Fasten Your Seatbelts, Hold On Tight – Birth Story Part II

Shortly after Louise, my second midwife Pawla arrived. I got the impression Pawla was the senior midwife and Louise the junior but both very capable and very lovely – I like lovely! Looking in my notes, I can confirm it says ST M next to Louise’s name so suggests that she was a student. She was very confident, I just thought she was newly qualified.

Firstly, I was hooked up to the monitors and my BP checked. BP was fine and, apart from the monitor being a pain not picking up enough of the heartbeat unless permanently held and then baby being mischievous kicking or moving away from the monitor, they managed keep track and everything was calm. At one point she suggested I might like to lay on my side – anything to get off my back! One thing I didn’t want was to be on my back, my labour pains were in my back so it was making them hurt more and I knew it was the worst position to be in. So, when she suggested this I jumped (well more of a slow painful shuffle) at the chance but when I went on my side, baby’s heart rate slowed so I had to turn back. Thankfully, it returned to normal when I went back so she just didn’t want to be on that side. I found this strange as that was the position I always found most comfy when laying down or sleeping.

I had originally said, and it was in my notes, that I had wanted to try the pool. I had also mentioned this when I rang the hospital from home but at no point was this mentioned. Admittedly, I didn’t bring it up either but assume it was because baby needed to be monitored and they wouldn’t have been able to do so if I was in the pool. Perhaps I still should have asked.

They examined me at 8.15am. I was 4-4.5cm dilated. I was mildly disappointed to not be further at this stage but pleased I was far enough along that I didn’t have to go for any walks considering I ‘faked’ my panting! Stuart was still recording my contractions at this point and they were now every 2 minutes and lasting over a minute.

From here it all gets a bit blurry. Contractions started to come thick and fast and they kept commenting how I wasn’t getting much break from them. Everytime I moved, it would also trigger another contraction. They kept trying to get me to have some gas & air but as it was I was keeping the sick bowl to hand and the last thing I wanted near me was something that was only going to make me feel more sick and not even for the benefit of taking the pain away.

Then they tried to get me to have pethidine because I was tensing up through each contraction. They said it would help to relax me. Pethidine was the one thing I said on my birth plan that I didn’t want as I was concerned about what got through to baby and baby being sleepy when born. The fact it can have an effect on feeding was also a reason too. I said as such but they said the number of babies that experienced this was so low and not something they had ever seen. Personally, I was worried about feeling out of control. I asked Stuart what he thought as I was having his baby too – he had a say in what drugs I took if they affected his baby. He left it up to me. In the end I gave in. Ouch, did the injection sting – it was in the thigh. It must’ve been ouchy to notice the pain even when in labour! They said it took about 15 minutes to take affect. In the meantime, I remember trying to relax more for each contraction hoping it would help – sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. I would shake my head from side to side and close my eyes to get through each contraction. I waited and waited for the pethidine to take affect then started to ask, when does the pain go away? “It doesn’t take the pain away” they then said….What? Hang on?  You convinced me to take a drug I didn’t want and it wont even take the pain away!!!! “It relaxes you and takes you away so you can deal with the pain better but the pain doesn’t go away!” Nooooooooooooo! Shortly after, I was begging for an epidural “Please make it stop, please take the pain away, please can I have an epidural”. They agreed I could have an epidural and said they would go and get the card thing for me to look at but they suspected I may even be ready to push and therefore it be too late. They wanted to examine me first. They asked if I felt the urge to push and I had to confess that I was getting it, yes.

Sometime around this point the room filled with doctors. I’ve no idea what they were doing there, I think they may have asked me questions I can’t remember. From my memory, I think there were about 6 extra people in the room but I really can’t be sure. It is all a bit of a blur and I have since asked Stuart and he isn’t sure either. He said they either came in because I wanted an epidural or because they were just doing the rounds.

Anyway, the MWs examined me! It was hell! Every time she felt a particular area, I had a really intense contraction. However, she confirmed, yes, I was fully dilated, it was now time to push and yes, definitely too late for an epidural – I was doing this the painful way, all the way!

I requested to go on all fours, I just needed to get off my back and as on my side wasn’t allowed (as it distressed baby) which was the best position for me with Callum, I asked to try all fours. They agreed and instantly, there was relief in my back. Clearly I was still in a lot of pain but it made the next bit more manageable otherwise I’m not sure I would have got through it (clearly I would’ve but that’s how I felt at the precise time). I felt my body pushing and there was very little I could do about it. According to my notes I started pushing at 9.20am. After a couple of pushes, they told me to pant and pant I did. I think it took a couple of contractions of panting for the head to come out and then another for the body. Again, instant relief. My head cleared, I caught my breath and I felt like a knew woman! Sort of!

