I fed the dogs, put the bag in the car and between contractions Sal got in the car. We headed back to the hospital mid afternoon, pulling over to the side of the road twice on the five minute drive so Sal could contract while we were not moving. Probably unwisely we parked in the car park of the hospital and walked - stopping a further four times - back to the delivery suite where Rebecca met us and ushered us into an assessment room.
Sal had been having strong, intense contractions of 60seconds and more, spaced 5minutes or less, for two hours. Strong contractions, baby happy, cervix well dilated. Good good good. But here was the kicker; still only 2cm. Therefore, despite the agony Sal was clearly in she was not in established labour and maybe we would have to go home again. The worst part was still the back pain. If things continued as they had - pre-labour had now lasted 26hours - there was little chance of a good night of rest at home. Sal would weaken and the labour could develop into a real struggle with absolute exhaustion. The game plan was to manage the pain and give Sal the greatest potential to have the best sleep possible that would get her through the night. She would either "go" over night, or the following morning the doctors would consider giving nature a push.
Much as I dislike (not a strong enough word) morphine I did and said nothing to stand in the way of an injection of the stuff into Sal's butt along with an injction of something to deal with the nausea. The pain releif from the morphine became evident (as did some spaciness) but the anti-nausea stuff fell completey short. Fair enough the hospital dinner was a fucking disgrace (and that is NOT the fault of any of the staff we dealt with who are ALL magnificent) but it didn't stay down for long. Sal chucked a second time after some further, oral pain meds were administered. Not good. Can't keep the meds down and losing fluids.
The staff had a chat hen they, Sal and I agreed the best course of action was another night down in the maternity ward where Sal could get pain relief and Tamazipan. If she could not sleep through morphine and Tamazipan thn she would be in full labour, otherwise she'd get some rest. It was a win win. Unless, of course, she could not keep the sleeping pills down. She couldn't. We tried to wait for the nausea to pass but it did not, so we tried to take the pills standing up - the sighns of the pain in her back and hips when lying down were tough to watch. She threw up the pills and a heap more fluid, which I kept for David, the new night-staffer to see. One look and he was on the phone to the guys upstairs in delivery. The suites are far better equipped to deal with this situation than the maternity ward.
We went back upstairs where Sharon took charge. Fluids would be introduced intravenously and we would be hooking Sal up to a spinal block so that her pain could be properly managed and she would be able to rest. That whole thing took a couple of hours. By a little after midnight Sal was attached to IV fluid, an epidural, a baby monitor, she had a cathatar in and was taking gas unil the epi took full effect. The way you "plan" (no one can really plan it) things it was not, but Sal's pain was being managed, she would get some rest and we were expecting showtime at around 4am. She was now 4cm dilated and herefore had been in proper labour for a few hours.
A folding bed was brought in for me (more comfortable than the floor I had lay on to sneak 30mins of shut-eye earlier in the evening) and I was out cold in no-time as Sal finally got some rest.
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