What happened when they removed my cervical stitch...

So it has now been about 30 hours since the stitch was removed. I had spent yesterday morning reading forums of other ladies experiences of cerclage removal which to be honest did not put me at ease at all. The worst case scenario for me would have been if they couldn't remove the stitch in the labour ward and then having to go into theatre, have an epidural and then spend hours recovering from the effects.

On the day I was asked to arrive at 8am with no food or drink from midnight. Being pregnant has made me even more thirsty than before, so I did question every health professional who came into the room about whether I could drink- it was a unanimous no by the way. My amazing partner brought a huge bag of food which included water, cinnamon swirls (my favourites), cereal bars and juice. Naturally he ate a cinnamon swirl whilst we waited for the doctor to become available and he also had a smoothie whilst my mum sipped her coffee... you could probably imagine my face.

So we were in this gorgeous beach themed room and I was hooked up onto the monitor for over an hour to see how our little nugget was doing. As per usual he kept his heart rate around 150bpm but preferred to relax instead of move around when the midwife was actually watching the readings. The midwife stayed with us for the majority of the time monitoring him and checking everyone was happy which was really nice and kept everyone calm.

When the doctor did come in it was around 11am and the leg stirrups went up! In went the speculum and I heard the dreaded 'I can't see the stitch'... to which I panicked as I really didn't want to go to theatre. Thankfully with a little moving around the doctor found it and it took all of two minutes to cut it out.

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As soon as the stitch was cut I did jump as I felt a thump in my tummy, my partner could visibly see my bump flatten possibly by an inch. The doctor checked again to make sure all parts of the stitch had been removed and saw that I was a little dilated- I'm not sure how much a little is, I'm guessing 1-2cm but my cervix went straight from 1.6ish cm to a little dilated in seconds. See the picture for dramatic effect!

I had cramping pain for possibly 10mins after before I decided to have a nap listening to his heartbeat as they put us back on the monitor and then I got to walk around. I did enjoy my partners face as he was expecting my waters to break as soon as I stood up and for the baby to come pretty quickly afterwards. I have no idea if I have continued to dilate but not much seems to be happening.

The amazing news is that the pain in my cervix has gone and I don't have this tight, painful pinching feeling at the bottom of my abdomen anymore. I am actually able to walk around more through the pain in my hips which is definitely more bearable than the pain I was experiencing in my cervix. That means generally I am a lot happier... but completely mystified by when this little nugget is going to make his grand entrance!

This man continues to make me laugh through everything!

So to sum up...

1. Did it hurt having the cerclage removed?
Yes, it was uncomfortable and the pain was quite cramp-like in the actual cervix. It also hurt close to the cervix having the actual speculum in as well. Considering the stitch had been in for 17 weeks I was expecting it to hurt due to any build up of scar tissue as well.

2. How long did it hurt for?
The initial cramp-like pain lasted for a good 10mins. The doctor and midwife hung around just to check that contractions hadn't actually started as stimulation of the cervix in this way could bring about labour. After those 10mins, a good rest for about 30mins the pain pretty much went straight away as did the other pain I had been experiencing.

3. Did I dilate straight away?
Yes. The doctors were pretty adamant that the cervix could remain closed after the stitch was removed. I was really doubtful of this as I initially only had 0.5cm of cervix there anyway before the stitch brought it to >1.5cm. My cervix pretty much instantly opened but still no sign of baby 30 hours later.