Willamira in da house :) 17th August 2007

[neuri]

The Extremely Long and Convoluted Birth Story of Willamira Sue, born 17th August, 2007

Born Friday 17/8/07, 8.15am
7lbs 14 oz or 3.6kg
50.5 cm

This is extremely late, seeing as my daughter is now 4 months old (oh how time flies, enjoy your newborns while they're newborns!). But better late than never, right?

I was due on August 8th or 9th. By early July, I seem to be doing my best impression of ‘The Woman Who Swallowed the Sun’. Though I was not suffering from the dreaded cankles (yet!), I decided that enough was enough. Also, due to Sydney-siders being less than nice, I wasn’t always guaranteed a seat on the bus.

So in early July, I decided to start my maternity leave a couple of weeks earlier than planned, convinced that due to my enormous size, I was going to deliver earlier than predicted. I was cranky enough with my uni students without the possibility of further traumatizing them by suddenly going into labour on my office floor.

Seriously, every Tom, Richard and Harry (and their wives) said I was surely going to go early.



5 weeks later…

Still no baby. Spent my days sinking to the bottom of my bath and eating. Oh, the eating! I seemed to be trying to make up for 4 months of horrible morning sickness and then some. My hips were killing me and insomnia set in at about Week 37, which meant that I was up at 3 am every morning watching Evangelical Christian TV and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns and infomercials (Winsor Pilates and the ever-present Proactive).

Pre-natal checks by my annoyingly cheerful Obgyn revealed the obvious -“still pregnant are we?” and “any day now!” But another week went by and then another and although I felt like I was carrying a bowling ball between my legs and was getting pummeled internally every night by Kung Fu Baby, there was still no labour.

And I was getting larger.

Finally, at my 40th Week checkup, on the actual day I was due (Singapore’s National Day, how patriotic of my half Singaporean bub!), I wobbled into my doctor’s office with Husband in tow and asked for a plunger.

It was decided that I would be induced if I made it to one week past my due date. I was all OMG because I had spent my enormous amount of free time reading everything there was to read about pregnancy and labour. I spent days online googling ‘augmented labour’ and ‘does pitocin really come from pig semen?’

My doctor mentioned that inductions have a 40% risk of ending up in a c-section, so that was not pleasing as my birth plan was all natural. I asked more questions and my doctor assured me that there was a 90% probability I would go before they would have to induce. After checking baby’s heartbeat and giving doc a good laugh when the Kung Fu kid swatted at doctor’s questing hand on my belly, an appointment was booked for 7 days later.

But I was told I would have my baby before then. All lies!!!!

The postdates thread on the preggo forum I visited suggested sex to speed things up seeing as prostaglandins (never did find out if hospitals get theirs from pig semen) in human semen may trigger spontaneous labour. There was no way this was going to happen as I felt about as alluring as pair of stretched out grandma undies and besides, Husband would have to get in between me and my bag of potato chips and he was not that brave. I did try reasoning with my Willa but she’s a smart kid and knew she had a good deal in there.


One week later…

Back at doctor’s office, larger, extremely sore and very over being pregnant. Still no cankles, which was something, at least. This was getting silly now, though. My belly was getting silly.

More worrying still was the fact that I was starting to enjoy Reverend White Three Piece Suit’s 3 am preachings. Maybe God was the answer? Perhaps I needed to pray? It was all God’s fault that I was pregnant after all. Let’s not get started on the morning sickness. In any case were plungers covered by medicare, I asked my doctor?

I should have been prepared as I had a feeling my doc was a sneaky little bugger. He smiled and said, “what are you doing in 3 hours?” ‘Eating’, I said in my head, but out loud I said, ‘re-packing hospital bag for 10th time probably’. Then he said to go home and bring that bag back because he had booked me in for induction at 5pm that afternoon.


