Alexander Rohan's birth

Alexander Rohan’s birth story

[ Warning! long labour story!!! ]
Estimated due date was 18th of July 2005.


Saturday 09.07.2005 00:30 Water breaks without any previous warning. Mik and I both get very excited and begin organising ourselves to get ready to go to the hospital. I start to get some light cramping at regular intervals. We phone the hospital and they recommend we get some sleep and come in the following morning for a check-up. Sleep isn't so easy for me and I am constantly getting up to go to the bathroom.

13:00 I spend the morning wandering around wearing towels as nappies. Finally we head in to the hospital for our appointment, and they advise that everything looks normal and that we shall go home and wait there for the active labour phase to start. They give me some antibiotics that I am to start taking at midnight. So we go home and settle in front of the tv and rest a little. But I am feeling more and more cramping and more and more uncomfortable.

19:00 Contractions begin with a new force and concentrating on anything else is becoming more difficult.

23:00 By this time they have become regular and only two minutes apart, so we grab our bags and head to the hospital in a taxi.

Sunday 10.07.2005 00:30 It is now 24 hours after water my broke. Anne, the on-duty midwife makes first contact. She discovers I am only two cm dilated and that the leak from the birth sack did not come from the bottom. The regular contractions I have been getting at home suddenly become very irregular and less strong. She gives us an option - either we go home and wait for something more to happen, or she could scrape the membrane at the bottom and see if that progresses things a little further. Thinking that I don't want to leave the comfortable surroundings of the hospital and imagining how upset I would be to be at home again and in pain, we decide that we would like her to scrape the membrane. She is able to manually dilate me then to 3.5 centimeters. She then recommends we walk around and she will check on me again in half an hour. We head outdoors and wander around the hospital grounds. It is a fine and warm summer's night, no wind. Contractions are still irregular but I find them to be strong.

01:30 Anne again suggests I go home and wait for regular contractions, but I definitely don’t want that. I am admitted to a birthing suite and they suggest we both try and rest as much as possible. The room has a nice big window, which is open and there is a smell of pine trees. The walls are in a warm yellow colour, and an artist has painted some butterflies as decoration.
There is a bath and two beds so we feel we’ve made the right choice.

03:00 Anne gives me some acupuncture for pain relief. She puts four needles in the lower stomach skin, four on the top of my head and one above each knee.

04:00 It is beginning to get light outside and the birds are waking up. I hop in the bath as I haven’t been feeling much relief from the acupuncture. Actually some of the pins are beginning to sting and are becoming a distraction from the pain of the contractions, so maybe that’s the idea! The bath is wonderful in helping me to relax. (I didn’t realize it, but my medical record shows I was in there for an hour and 15 minutes. So it must have been alright!)

06:30 I am now dilated seven centimetres, with still some work to do and both Mik and I are feeling exhausted. Neither of us feel like we can take much more. Three centimeters to go, which means about another three hours… To us that just seems like eternity!
There is a woman in a nearby room who starts screaming. The sound comes in from the open window. She continues for the next hour and a half… sounds like she is in a torture chamber.

07:00 I start on the happy gas (70% O2 and 30% N2O). At first I can’t stand the taste, but Mik coaches me through it, (“take five breaths!”, he says and starts counting) and I start to use it to breathe through the contractions and get some positive effects.

08:30 Lisbeth takes over as my mid-wife. She examines me and I am now dilated eight centimeters. Only one centimeter in two hours! And my contractions are still irregular, sometimes up to six minutes apart.

10:00 Things are progressing too slowly. We agree with Lisbeth that I should have oxytocin to help stimulate the contractions. It means having a drip and a belt connected to a CTG monitor to measure the baby’s heartbeat, and therefore also means no possibility of a water birth as I had originally hoped. But I no longer care about water birth, I just want to deliver the baby!

10:40 Lisbeth can feel the baby’s head with her fingers. She puts a heart monitor on the baby’s head as the CTG monitor is having trouble reading his heart beat externally. CTG is normal.

10:50 Finally I am on my knees on the bed and beginning to get the urge to push. I am screaming at first until Lisbeth suggest I put my energy into the pushing rather than the groaning in pain. I realise Lisbeth is beginning to get the room ready for the baby. I see a little bed and a tray with instruments in plastic and I am finally feeling excited about the fact that its going to be over soon.

11:10 Baby’s heartrate drops below 100 BPM and Lisbeth calls the doctor, who is there immediately. An assistant arrives as well, and they are all talking fast, in Danish, around me suddenly, and I am not sure what is happening. They are obviously discussing whether they will have to intervene so I put my mind on pushing harder and convincing the little bugger to come out! The doctor suggests I use straight oxygen for these final contractions. I find that helps a lot.

11:25 They tell me Alexander Rohan’s head has popped out.
“One more contraction, and he is out,” Lisbeth says.
At this point, I can’t see what is happening, because I am on my knees, facing the wall, and holding on to the top of the bed.

11:28 A wet red-and-blue baby plops on to the bed and I can hear him crying instantly!

11:29 Mik is the first to hold the baby, who pees on him straight away. His head is covered with black hair. Mik then gives me the baby who looks like an angel and I fall in love at first sight. I love the feel of his warm and squirmy little naked body.

Lisbeth begins cleaning up. It is a bit of a bloody scene.
APGAR is 10 out of 10 at 1 minute and 10 out of 10 at 5 minutes.

12:00 I need a few stitches for some grazes, so Mik gets his shirt off and holds Alexander for the next half hour. Alexander is then put on to my breast and I feed him for the first time. He knows what to do right away. After that first cry when he was born, we don’t hear him cry again for the next 24 hours.

13:00 We get a room with two beds at another section of the hospital, and have a good sleep in the afternoon. We stay there overnight, and check out the following day at noon.

:)

Wow Deb, well done.That was a beautiful birth story it brought tears to my eyes.

Awww, that's lovely! CONGRATULATIONS!

What a great story Deb..I am wondering how you knew the timing of everything?? did you record it on video? Because I lost sense of timing at all..
Great that you got him out with intervention!

Wow, what an awesome birth story, Deb! Thanks for sharing it with us!!

Hi! I'm glad you enjoyed reading it! :D

Katanya - the hospital sent me the notes the midwives took while I was in labour. I believe they do this for all mothers, its a good idea, I think. DH also took his own notes during the process (he's a journalist and can't help himself!). So its accurate to the minute!!

Deb that was absolutely beautiful! I'm just thinking.... where mere my pine trees!?!

What a lovely experience :D Congratulations.

Super Work Deb, and well worth the epic labour isn't it?

Hope youa re all doing well

Best wishes michelle

WOW Deb... what an incredible birth story!!!
Congratulations on the birth of beautiful little Alexander =D>

Thanks for sharing your story Deb. He is such a cute little fella!

Wow that is a wonderful story- well done :)

Great birth story Deb. You are fortunate to have had acupuncture in labour. I can't see a hospital in Australia doing that for pain relief. Great job too!!

That is a beautiful birth story. Well done! He sounds gorgeous. You worked so hard-well done sweetheart. \:D/

wow deb, thanks for sharing your story. you did well to remember so much of the details.

Linda