I noticed she wasn’t crying instantly but I wasn’t worried. I could hear them talking to the baby in calm voices and welcoming her to the world so felt confident she was ok and pretty soon she let out a wail. My notes confirmed she had a little tactile stimulation before she cried. Apparently, she did have the cord around her neck but looped around the back not the front but it may have been this that was causing her heart rate to dip and perhaps she was compressing it when on my side.

I had requested that she be cleaned before being given to me for skin to skin, which they did and I was presented with my beautiful baby girl, Millie May born at 9.31am on Monday 20 July, weighing (which they did a little later) a perfect 7lb 11oz (or 3.48 kg). And she is absolutely perfect.

We were given some bonding tine for a while when Stuart also had some skin to skin time. We tried to breastfeed and it took a little while and a little help from the midwife but eventually she fed and for a good 20 minutes. During this time they bought me some tea and toast and Stuart and I scoffed jaffa cakes from my little used labouring hospital bag!

I was then allowed to shower and discharged straight from the delivery room a little around 12 so home in time for lunch! As we pulled up outside the house, ready to surprise my mum that we were home already, I joked that it was like we had just popped out to the shops to get a baby! I am sure that is what Callum thought too when we introduced him to his new baby sister!

Congratulations to ChelseaMamma for guessing  the correct date, Kilburina for correct weight and I get closest time!

Pop goes the Weasel – Birth Story Part I: 40 weeks, 5 days

Well, my last post appears to have done the trick as my beautiful little girl has arrived and here is how it happened! I’m a waffler so I’ll do it in instalments (nothing to do with adding drama and suspense, no I wouldn’t do that to you...).

After a lovely day celebrating Callum’s friend’s 4th birthday at her party followed by a chilled evening, I went to bed and slept really well until I needed a wee at 4.30am. No signs, twinges, I just went for a wee then back to bed. I had just started to enter the world of snooze again when I felt a pop in my bump like a mattress spring pinging back to place. I quickly prodded Stuart awake as I waited for the big gush of waters to come forth. Stuart stirred “Is something happening?”. But nothing, no big gush, no trickle of water, no contractions…perhaps I’d imagined it or perhaps just an enthusiastic kick from the little lady. I went to the loo again to see if my waters started to trickle…not really. I found myself standing in the ensuite over the security of the tiled floor too nervous to head back to bed in case the gush decided to occur! According to my twitter tweet, this was about 5am.

After 5-10 minutes, this was getting silly and I doubted I was going to go back to sleep so I left Stuart trying to get in a few more zeds, while I went down to bounce on my ball for a bit as I had started to get mild tightenings in my back. I’d bought my ipad down with me with Contract Master loaded ready to start recording. Eventually, I went to the loo again, and there was a trickle of waters tinged pink (this is normal).

Half hour later and contractions were definitely there but had jumped straight in at a regular 2-3 minutes and lasting 35-40 seconds. I had expected them to come in at 10 minutes apart and knew that when they reached about 5 minutes apart and were lasting for a minute then you were to go to the hospital. These contractions weren’t following that pattern! What should I do? They weren’t too strong yet and I could easily talk through them. The TV documentaries had taught me they wouldn’t let you in the maternity ward if you could still speak through your contractions so I guessed I should just hold on. I thought it was about time I got Stuart up and we should think about getting my parents to come over. If contractions were already this close if they got stronger, there wasn’t going to be much time to get to the hospital! By now it was 5.45am.

Stuart called my parents and downloaded the contraction master app to his iphone so he could help with the recording as I kept messing it up. I also called the hospital to warn them I’d be coming in at some point explaining waters had broken and contractions had started, were close together but not yet strong. They told me to call back when they ramped up a gear or got closer together (how close did they want them to be? I ignored this bit and would call when they intensified).

My parents arrived around 6.30am so I called the hospital about 6.45. Contractions were still 2 minutes apart and were getting stronger. I could still talk through them but decided to ‘play it up a bit’ otherwise they wouldn’t let me go in. I knew you should labour as long as possible at home and could understand how going to hospital could slow things down but we had a 25ish minute drive to the hospital and I didn’t want to risk not making it! I craftily added in a pant half way through a contraction while speaking to the MW on the other end of the phone. She noted it and said I could go in (yay). So off we went, around 7am, kissing my parents goodbye (while Callum still snoozed without a care in the world upstairs!). I checked Stuart now knew how to get to the hospital as we hadn’t managed to drive to Poole without getting lost yet! He assured me he did.

Every corner or jolt was quite painful when I got a contraction and the car journey did affect the timings. They weren’t so frequent now – often between 3 and 4 minutes, but were lasting longer – for about 1.5 minutes.

Sure enough, after a while, I noted the scenery outside he car and suspected we had gone past the hospital! Yep! We had got lost again and needed to back track somewhat! Doh!

