Baby Oliver’s Birth Story

I guess things started with the twinges in my pelvic region on Tuesday night but as I’d had worse last week I’d thought nothing of it; I had actually become accustomed to the idea of having another late baby and had a long list of things to do this week. I went to bed Tues night, but didn’t sleep well… backache had randomly appeared and I was having to get up every 45 mins to pee. I got fed up of tossing and turning at 4:30am so got out of bed, had a cuppa and low and behold started having very mild contractions. It was then I tweeted my first labour tweet #uhoh

I was kept suitably distracted for around an hour by Erin who, despite trolling me in 2010 and signing up to Snark just to spam her crappy contest, had the nerve to ask me to “make her a script like rev.iew.me” for free. I’ll save the hilarity of that one for another day.

Anyway, I eventually woke Karl to tell him he wouldn’t be going to work that day… he responds “I have to”. Well, love, only if you want to miss the birth of your child!

Isabel woke before 6am and while I got her fed and dressed the contractions mostly disappeared — what a clever body.

Around this point I rang the Midwife Led Unit to advise them I was in early labour, mentioned my previous delivery and repeat iron issues. I acknowledged their protocol but told them I was either giving birth at the MLU or at home. They told me to ring back later. I barfed up my breakfast mid-contraction.

Around 7:30am Karl took Isabel off to nursery to try and keep her usual routine, my mum arrived to keep me company. I took some paracetamol (don’t know why, seemed like it might help… it didn’t) as the contractions started getting closer together; about 3-4 minutes apart. I rang the MLU back, they told me to come in straight away.

When I got to the MLU I was told there were two senior midwives on duty, someone suggested that one (Supervisor of Midwives) had been called in specifically because of/for me. The SoM just happened to be a lady I clicked with when I was pregnant with Izz and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to support my labour.

The SoM did a vaginal, said I was 4-5cm dilated and that my ‘membranes were bulging’. Still very manageable pain levels so we decided to go for a walk. Too hot outside, retreat back to labour room to keep up my pacing.

The contractions really started to get intense around 12:30 and so I finally ‘gave in’ to gas & air. The midwife fetched me a birth ball which allowed me to stay in a good position but rest my legs; this really started to speed things up and around 2pm I began to question the sanity of a #2 (last tweet, phone was annoying me again).

At this point (just past 2pm) the contractions started piling on top of one another — despite the pain, I was still laughing/joking between contractions with the midwife and Karl and I think being comfortable in my birth environment was a huge help — the midwife tells me she knows I’m pushing as I am ‘mooing’ (classy). I hadn’t realised what I was doing, I was just letting my body get on with it (albeit vocally it would seem). She asked me if I wanted my waters broken or if I wanted no intervention and although the latter was my original plan, I thought screw that, I’m getting tired – have at it!

The midwife did another VE, tells me there’s a rim, pops my waters and I absolutely flooded the bed. Sudden unbearable urge to push, and I can’t be arsed to get up to change to a better position so I start pushing using the bed as brace. I can’t begin to tell you how much it hurts but the pushing was productive and I quickly feel his head born.

Just as I’m summoning the energy to push with the next contraction, the midwife shouts at me to LISTEN and STOP. The cord was wrapped very tightly round baby’s neck. All of a sudden things are happening… the cord is clamped and cut (there goes my plan to let it stop pulsating) I am pushing again, there’s a purple baby plonked on my chest and it’s a boy! Hands everywhere, warm towels being fetched, SoM is trying to get baby to cry. He makes a half-hearted whinge which isn’t good enough so he’s whisked away from me for oxygen & suction; Karl followed.

I vaguely remember at this point that the midwife assisted delivery of placenta, lost ~400ml blood, had the jab to help with reducing bleeding. It’s all a blur, all I can think is I want my bloody baby back. He was brought back in (gone for just a minute but felt like an hour) and I’m repeating I want my baby, give me my baby, give me my baby, give me my baby. He’s placed back on me, latch him on the breast, phew… calm.

I got my tea and toast this time, but was sick again. I didn’t have pethidine so it must either have been the blood loss or the synto-whatsit jab they use to reduce risk of PPH. I didn’t want it because I wasn’t sure if it made me sick last time, but the SoM wanted to cover her arse (I’d already broken the ‘rules’ by staying at the MLU) and I had already lost my physiological third stage anyway.

Anyway… all in I am quite pleased. I got the birth I wanted (mostly) and think the way I dealt with labour this time reflects my comfort with the surroundings. Baby Oliver is well, with no ill effects from the cord ‘incident’. He has a lip tie like his sister which is contributing to a poor latch and sore nipples, but we’re taking each day one at a time.

Posted on: June 3, 2012 · Category: Parenting 31

Isabel’s Birth Story, Part Two

In my new room on the MLU (see part one) I was hooked up to a cylinder of gas and air (and, incidentally, went through 3 of these before I was finished) because they had no wall supply and ditched the TENS… the batteries had died anyway. I was given another internal — 7cm dilated, dilating at 1cm an hour give or take — and offered more pain relief.

I was hoping to finish the labour on the gas and air alone, because up until everything had actually started I’d had visions of having a laid back labour with as much walking and squatting as possible to promote a faster and easier birth. Unfortunately, this was a tad naive and greatly underestimated the pain I’d be in. On reflection I am glad I felt so confident (for lack of a better word) because I think it helped relax me, and ultimately got me to 7cm dilated on just the gas and air. That said, I was under no illusions of being some kind of hippy Earth mother and gladly accepted a shot of pethidine at this point.