The Induction

Getting ready to go to the hospital to be artificially induced for labour shouldn’t be a funny thing, but apparently it was. I giggled through the re-packing of my bag. Husband made the calls and everyone wished us luck. My apartment was sparkling clean. Weeks of the nesting bug has seen to that. I rinsed out my last cup of tea and put in the dishwasher and then stood back to observe my spotless kitchen. It was a Stepford Wives moment.

When I looked at my list and saw that everything on it had been checked off now, I started to get scared and wanted my mum. Wasn’t able to get her so spoke to my sister who had her Irish boyfriend over at home and so she was more reserved on the phone than I would have preferred. I can imagine the ‘they put what up your hooha to get things going?” conversation would have been such a mood killer for them. You know, sometimes a girl just wants to hear a couple of OMGs for good measure.

Hubby, Mr. Cool Cucumber, was no help. I knew who was going to be doing the freaking out and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him. I kissed my boycats goodbye and promised them a new friend to play with when I returned. They’d been eyeing the nursery, which was out of bounds, with some contempt for a few weeks.

Got to hospital and were shown into our induction room. Apparently you get induced in one room, deliver in another and then stay in another room altogether. I was told that some other lady got kicked out of our room because inductions were considered higher risk. Ok…

I pulled out my ‘birthing gear’ consisting of a large, comfy Beatles t-shirt, a sarong and my Sponge Bob food bag with my energy boosting snacks. My midwife was a gruff older lady who tut-tutted at the size of my belly and told me my last name meant ‘friend’ in Arabic. I’m sorry now that I can’t remember her name, but she was one of three midwives that saw me and she was nice.

Then the internal exams started and it seemed like every man and his dog had a look up my clacker and had their own opinions. I had been thankful but curious that my doctor had not insisted on a single internal exam in all the time I had seen him, so this was new territory.

It was bad. The first few were ok and I was not surprised to be told that the baby’s head was right there, so close to the outside world that if I wanted to check for myself, I would feel her. The later exams were horrible! Apparently my placenta was in the way so they couldn’t determine how dilated I was. But heck, they certainly tried. I had to grit my teeth to keep from crying out.

To make matters more annoying, the monitoring of Kung Fu Baby was not going so well. She kept moving which meant that the fetal heart rate and contractions monitor they strapped onto me could not keep proper tabs on her heartbeat. I was hooked to a device that showed how my contractions were progressing (in peaks and troughs). The fact that I was still finding this fun and interesting meant that I was not in established labour yet, but the monitoring did show that I was having mild contractions.

So they started the induction by inserting a piece of tape with the required drugs on it, placing it at the entrance of my cervix. They leave the end of the tape hanging out just in case things get too intense and they can then pull it out to stop the effect of the drug. This doesn’t actually trigger labour but rather ripens the cervix and gets it ready before they actually give me the induction drugs via a drip.

As it happened, I was that far gone that they didn’t need to take the next step. My contractions picked up after the piece of tape was inserted, so much so that I started experiencing ‘twinning’, which is when you get contractions one on top of another with no real break in between. This was NOT fun. So they pulled the tape out and the crazy double contractions stopped.

Hey presto I was in labour all on my own now!

And then the contractions started to hurt and I wasn’t able to smile or talk much. I had been jibber jabbering continuously up till then. Husband spent his time trying to get the rental TV working and I started to think about waves rolling into a sandy shore. I had prepared this image most studiously. The pains were about 5 minutes apart and coming strong now. It’s hard to describe what they feel like but I suppose it would have to be like very bad period cramps. AT FIRST.

It was at this point, roughly 4 hours into the whole thing that Husband decides that I need some music to be in pain to. Right. He left after the midwife (new one, previous one’s shift had finished and this one wasn’t as nice) assures us that I wasn’t going to pop a baby out anytime soon.

He’s gone for 2 frigging hours! Mind you, we only live 15 minutes away from the hospital. Bored and slightly disturbed by the documentary I was watching about mental disorders, I whip out my mobile and decide to send some text messages.