We got to the hospital just before 7.30 (thankfully traffic was minimal due to time of day). I then had a little panic that I had somehow managed to misplace my phone – one minute it was in my hand, the next not – I had no memory of what I had actually done with it though – I had only walked from the car to the hospital doors! After a silly panic of trying to find it and Stuart going back & forth to the car to look, I found it – I had put it in my hospital bag. So, off we went to maternity ward.

We buzzed but no one came to the door until eventually a cleaner opened it and let us in!!!! Not really correct protocol! We headed to the reception desk and got a surprised look from the lady behind wondering how we had got in! We explained who we were and she showed us into our delivery suite (I love how they try to make it sound so much nicer by calling it a suite! – clinical delivery room doesn’t have the same appeal!). After what felt like quite a long while a Midwife came to see us and explained that they were just about to have a change of shift so she wouldn’t examine me but would start off procedures by asking me some questions while she made her notes. Sure enough, shortly after the first of my 2 actual midwives came in to take over – Louise. By now it must have been around 7.45am and I was panting through contractions for real by now.

Hold on to your seatbelts now and try not to blink for part two – To be continued.

Happy Due Date

So I have made it to my Due Date – something I’ve been curious about for the past 8.5 months and I must admit its a bit anti-climatic! Everything feels just the same!

I had another hospital appointment today (and one on Monday just gone) and as my BP is thankfully behaving itself, they are happy to leave it to my Community Midwife to do another sweep and book in my induction when I have my next appointment on Friday (17th August).

I was kind of hoping they’d book it in today as it would be nice to know it wasn’t too far away but I know, if baby isn’t ready, the whole induction experience is less likely to be effective anyway so best give baby a chance to come when she is ready.

I used my dowsing crystal the other day to try to predict when baby will arrive. It has predicted 18 August which would make a lot of sense if the MW does another sweep on the 17th and this one works. I’d be happy with that. For one, it is convenient as it is a weekend, he he, but also she would only be 3 days overdue so not too much waiting around (or too big ) and there are still a couple of weeks before Callum’s Birthday. That is my main concern about going too long after today is that baby will be born only a few days before Callum’s birthday. Its going to be hard not doing joint birthdays as it is but I imagine it will be inevitable if they are only a few days apart! Plus it would also be near the bank holiday – there would be both plus and minus points for a bank holiday birthday.

I’ve no more signs that baby’s arrival is imminent, just the usual regular braxton hicks, so for the time being it is just continue to wait and see.

I’m not fed up as such or taking any desperate steps to try to get baby out yet – just the odd bit of bouncing on the ball…and the fact that nearly every dinner is spicy is purely just coincidental (ahem) but I am starting to fantasise what it will be like to bend in the middle again!

Beep Beep and Sweep, 39 Weeks

Thought I’d just do a quick update following today’s hospital appointment further to my last blog post.

I was having more tightenings last night similar in strength to Friday but nothing more than that. Kept me awake some of the night though as every time baby moved it seemed to kick things off.

Todays appointment was booked for 2.30pm. I had Callum’s swimming lesson in the morning, then we went for lunch before heading for my appointment. After being so good on Monday, Callum was being a little monkey today and my patience was very thin. I was worried that that in itself was enough to raise the blood pressure.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait as long as last time despite the worrying signs of it taking me about 5-10 minutes of driving round the car park to get parked and then the antenatal waiting room being really busy.

The blood pressure checks were similar to Monday, the first one being done manually and recording as high and then the other two being done by the automatic machine and being under the highest acceptable level (140/90). She wouldn’t tell me what the first one was, she just said she didn’t want to record it as it was rather high.

I think the other two were 137/88 and 127/86.

After the BP checks, she went to have a word with the consultant about what the ‘plan of action’ was going to be. When she came back she said that they wanted to see if things kicked off on their own so she was going to give me a sweep* to see if that helped. They would also get me in for BP checks twice over the next week and then they’d make a decision whether to induce me on my due date based on how my BP was behaving. Of course, if nothing had kicked off on its own before then.

I wasn’t expecting the sweep and as I had a bad experience of internal examinations when being induced with Callum I was a little nervous about it but it was probably best I didn’t know about it in advanced as I would have just worried about it. It wasn’t the most pleasant thing and was quite uncomfortable/painful but no where near as bad as the internal I had in the delivery suite with Callum. Thankfully, I was curtained off for it too with another lady distracting Callum. Not something I really wanted him to be witness too.

Since then, nothing has really changed or kick started. No increase in tightenings, still just the odd one here and there. My right leg aches like hell and feels like its about to fall off but not really sure I can attribute that to the sweep or being a ‘sign’!

I’m not expecting much to happen. I have my next community MW appointment tomorrow at the doctors and imagine I’ll be having the same false starts over the weekend.

 

* What is a sweep? – A membrane sweep is where a Midwife ‘sweeps’ a finger around your cervix to hopefully separate the membranes around your baby from your cervix. This process releases a hormone which can help to kick-start labour within the following 48 hours.