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Our caliph is coming.

I was happy to be making progress, having reached 5 cm with just gas and air to help me through. Our nurse asked if I'd like to go to the loo to help with the increasing contractions, and I was thrilled to get to do this. I stayed in the loo for a while, with nurse keeping me company. She had brought in a portable gas container, so I could use that if I wanted to. I tried to get through most of them with non, but they were starting to take my breath away - so the gas was, once again, my friend. The doctor was a character, and I felt really comfortable with him. He had stopped by to say hello and see how things were, and the visit was short and sweet.

It was about this time that things started getting really tough. The contractions were hard & fast, the gas & air combination wasn't taking effect quick enough to combat it and I was exhausted - it had been around 7 hours in labour at that point and I'd not slept for another 24 hours before that, the day before. Going into hospital early in the morning was not ideal. I wish I'd slept more.

The nurse was getting concerned with how tired I was, so asked to do another check to see how things were progressing. After all those hours of labouring, I was only at 7 cm. She spoke with the OB and they decided that if I didn't progress further in the next few hours, they would look at speeding things up with a drip to get to the final stage.

I was determined to get things moving, so I stayed calm and trying to focus. Unfortunately, the contractions were coming harder and faster, and it was all I could do to lay down, drink water & suck down on the gas. I also desperately needed to wee, but every time I would waddle back and forth to the bathroom, I'd try and go but nothing happened. Turns out that baby's head was so far down, she was quite literally wreaking havoc on all of my pelvic floor muscles, and I couldn't pee. Not good, but I wasn't to know at the time. Few minutes of clock-watching passed, and she returned.

I was at 9 cm. The doctor appeared, and together they tried to keep me calm long enough to explain what they'd like to do to help things along. It was 8 pm. They wanted to get the drip going to help me fully dilate, but they were worried that I'd be too exhausted to cope with the contractions that it would bring on. Because of this, they strongly suggested that I have an epidural. To let me get all the way to 10 cm, they give me an epidural.

The anaesthetist arrived, and was trying to tell me the risks of the procedure - but I was too busy freaking out, crying, and pushing & screeching like a banshee to pay much attention. The gas & air nozzle was in my mouth constantly, no breaks in its use, and I was, a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. Ehsan says that this was the point where he was a little frightened on my behalf. Transition - it's no joke.

I'm fairly sure that my mind has blanked out a lot of my experiences of the the transitional part of labour, probably to preserve what little dignity I had left. Somehow I ended up hunched over Ehsan and preparing for the epidural, just like you see in the movies. I remember the local anaesthetic hurt like one, but I don't remember much after that. Once it was in, they laid me back down & put in a catheter for my poor bladder, sweet relief - I'm not kidding you, I filled that bag up in about five seconds flat.

To be continued :)