The conception of Noah is a story in itself but to cut a long story short after two years of trying Noah was conceived via IVF. We had transferred two embryos and initially both stuck but we lost one at 6 weeks – Noah hung in there and boy did he grow!
I had a great pregnancy with Noah measuring two – three weeks ahead of dates at each scan. We weren’t worried until a scan at 37 weeks showed his weight at around 7lb 11oz. My midwife got a little concerned as we were planning a home waterbirth , so she sent us down to the closest hospital (2 hours away) to get checked by the ob and he gave us the go ahead to birth at home.
My due date of 6th March 2006 came and went (also my 30th birthday), so I went off for a marathon acupuncture session on the 9th to try and get things moving. I got home from that at about 5pm and at 7pm my waters broke. We started getting a little excited thinking our baby was on the way, my husband set up our birthing pool during the night while I lay in bed and started having contractions. Neither of us got much sleep – way too excited! But at 9am the next morning everything ground to a halt and stayed like that the whole day! By 5pm I basically had to be admitted to hospital to be put on antibiotics as my membranes had been ruptured for 24 hours by now. So this was our whole birth plan completely out the window before things had really got started! We drove down to the hospital and was admitted – I wasn’t happy. They pressured me into taking a sedative to try and get some sleep which I wasn’t that happy about but I was tired and thought it might help.
Contractions started up overnight and got reasonably painful but were all over the place, every time they started getting really bad we buzzed in a midwife and then they STOPPED. I think the midwives thought I was having them on! At this point it felt like Noah was trying to come out the wrong exit… By morning contractions had stopped again.
I was supposed to be induced at 8am but nothing got underway until closer to lunchtime. I was 2cm dilated when they started inducing me which was promising, the doctor told me I was doing well.
Contractions got moving along quite nicely and I was coping fine thinking things were going well. We had been assigned a dopey midwife not long out of midwifery school who wasn’t qualified to turn up the drip so everytime this needed cranked up she had to go find someone. Anyway my husband had great fun looking at the intensity of the contractions on the printout going “wahoo that was a good one..” etc etc. It was good encouragement. At about 7pm that night (48 hours after my waters breaking) they did another internal to find I was only about 4-5cms dilated and Noahs head was nowhere near engaged. I was so deflated by this that I totally lost it! They wanted to really crank up the drip and see if that got things moving. I think the lack of sleep was the worst part because I didn’t know how I would cope even though I had been pretty good up to that point. Whenever they had turned up the drip contractions had gone all over the place so I caved in and called for the epidural. The doctor arrived quickly (he was a spunk too - god dammit!) and put it in and away they went and turned up the drip. My husband went away for a breather as I was quite comfortable but then my blood pressure dropped (from the epidural) and I felt really faint and sick, they turned me on my side and turned the epi down a bit and I started to feel better. The shakes then set in (!!!) which made one of the midwives think I was in transition and close to being fully dilated… They did another internal and I was still the same, 4-5cms and head not engaged. They rang the doctor who thought the baby was well and truly out by now and he recommended a c-section as it had been a long time since my membranes had ruptured and I had failed to progress despite everything. You know what – I couldn’t have cared less I just wanted him out by now!
So they wheeled me up and at 23:23 on the 11th of March Noah Anthony was born. He weighed 10lb 6oz or 4710g and was 62cms long.
Once again turning up the epidural for the c-section made my blood pressure drop, making me feel absolutely disgusting and almost vomiting on the operating table. Noah was taken away (my husband went with him) and checked out and I was taken off to recovery. Not sure how long after he was brought back to me and I tried to feed him with not much luck – he was very sleepy.
So all up we couldn’t have got further from our original birth plan if we had tried!! But he came out eventually and is just the amazing thing to have happened to us. Yes we had issues with the midwife (not qualified to turn up the drip and hadn’t assisted with an epidural before and totally incompetent), the hospital was so short-staffed and I had issues with feeding meaning Noah lost a lot of weight to start with. But as soon as I was home things sorted themselves out and he has thrived ever since.
All I can say is plan for the best but be prepared for the rest, we went into the birth sure that we would make the right decisions and wouldn’t be pressured into anything, but it didn’t happen like that. Overall it was still a positive experience because we got the most amazing, beautiful baby.
Amy, thanks for posting your story. It certainly was an epic journey for you and Noah. I can't believe that a midwife who couldn't help you was assigned to care for you!
I could write so much more about the ****e stuff that happened but it's not worth it really. We do still plan on writing to the hospital though, even if we get no joy at least we've done it.
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Noah Anthony takes his time - but worth it...
Love his name
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