The following messages were sent:

To my friend: Help! Ouch this hurts :P Induction underway. So far so good. Hug ur babies for me.

To my other friend: Sorry baby can’t come on ur birthday but close enough eh. Can u let Su know that its goin 2b 2day ))

To my sister: Induction underway. Contractions regular now. Have u got mum yet?

To Husband: Where are you??? Can you pick up Oportos chicken on ur way back? It’s ok if u can’t just peckish is all. Safe driving. Luvz.

And then, no kidding, 5 minutes after I sent that last message the mother of all contractions hits me. My phone decides to run out of credit so I spent 20 minutes trying to top it up with my credit card, stopping every so often for a contraction. I finally get the last text message out:

Nochickennot hungry come back NOW.

He returns soon after and apologizes for taking so long. He then proceeds to set up some mega stereo system in the room. I’m watching with narrowed eyes, growing increasingly cranky. And then he stands back with a look of accomplishment on his face and hits play on the remote.

Hip Hop music. So soothing to hear about some gangsta and his ho in the middle of contractions. And then Jeff Buckley comes on and oh how I marveled at how I never found him so irritating before. No man dead or alive should have a voice like that.

My doctor finally arrives at about 3 am. It has been 10 hours since I arrived and I have been in the shower trying to get some relief by being under the hot water. It works, slightly. He wants to have a look at me. Surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt much as he’s very quick and I’m guessing, skilled at doing it. Informs me I’m only a piddly 3 cm dilated. Great. How much longer?

I’ve started crying, but only to husband because he has that effect on me. Doc gives me that same cheerful reply, “Oh, not much longer now,” and disappears. I’m surprised he didn’t pat me on the head before taking off. I panic a bit and ask the midwife where the heck he thinks he’s going. I’m having a baby for chrissakes! She says he’s going home to get changed and I wonder why bother, he’s going to get covered in gore pretty soon anyway.

After that final internal exam, things start getting hairy. The pain takes on a whole new edge. It is beyond horrible. I can’t catch my breath between contractions or have any time to recover before the next one hits. I’ve eaten some fruit jelly and spewed this out. Husband is napping on the fold out lounge and they are still having problems tracking the baby’s heartbeat. The staff are delusional to think that I might be able to get some sleep after a couple of panadeines. No freaking way!! They tell me how important it is to get some rest before the big event.

The midwife and a student nurse come in to have a poke at me and I tell her in between contractions, in wonderment, at how acutely painful it is and how I knew but I never really knew. She gives me a knowing look and says it’s going to get a whole lot worse. I can’t imagine it.

I wonder if I am at the transition stage where you start to go crazy.

I wake Husband up by throwing my shoe at him during the next contraction and he resumes being there for me, holding my hand and looking very sleepy. I squeeze my eyes shut and keep saying, “waveswaveswaveswaves.” That did effing all, frankly. Hypnobirthing is a load of tripe. I’m told women tend to say some pretty funny things during labour, but I was quite boring. I try to put into words for Husband just how painful it is. I’m like, “you DON’T understand…you have NO IDEA. This is BEYOND anything I thought it would be like.”

I soon make the request for the thing I had been hoping to hold off from having.

Epidural. Please? Now? The midwife looks at me seriously and says, “Did you request a waterbirth or not?” I want to smack her patient look. I want to throw my other shoe at her.

I’m like, “yeah…BUT EPIDURAL NOW!!!!”

Welcome to the Transition Stage! Where women realize they are actually, truly, really in labour and that they suddenly hate all men and that any hand within reach is a hand worth squeezing until fingers threaten to break. I didn’t say I wanted to go home, which is apparently what many women do say. Why go home where there are drugs at hospital to take the pain away?! Now if only the damned midwives will give them to me.

She tells me to see if the water will help things and then we can reassess whether I still wanted the epi. I agree because I’ve just finished a contraction and I’d say yes to clubbing baby seals at that point, that’s how relieved I am. It’s easier to be sane and rational and calm in between contractions.