I’m not sure if it was the pethidine or having spent about 4 hours inhaling nitrous oxide, but I remember shortly after the shot I was kneeling on the bed with the head raised for me to lean on, and with each contraction I was having what can only be described as a “detached” experience… I was being talked through my breathing by the midwife who had a very odd accent, and I felt like I was no longer in my own head. Not an out of body experience because physically I felt “there”, it was just the weirdest mental trip ever.

I don’t recall much between that point, and a few hours later when the midwife finished her shift and a new midwife started, must have been approx. 6am by then and I’d been up since just after 7am the day before. I didn’t feel overly tired at the time, and 9(?) hours of labour had gone by in what felt more like 3-4 hours. Karl probably disagrees as I’d had him standing up giving me back rubs, as well as holding my hand, poor bugger.

It was another couple of hours before the midwife asked me if I’d had any urges to push (er, no). I had to change positions on the bed so that she could break my waters (didn’t hurt, didn’t feel anything, I was just suddenly lying in a big wet patch), and I had another shot of pethidine because the other had worn off. Breaking my waters did the trick because shortly afterwards I knew I needed to push.

It took half an hour of pushing to deliver Isabel, although the majority of that didn’t seem to be achieving anything. At one stage the midwife made me put down the gas and air because she thought I was concentrating more on that than pushing. I was actually just suffering from excruciating back pain — because I was lying down.. worst decision ever — made worse each time I tried to push. It felt like my spine was being torn out, and I screamed more swear words than I realised I knew. It got to the point where I was in so much agony I just lay there crying at the midwife that I couldn’t do it (not really sure what I expected her to do, it’s not like I could change my mind at that point!)

I made my biggest “mistake” right at the end, as Isabel was born. Because I was tired, and in pain, I gave one last huge push to finish off, which didn’t give the midwife time to “help” her out… Isabel turned too quickly and I ended up tearing. I had at least 6 labial stitches (TMI, yay) — I’d not even realised prior that you can tear that way — and lost 400ml of blood. I remember seeing some on the wall at the end of the bed! It sounds scarier than it was, though; and well worth it for such a lovely ‘prize’.

Posted on: December 12, 2009 · Category: Parenting

Isabel’s Birth Story, Part One

If someone had said to me on Friday 13th November that I’d be going in to labour that evening, I would’ve probably scoffed at them. I’d crossed fingers for a Friday 13th birth because it’s a cool date, but with not even so much as a twinge by tea time I thought it unlikely, and went about ‘business as usual’.

Around 8pm my lower back felt a little uncomfortable, which I put down to sitting on my lazy arse too long. I ate, and popped on to the computer to chat with my bees. By 10pm the backache hadn’t subsided, so I decided to go to bed to get some rest. I was tempted to ‘tweet’ about it, but after having seen the reaction to my twinges on the 12th — which resulted in me feeling like I’d let the world down — I thought better of it. However, within seconds of lying down, I was getting waves of period-like pain and decided pacing the front room was a more pleasant option.

Out of curiosity I timed a few of the contractions using the stopwatch on my phone. I didn’t expect to get much out of it… I mean, you read stories about women who start off labour days before they actually give birth, and have wildly far apart contractions followed by blocks of no pain. Seemed a bit odd then that mine felt quite close together, and no wonder: they were 4.5 mins apart almost to the second.

I rang the hospital to ask for advice on when would be a good time to come in (given that it was a 40 minute trip) and she advised I head straight over. Cue a mad dash to get the bags and a few remaining bits and pieces together, and then we started off on the journey. Not 5 minutes down the road I realised I’d left my maternity notes at home, so I had to get Karl to turn around and go back — contractions and speed bumps, fun fun! — so that I could pick the bloody things up.

Anyway… shortly after arriving at the hospital, I did a pee sample, I was hooked up to a monitor for half an hour, and given an internal only to be told I was 3cm dilated. Because my birth was still relatively low risk (despite the low iron) I was assigned a midwife and we went into a labour room to continue with a “normal” labour. I was hooked up to a TENS machine for pain relief, although I don’t really think it did a fat lot, and was given gas and air (Entonox) which started Karl off making Darth Vadar jokes. I had blood drawn, and was hooked up to a drip because they detected ketones in my urine (although this didn’t surprise me, I knew I was at least slightly dehydrated and had been for weeks because my pee was far too dark.)

I had every intention of doing hourly updates via text message to twitter at this point, but the contractions were just under 4 minutes apart and were getting more uncomfortable with each one. I was squeezing Karl’s hand and had already dictated one message to him so that I could concentrate on breathing.

A couple of hours in I was told that the results of the blood test were back and that my iron was absolutely fine. Talk about annoying. I stand by my original theory that someone had mixed up my blood test with that of the other woman who was pregnant at the same time as me and with the exact same name (I don’t see any other reason why my iron level would drop so suddenly and then go back up in a week, despite having stopped taking the Spatone!) My labour was downgraded to lowest risk, and I was moved from the room I was in — with Entonox through a valve in the wall — to a smaller but more “cosy” room in their midwife-led unit with a new midwife. Not quite the MLU I wanted to birth in but a better option than being stared at by consultants for no real reason.

(To be continued…)

Posted on: December 8, 2009 · Category: Parenting