Our Son.....The Day We Welcomed Him Into Our Family
It has been almost 6 months since DS was born. Finally I have gotten around to writing his birth story. It's actually nice writing it out after such a time as I felt all those amazing feelings all over again.......
It was the morning of 5th April. I had woken early after another restless night of sleep. I went to the bathroom and when I wiped there was gunky, bloody jelly stuff there. I knew what it was but it made me feel nervous. “How long will it be?” I thought to myself – “Hours, a day, a few days”.
My due date was the 9th April, my Mother’s birthday. She had passed away in November of ’09. I had had a few ‘dreams’ in the very early days of my pregnancy. In my ‘dreams’ my Mum had told me that I was pregnant, before I tested, she also told me that this baby would be a fighter. I didn’t want our baby born on my Mum’s birthday and I knew that it wasn’t going to happen anyway – Mum wouldn’t let it. I just felt that very strongly.
DP asked if he should go to work and I said yes. His Mum was staying with us and I felt that it as probably going to be a while since that is what ‘they’ always say. My waters hadn’t broken and I hadn’t even had a contraction yet. So DP got in the car and drove up the driveway – and my first contraction came. :o After about 15 minutes I had another and then another about 20 minutes later. I called DP and asked him to come home. He hadn’t even made it into work yet.
When DP came home I was still in bed. The contractions were easily manageable and still coming every 15 to 20 minutes. It was now around 8am. A little while later DP went to let his Mum know what was happening. She is a great lady, 83 years old – DP is one of 6 children and he is the youngest. His Mum never thought she would see him have his own child because we were never sure and then we had a difficult road for a year of so before we got pregnant this time. This morning she was very much in the background, leaving us alone to do whatever we needed to do. Just the way I wanted it.
Sometime after lunch the contractions started to get further apart. I was disappointed because I just didn’t want to wait for another couple of days. I remembered reading on BB that a good walk could ramp things up again. DP and I set off walking down the street but without any luck. The contractions were much less in their strength and also much longer between them, more like a twinge now and only every hour.
I tried to relax. I went to our room to listen to my Calmbirthing CD’s and read some positive birth stories from other Calmbirth girls. DP and I had an afternoon nap and then it was pretty much time for dinner. After that the 3 of us were watching TV and I felt the contractions start to ramp up again. At around 9pm I went to bed. DP stayed up chatting to his Mum. About 15 minutes later I had a much stronger contraction. I didn’t want to yell to DP so I sent him a text message. :ROFL: He ran down the hall and I told him I had another contraction. I told him I wanted him to come to bed now too. Let’s experience this together.
At 11pm I couldn’t get comfortable in bed. I felt awkward pacing around our house in labour because DP’s Mum was there. I don’t know why I felt this way because I loved her being at the house with us but at this point I just wished that she wasn’t there. I just wanted my space I guess.
I had another jellylike show and some more blood. I just couldn’t get comfortable and so I rang the hospital. The midwife tried to encourage me to stay home for longer but when I said that I didn’t want to she welcomed me in and said it was really quiet with only one girl in labour anyway. (We live in a small town). We took our time and got my stuff into the car and drove to hospital. I think we arrived at 1am. We got settled into our room and then we were just left to get some sleep. I couldn’t sleep in their bed either. DP found me a beanbag and I spent the rest of the night on the floor on the beanbag. The midwife checked on us once and said she would be back before breakfast.
4am. Things started to pick up now and I was using my Calmbirth techniques. The midwife came in and noted that I was now in established labour. She told me that my OB would be in some time around breakfast. At 7am there was a shift change and I had the midwife who would be with me for the rest of the labour. Sam. I also had a young student nurse called Anna who was lovely and so excited to see her first birth. I had told Sam that I was having a drug-free birth. My OB had known this for sometime and was very supportive. She had discussed with me (early in the pregnancy) to always have an open mind and to not set my hopes ‘entirely’ onto one way of birth because things don’t always work out the way you would like them to. I have anxiety and she didn’t want me to fall apart if things changed. She told me that I should trust her and that if she told me that I needed an epidural or a C-Section then that is what she believed was necessary. I trusted her and was so happy with my experience with her.
OB came in at around 7.30am. I had been moved to another room with Sam because it had the only electric bed in Maternity. All the other beds are very old and have to be adjusted by hand. OB asked if she could examine me. I had just been happily sitting up in bed, munching away on my breakfast and chatting to DP. The Midwife told her that the previous Midwife had listed my labour as being established at 4am but by the look of me it probably wasn’t even established yet. I felt confident that I would be around 4cm dilated. And I was! The Calmbirthing really works!! OB asked if I wanted my waters broken. I agreed. After that time things started to really ramp up. My contractions were quite intense and my midwife was fantastic. She suggested different positions for me to labour in and would follow me around the room and monitor the baby’s heartbeat. The student midwife was there the entire time just watching and soaking in everything. I remember at one point she told me that she had never even felt a baby kick before so I asked her to come and feel my tummy. DP was awesome. Just keeping me in the Calmbirth zone and making sure I drank plenty of water. I spent the time labouring on the floor (still didn’t like being on the bed) leaning over onto the bed. Sometimes the bed was down low and I was on my knees and sometime the bed was up high and I was standing. I had the gas hooked up but only with oxygen flowing through it. I used this to help me focus on my breathing.