Vaguely, I realize that a woman has been screaming in the next room for some time now. I half-heartedly joke to the midwife that the lady must be having more success by now than me. She gives me a small smile and walks off. The student nurse later informs that yes, the lady was in labour, but that she was only 26 weeks gone and that it wasn’t looking good for the baby. I wish I hadn’t asked because that made me terribly sad.

The next part is a bit of a blur what with the crazy hitting me full on, but from what I recall, they decide that I am far enough along to be transferred to the delivery suite. The wheelchair ride there is very funny as they take me through the corridors and reception where all these very normal, non-laboring people are carrying bouquets and gifts and children, visiting relatives and what not.

There I am, clutching my sarong to me like the secrets of the universe are printed in the batik. Hair a crazy mess, Husband plodding along behind me, weary, unshaven (he’s always unshaven). I’m in full labour and trying to grit my teeth to keep my mouth shut, but the grimace on my face was fully evident. One little kid pointed and asked his dad something. I wanted to grab his balloon and smack him in the head with it and then felt upset about this.


And then, a baby...

Delivery suite is immense. HUGE. The bathroom is enormous and I stare at the deep tub and think how the hell are they going to get me into there? Is there some sort of rudimentary pulley system? I get a new nurse and she is just marvelous. A young Irish woman with a no nonsense attitude. It might have been her accent – kind and direct at the same time. I walk over to a chair and sit there and die for a moment during a contraction and ask for my epidural, dammit. She leaves to see where the anesthesiologist is. But I knew, even in that state, in the back of my mind I knew that I was too late for one.

With Husband’s help, I get into the bath for my so called waterbirth. All modesty is forgotten. I drop the sarong like a bad habit and clamber in. The plan lasts all of 5 minutes. Let me tell you what warm water does when you’re in acute pain. You are just in acute pain in warm water. I think I needed to be labouring in the tub for a while to benefit from the full effects of the water. It was too late by then. Also, I was wriggling around so much that they couldn’t keep the monitoring straps on my belly.

Out I come and it’s onto the slab.

Now, with my bad hip and pelvis, I have been advised that the best position for me to give birth in (if not in the water) is on my left side. Somehow I forgot or didn’t care about this and ended up on my back.

And then the REAL pain started. OMG it was soooo bad. I would never have pegged myself as a screamer, but I couldn’t help it. It was physically impossible to keep it all inside. The pain was like a blender had been turned on inside me. All I could do was clutch Husband’s forearm, shut my eyes and try and hang on. Husband says I didn’t scream per se, more like loud exclamations. I swore a few times, but nothing major. There was screaming coming from other rooms though. That was encouraging. I felt like us women were all in it together.

All of a sudden I really felt like I had to go to the toilet. You know, for a number two. I was expecting this, but once again was struck by how real it felt. I knew it meant that the baby was coming. I told the nurses and they sent someone to get my doctor. It seemed bizarre that he wasn’t already there but I guess that’s how it is.

My waters decided to break at this point and that just freaked me out because I had forgotten that it hadn’t already happened way earlier. This is what I said, “There’s something wet and squishy! WET AND SQUISHY!” and then tried to shove it all back in because I knew it wasn’t a baby and only babies should be coming out of me. That was my only humorous moment, I suppose!

And then something tremendous and miraculous happened. The pain ceased to be just pain, but became pain with purpose. I could feel what my body was trying to do. I could actually feel what the contractions were doing – pushing the baby downward and eventually out. This was ten millions times better than the previous agony that seemingly had no purpose. I was glad I hadn’t had the epidural then, because I would have missed out on this major epiphany.

Not that I calmed down by any means. I was still all over the place. With very precise guidance from my doctor and the nurses, I pushed only with each contraction and rested in between. They told me to stop grunting or using my voice because that was where the pressure was being exerted. At first I was all who the heck do I look like Katie Holmes?! But amazingly, as soon as I shut my mouth, I was able to focus that exertion where it needed to go and all of a sudden the baby was crowning.

