The birth story of Henry James - 6 June 2011 - it's a long one!
As with all birth stories, the labour is only a small part of it. To get the full context, you always need to go back to the conception and beyond.
This was not a planned pregnancy. In the life organisation spreadsheet, having two children 18 months apart was certainly not on the agenda. Let’s just say that taking the pill intermittently and having lots of sex probably wasn’t wise – I honestly thought that my PCOS would protect me! I was very daunted by the thought and to say I wasn’t thrilled is probably fair. So throughout this pregnancy I was generally daunted and filled with guilt that I wasn’t thrilled at the fact that I was pregnant.
My vomiting wasn’t too bad this time. I had good days and bad days. On a bad day I could vomit every hour and then need to rest in between. On a good day I had barely any nausea. There wasn’t much in between however. It was either very good or very bad. The bad days with a baby were challenging to say the least. I think I have vomited in most of the bins along Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds. The vomiting calmed down by about 16 weeks and the nausea was gone by about 20 weeks. I lost around 7 kg this time.
My other old friend, high blood pressure made an early appearance. Unlike the vomiting, this friend didn’t really go away and would feature heavily towards the end of my pregnancy. With my first son, I was induced at 37 weeks due to my BP being 220/160. Together with my OB, we agreed that I would self monitor my BP with a machine at home rather than come into her rooms regularly. Much, much easier with a toddler. From my first appointment my blood pressure was slightly elevated so I started on Aldomet.
The pregnancy continued to pass without much incident. My blood pressure came good during my second trimester and I started to think my troubles were gone for good. I really really wanted to go into labour spontaneously and avoid being induced. I began to think it might be possible.
Around 30 weeks my blood pressure started to rise again. It would hover around 140/90 – 100. In addition to the Aldomet, I started to take Labetalol. The doses of both were low to start with.
I had a scan at my 35 week appointment on the Wednesday to check the placenta was still good. I’ve read enough around here to be quite sceptical of growth scans but when it showed bubs was around 2.7 kg I thought that was right given that DS1 was born at 2.84 kg. The placenta was all good so OB and I very happy.
Then the ****e hit the fan. It was Friday night, my DS1 was having a sleep over at nana and pop’s and as normal I took my blood pressure in the evening. It was 150/110. I was under instructions that if the bottom number went over 100 to call the OB on duty and discuss. The day before I’d lost my glasses. I kept thinking, “I can’t possibly have a baby as I don’t have my glasses.” OB on duty told me to take some more Labetalol and call back in one hour. Thankfully it came down enough that I didn’t have to go into hospital that night. But I got the sense that this pregnancy was coming to an end. That scare really got us into action – we finally got the nursery organised, set up the cot and generally prepared to welcome another little man into our house.
I had an OB appointment the following Wednesday. Sure enough, protein starts to show up in my wee and not just a little bit either. DH decided to come with me for that appointment as I had a hunch we would need to be making some decisions about the rest of the pregnancy. The protein in the wee changed the game. Despite wanting to avoid being induced I knew that preeclampsia is quite serious. I also trusted my OB and when she said it was her view that I book in for an induction the next week I knew she was right. So we booked in for an induction on the following Monday.
I didn’t want anyone knowing that I was going to be induced. DH and I agreed that apart from immediate family, it would be a complete secret. So I was quite surprised when our barista at our local café wished me luck for Monday. Turns out DH couldn’t completely keep it a secret. It was actually quite odd knowing that I would be meeting my son on Monday.
We had a pretty quiet weekend. Bought a house that we'd inspected for 10 minutes. As you do.
Monday rolled around and we arrived at the hospital promptly at 7.30 am. All the admin got done and I put on a hospital gown as I prefer to labour in a sack. The midwife on the day Annie was LOVELY. So pleased as I didn’t love the midwife the first time. I was straight on the front foot with her about how if we needed to use the syncotin drip I didn’t want it turned up too much and too quickly like my first labour. She was totally fine with that and we agreed that we would talk about any increase first.
My OB arrived at 8.30 am and we talked again about how it would all play out. I let her in on my secret that I didn’t tell anyone – I wanted to pull the baby out. As shallow as it is, my inspiration for this was Khortney Kardashian. I watched her TV show when she was in labour and thought ‘if she can so it so can I.’ Husband was mortified as I don’t think he realised women could do this. OB was totally relaxed about this and said of course it was no problems. We got the ball rolling on monitoring. Prior to labour I had reservations about scalp monitoring. We tried the mobile monitor that morning with the midwife and due to the position of the baby it wasn’t picking up. So scalp monitoring it was.
The original plan was to break my waters and hope that the rush of hormones would get things cracking. Given the pre-labour I’d been having we were pretty confident it wouldn’t be long. Ah, but how things don’t quite go to plan. Turns out my waters were already broken and I’d been leaking since yesterday. She tried to break them further but it didn’t do a great deal. I wasn’t particularly thrilled about the thought of the drip but given our earlier discussion about my increased level of control I agreed.
