Ashley

Ashley, born November 27th 2001.

My doctor had advised me towards the end of my pregnancy that my blood pressure was up and so expect to have an early delivery by induction at 38 weeks. On Friday November 23rd 2001 my doctor had asked me whether I'd like to go into hospital over the weekend to get induced. As my good friend was getting married on the Sunday, I didn't want to miss it and asked if I could go in first thing Monday morning. She agreed.

We had a great time at the wedding knowing that the following morning I was going to have a baby!!! Well, little did I know it was going to take a lot longer than that! I arrived at hospital early in the morning on Monday 26th November 2001, and at around 11am, I was given a drug to bring on labour.

My waters had artificially been broken by the nurses and now it was just a waiting game. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I had been given also an epidural around that time as it was supposed to help bring down my blood pressure. So when the early signs of labour started, I was as happy as larry! Every time a contraction was coming on, I wouldn't feel a thing. If it weren't for the nurses checking on me, telling me that I actually was having contractions, I wouldn't have known the difference!!!

Fast forward to 3am, November 27th. Nothing was going on, we were all really tired and just as my husband dozes off, my OB came in and said my labour wasn't progressing as she would have liked, so she'd like to perform an emergency caesarian. I said, 'right now?' and she said yes.

Before I could even gather my thoughts and try to freak out, I was taken to the theatre rooms, given a top up of epidural, and before I knew it, my son, Ashley was born at 3:30am! And no wonder my labour wasn't progressing....not only was he probably too big to descend into the birth canal (he was nearly 10 pounds) but the umbilical cord was wrapped around his head! As they say, everything happens for a reason!

Tammy (Australia)