There was plenty of encouragement from everyone. I didn’t experience the ‘ring of fire’ sensation that women talk about. Plus, I didn’t want to be thinking about Johnny Cash at that particular moment. Or maybe I did and just can’t remember. I just felt a huge pressure bearing down. But after the contraction ended, the baby just kept slipping back in again.

This was when things got a bit dicey and I saw the doctor talking to the nurses. A minute later they wheel in a neo-natal crash cart, explaining that the baby’s heart rate was dropping seriously and they might need a bit of resuscitation. This was all the motivation I needed to buckle down and get the baby out.

My doc then asked if he could give me an episiotomy and I said go for it. Another deviation from my birth plan but hey, I was already being induced, out of the bath and on my back. The cut hurt, even with the local anesthetic.

But it did the trick. A couple of pushes later, I felt the intense pressure suddenly give way which was the baby’s head and then this squishy, wriggly sensation like I was giving birth to cooked spaghetti (the baby’s body) and then a baby was crying.

Crying so loudly and so ‘pinkly’ that they wheeled the crash cart away. Didn’t need it. That’s my girl! Though I didn’t know if I had a girl or a boy at that point.

They put her on my chest and the first thing I felt was her incredible warmth. She was hot! I had read that new mothers’ bodies are so finely tuned to their newborns that the blood vessels in the mother’s chests dilate to form a heat pad of sorts for when the baby is laid there. My bub didn’t need this as she was a furnace. And the next thing that hit me was her scent. It was the weirdest, strongest smell ever and it was like I was smelling essence of me or something. Anyone who has watched the movie, ‘Perfume’, or read the book might know what I’m referring to here.

It wasn’t a nice smell or a bad smell, it was just a smell. With every heartbeat, she got pinker and warmer and the smell got stronger.

And then we worked out that she was a girl and I had a look at her for the first time. I said to Husband, “OMG she’s actually really cute!” Of course I’m a biased mum, but under the vernix and blood, she was a real cutie, I thought. And alert! She’s stopped crying and was having a look around. That was another revelation. Husband cut the cord that was that.

She was ours.


After

I didn’t experience that immediate bonding or crazy love that some mums describe. It didn’t happen for me at that point. More like a protectiveness, but that was it. I realized I was looking down at my baby daughter, but that truth took a few weeks to get driven home.

All I have to say about bringing a new baby home is that it is the most difficult thing in the world. Hands down, THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IN THE WORLD. What a moron I was to spend 5 weeks at home reading about useless nonsense when I could have been learning how to take care of a newborn. On top of this I had a displaced pelvis and separated abdominal muscles due to how far my tummy had stuck out. I could barely walk let alone carry her or lift her. I really regretted not putting more thought into our lifestyle with a newborn. Simple things that could have been discussed with Hubby before we brought the baby home. I'd advise any new mum to be realistic and flexible and above all, patient as life with a newb is anything but predictable.

I had no idea what I was in for. None whatsoever. Didn’t know how to hold her, feed her, bathe her, soothe her, sleep her, change a nappy. Nothing. It didn’t come naturally to me until after the 6th week, when practice didn’t make perfect so much as ‘passably competent’.

I didn’t even enjoy her until then. Up until the 6th week, she was this scary responsibility I had been assigned. The sleep deprivation was the worst. I wanted to cry and cry from days of just 3 hours sleeps but was too tired to do even that. Breastfeeding hurt beyond belief at first and I worried about everything.

BUT NOW, what can I say. After week 6 we started getting the smiles, the the cooing and then the grabbing and now we have giggles and belly laughs and little hands exploring mummy and daddy's face during quiet cuddle time.

I could write about what she is to me now, but it’d be the most purple prose you’d ever read.

Hugs and best of luck to any of you mums-to-be,
Neuri