This is when things started to get a little bad. I felt the crappiest during my labour at this bit…. My tablets bubs heartrate was very constant. No peaks or troughs. This was apparently due to the fact that I’d been on long term blood pressure medication. My OB was very worried about the affect that the induction drip would have on the baby. It would either go two ways – the drip would ‘wake’ the baby up causing more normal heart activity which involved peaking during contrations or it would cause the baby distress. My OB knew my views about c-sections (absolutely not) but she wanted to give me a heads up. I wasn’t happy about any of this but I’m also pragmatic enough to know that a baby in distress is not ok and given my kidney and liver were starting to go to crap anyway, best we get this all over and done with.
At around 10.20 we started the drip. At the first contraction baby heart rate goes up. Woot! Good little baby!! I was so pleased. The midwife confirmed that all was ok and we were full steam ahead.
Prior to the labour I’d bought sexy new headphones to listen to my hypnobirthing tracks. I love them and found them very helpful during my first labour. Put on headphones. No battery. Bollocks to you! Luckily the room had an iPod dock so we just put it in there. Annie the midwife was great at helping me breath. I was sitting next to the bed on a fit ball and husband was behind me rubbing my back. I was barking instructions – higher, lower, harder, stop, start and concentrating on my breathing.
After about an hour things were getting a little out of control. The contractions were on top of each other and very intense. Annie and husband were great but I felt that I wasn’t coping very well at all. I tried to move positions but nothing helped. I laboured on the toilet for a bit and that was also crappy. At this point I was lamenting my inability to take the pill every day. I was moaning through them and I felt Annie watching me very closely.
At this point I’d had it. I looked Annie right in her eyes, down into her soul and said “I want an epidural.” She asked me if I wanted gas. I said no, as I’m a massive spewer at the best of times and didn’t like the idea of losing my head. She could see I was very very serious about this and went off to find my OB. She came back and said that was all fine and the anaesthetist would be along shortly. I then went to the toilet.
Annie then whispers to husband something like this, “There will be no epidural, she’s on the verge of needing to push and having the baby. However I think she will flip out at the fact that there is no epidural so we will let her come to this realisation on her own. Should be in a few minutes.” Sneaky Annie knew that I was in transition from watching me.
I come back from the toilet and bark at husband, “Where is my epidural?”
Husband, “He’s just finishing up with someone else, shouldn’t be long.”
Lying pr!ck!!!!
Annie was right. In a few minutes I felt the urge to do a massive poo. I looked at Annie and said, “There is no epidural, is there? I’m having this baby?” She confirmed this. I was actually pretty relaxed as I just wanted it all over. I pushed out DS1 in 6 minutes so I knew it wouldn’t be much longer.
I got up on the bed on all fours as I was more comfortable that way. But then that wasn’t comfortable so I moved to lie on my side. I started to breathe and push. Husband helped me by counting to ten then reminding me to breathe. I remember my OB telling me that baby wasn’t doing so great so I needed to push harder. I remember feeling like I was holding back and trying to break through this. Then OB said that baby really needed to come out so we were going to use the vaccum during the next contraction. I put one leg up on the stirrup so she could put it in place. I then put my leg up against the stirrup almost like a brace. And I pushed with all my might. It was during that contraction that I really let go. Out came a massive ‘fffffuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkk’ as I felt baby come out. I then remember OB saying, ‘Fiona give me your hands to pull the baby out.’ I was still kinda out of a bit as I was really in a zone. I put my hands down and felt the baby’s head. I don’t know why, but I was a little surprised. I then pushed out his body and pulled him up onto my chest. My wee man was here! It was 12.15 pm.
I had the injection to birth the placenta and that came out looking fairly purple and grey in spots. It seems we’d got the timing of the induction just right. The midwife then commented that we didn’t have to turn the drip up at all. Most people generally have around 200 ml to get full labour established. I had 20 ml. She looked up my chart from my last labour and I’d only had 60 ml. We joked that next time they’d just make me smell it and that should be enough. I just dilated so fast that she wasn’t surprised that I felt so out of control.
After that they left us alone for ages. I had the best cup of tea I’d ever had in my life and scoffed down a bowl of pasta and a sandwich as I was starving. We decided to name him Henry from our agreed list of names that we liked. Henry wasn’t on top of the list during the pregnancy but he just looked like a Henry. We just kept looking at him in awe.
They came back to weigh him a little while later – 2.6 kg. I had a bit of a bleed and was passing some pretty impressive clots so I stayed in the birth suite for a few hours. I then had the best shower of my life and we headed up to my room around 4.30 pm. I felt really great and I realised how sick I had been during my pregnancy as I felt so much better.
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Henry is a little darling. His brother Mitchell (18 months at the time) loved him to bits on the first meeting as Henry tried to suck his thumb.
Thinking on this now I didn’t really get the birth that I wanted but I didn’t ask to have pre-eclampsia either. I was in charge of every step and completely felt in control.