At around 12noon I was feeling tired. The contractions were right ontop of each other and I wasn’t getting a break. I was still enjoying the experience of labour but I was starting to wonder how far dilated I was. Shortly after I asked for my OB. I would say it was about 1.30pm when she came back. They were happy because the contractions were really powerful and they were guessing that I would be about 7cm dilated. I thought so too. She checked me and I hadn’t progressed at all. I was still 4cm. Not what I wanted to hear. Baby’s heartrate was getting quite high. OB said that she was really sorry but she felt it was in my best interest to have an epidural. It would stabilise my contractions which were just all over the place with no real gap between them. It would also bring my baby’s heartrate down. I got all teary but focused on my earlier conversation with her and trusted that she had given me from 4am till 1.30pm to dilate and nothing had changed. We consented to the epidural. A little while later in came the ‘Epidural Man’ as I call him. He was a locum and introduced himself to everyone in my room. I don’t know why there were so many people in my room at that time. Anyway…..he came to me and told me about the procedure he advised me of the risks involved and told me what would be required of me while he did the procedure. I was sucking on my oxygen hard as these contractions were HUGE and I was trying to stay in the Calmbirth zone. I looked at DP and he looked and me and I told ‘Epidural Man’ that the risk was too high and I wouldn’t be going ahead with the Epidural. He said fine and left as my Midwife was walking back in. She asked what was happening and he said “I’m here to give an epidural, not sell an epidural. If the patient doesn’t want one I’m not going to force her”. And then he left. They called my OB back. She was lovely, she asked why I had changed my mind and I told her. I also told her that I would just go ahead and have a C-Section. She laughed. I kept sucking on my oxygen wondering why she would think this is so funny. She told me that for someone who does so much research she found it very funny that I didn’t know you had to have an epidural before you have a C-Section. DOH. She said I could have it under general but DP wouldn’t be allowed in to watch. Well that wasn’t going to work either. I started crying now and sucking on my gas. I was losing control but I had to get things back in the zone again. No anxiety now. I had been doing so well. I had baby to think about. DP and I discussed it and I consented again to the epidural. They called back the ‘Epidural Man’ and to his credit he came straight away. This time in between massive sucks of oxygen I questioned (interrogated) him:
Me: How many of these things have you done? (Suck deeply and count to 10 in my head)
Him: Enough to be very confident in my job.
Me: (Sucking deeply again)…….Do you know of that poor woman in St George Hospital (suck deeply) who was injected with the antiseptic solution instead of the Epi……(suck deeply) dural and is now incapacitated for life? (suck deeply)
Him: Yes I’m aware.
Me: Well if you (suck deeply) do that to me I swear to god I will (suck deeply) kill you! Do you (suck deeply) understand me?????(suck deeply).
Him: I understand.
Him: Is someone going to take that gas off her? She’s not gonna be with us for much longer the way she is sucking on the thing!
The rest of the room: It’s only oxygen!!!!
2pm. Epidural in. Everything went fine. I can’t feel anything expect the chattering of my own teeth, which I cannot get to stop. In fact my whole body is shaking. I’m not panicked because ‘Epidural Man’ told me that this could be a side effect. He also had been to check on me twice and to fix a small leak in the line.
3.30pm. OB comes back in and I am still only 4cm dialated. Baby is not doing as well now. She looks me in the eye and says. I’m sorry but I want to get the baby out now. I knew in my heart that this is how it was going to end. Also they weren’t letting me eat much food so I thought maybe that was in case I had to go to theatre.
Things happened fast from here on in. I don’t really remember the ins and outs. I do remember Anna the student being very compassionate towards me and also being very excited about seeing her first operation. Not that she said that to me but I overheard her telling another student in the hallway. Before long I was up in Theatre. DP had been whisked away by someone else and everyone was pretty much there except my OB. They were all working on getting things finalised when I finally opened my eyes and looked up. Who should I see looking down at me but ‘Epidural Man’!!!
Me: What are YOU doing here? (teeth chattering):
Him: I’m doing your pain relief for the C-Section:
Me: Um….(teeth chattering) Sorry about earlier:
Him: LOL:
OB arrives and DP is allowed into the room. He stays beside me and calms me down. I’m so nervous that we aren’t going to get to hold our little boy. That something will go wrong right at the very end. We know it’s a boy because we had genetic testing done very early in the pregnancy. We have 3 names picked out. Lincoln, Travis and Cade. I told DP that he could have the final choice when he laid eyes on our baby.
The procedure starts and I can hear them all talking away. DP tells me to use my Calmbreathing techniques in here too. I do. It works. Before long the OB tells me that I’m going to feel some pulling and tugging. I do. It’s amazing the force that she is using to get our baby out. And then – the best bit. OB says “Stand up DP. Stand up and see your Son being born”. He does and then I see our Son too. He’s huge! The moment is broken by a gasp from all the staff in the theatre and then…..they start taking bets on how big he is!!!! They whisk him away and wrap him up and put him on my chest. I breath in his smell…..I can’t believe he’s mine. I ask DP what his name will be….DP asks what I would like to call him. I knew he would ask me in the end but DP said he was so impressed at my 12 hour drug free labour and then the choices that I made for our baby that I should name him. And so I named him Cade. And we were both happy with that. Funnily enough the name Cade means ‘little battler’. I read the name in the book Gone with the Wind. When I looked up the meaning I was amazed because in one of my ‘dreams’ Mum said this one would be a fighter.
Cade was taken away and DP cut the cord. A couple of them and DP went downstairs with our Son while he was weighed and I was stitched back up. ‘Epidural Man’ ended up being a really nice guy. He knew how ant-idrug I was and told me not to be a hero because he could tell if I was in pain. At one point he told my OB to stop working because he knew I could feel what was happening and he was right it was hurting. I’m such a dufus for trying to go without the pain relief. It wasn’t for long because he had it all sorted.
Shortly after I was in recovery and then taken downstairs where I saw my DP holding our Son in his arms, surrounded by staff all amazed at his size and beauty. LOL. Our son was born on the 6th April, 2011. He weighed 9.9lb. He was and is to this day gorgeous. We couldn’t be happier parents.
