opted to have one. I was booked to go to the birth suite at the hospital at 9pm Sunday the 10th of April.

I got a phone call from the hospital at about 7.30pm the Sunday night - they were wanting to know where I was, as I hadn’t arrived yet. Discovered their records said I was due to get there at 7pm. The email I received from my OB’s office said 9pm. They apologised and said they’d see me then. I then had a ‘bad feeling’.

Went in and got the Cervidil inserted. Spent the night in the hospital. Bubs HR was checked before and after the Cervidil. It also got checked at about 2am the Monday morning.

I went to the birth suite at approx 6am the Monday morning. My epidural/waters broken/drip started all in between 7.30/8am.

Things were going well, about 10am there was some concern about my baby’s HR. The midwife stopped the drip and contacted my OB. He advised her to turn it back on. Then at about 11am the same thing continued to happen. My OB came down from his office, performed a VE. Discovered I had made very little change from night before. I was given the option to continue labouring or call it and go for a C-Section. I asked my partner what he thought we should do and we both agreed to the C-Section.

Got taken up to theatre and everything was prepped. My daughter was surgically removed from me and she was covered in meconium - lucky she didn’t swallow any of it. During our first cuddle, my hands and arms started to go numb. My epidural went ‘too high’ and I had no feeling from my chest down. My daughter was taken off me and I was sewn back up and whisked into recovery. I didn’t know where my partner or baby was. I was still pretty out of it - I wish I asked the recovery staff where they were. I was in recovery, separated from my family for 3 hours. My partner was taken back into the hospital room with our daughter and not one midwife helped him - he had no idea what he was doing. Anyway, we were then all together again.

I do wish I got more education on what an emergency C-Section looked like. I didn’t know we were going to be separated for that amount of time. And I do regret getting the epidural early.