Max's timely arrival

DH and I started trying to get pregnant in July 07; after a few months of pretty much constant spotting once I came off the pill, I went to the docs and found out I have PCOS. We tried a couple of months on Metformin, but it didn't work for us. Then, on our first cycle of a combination of Metformin and Clomid, I got pregnant! Unfortunately, that pregnancy wasn't meant to be, and I miscarried in Feb 08. On the positive side, the Metformin and Clomid again worked quickly, and in May I found out I was pregnant again - and this one stuck!

I had a pretty easy pregnancy as far as these things go. No morning sickness other than just a bit of an 'off' feeling for the first few months. At about 5-6 months or so I started getting sore hips. I saw a physio, who helped a bit, but basically it was all related to my pelvis stretching, and the only solution was to deliver bubs. I had good days and bad days, the bad days mostly coming on when I had done too much activity - housework or exercise - so I tried to learn to take it easy!

On 17 January, 4 days before I was due, DH and I had a wedding to attend 2.5 hours from home. We made it through the weekend and I think that, psychologically, after that I was in the right 'space' to have this baby.

The next few days I bounced on the fitball each day, hoping to encourage bubs to descend (at my last obs appointment the Thursday before, it was only 1/5 engaged). The day before my due date I tried a few other things as well, including visualisation, a long walk and some nipple stimulation. Well, it must have worked, cos at about 2.30 the next morning things started happening!

I woke up with a stomach pain so I went to the toilet, but nothing happened. Pretty much as soon as I lay down I felt leaking. I jumped up to put on a pad (waking up DH in the meantime, which we had discussed I wouldn't do, oops!) and made it back to bed about 5 mins later, hoping to get some more sleep as it looked like I had a big day ahead! My body seemed to have other ideas though, as about 10 mins later I got an even bigger gush that went right through the pad and my knickers. At that stage I decided to try sleeping in the lounge room instead, so I didn't wake DH every time I had to go to the loo.

I turned on the TV and set up the laptop to keep me entertained. I had been planning on trying to sleep on the couch, but the 'gushes' continued, getting worse each time, so there wasn't much point in trying to sleep. I ended up sitting on a bunch of towels with a cloth nappy folded up in my undies :lol: (a pad really didn't cut it!) and another towel on the floor in front of the couch. Each time I felt a gush I would stand up over the towel, wait for it to stop, then waddle into the bathroom and change the nappy. Eventually I got the nappy thing worked out so it was soaking up all the fluid, which made life a bit easier.

I rang the hospital and after checking a few details (is bubs moving, etc) they said I can stay home as long as I was able to. Sounded good to me!

At 3.30 I posted on Belly Belly, saying I had had a few pains, but nothing too bad or (as far as I could tell) too regular. By 5am I had typed a note that things were heating up a bit quicker than I expected. The contractions were quite painful and coming pretty quickly. I never did manage to time them though, because at that stage I was finding it difficult to know when they started and ended. I had decided to try to wait until 6am to wake DH up, but by 5.15 I decided I needed him. Although I told him not to rush when I first woke him up, pretty soon the contractions had ramped up even more. I pottered around in between contractions, making sure our bags were packed. DH rang the hospital and told them we were coming in. They also wanted to speak to me, which I had expected after reading other people's birth stories - I guess they decided I sounded like I really was in labour, cos we were given the go ahead to come in.

I was one of those women who can't stand sitting when having a contraction, so I spent the 5 min journey to the hospital (thank God it was close) on my knees on the front seat, facing the back and hugging the head rest! Lucky there weren't too many people on the road at that time!

By 6am we arrived at the hospital. DH dropped me at the door, then parked the car. I had 3 contractions in the 5 or so minutes it took for him to park and then for us to walk in to the maternity section. The midwives took us straight into the birthing suite, where we got down to business. I was asked to get on the bed for some monitoring. Well, as most other women seem to feel, I hated having the straps on my belly! They were too tight and made everything worse, especially when the midwife made them tighter as she wasn't getting a good reading. Luckily, they let me sit on the fitball once the monitor was on, which made things a bit better.

At 7am the shift change happened, and we got a new midwife. The first one had held off on doing an internal as she said it was better for the person who would be with us for the remainder of the time to do it. So, Chris (the new midwife) did an internal and reported that I was 6 cm dilated. I was stoked!!!! I felt like I was doing well, although I was struggling with the pain a fair bit, but I was very happy to have come that far already.

The midwife suggested I try the bath or shower. I really didn?t feel like it at the time but said I would try, as this was part of my birth plan. She started the bath running and soon afterwards I jumped in, thinking I would use the shower until the bath was full enough. Well, I had the shower on for one contraction and hated it! After that I just flopped in the bath - luckily it had gotten to a decent depth in that time.

I spent the next 2 hours or so in the bath, which was bliss. I really felt good in between contractions, and was talking to DH and the midwife, joking, etc. After a while I was even almost falling asleep in between contractions. Before too long though, the pain had ramped up even more and I really felt that the contractions had changed. They were much more painful and I wasn't coping as well. Also, I didn't like having to lie on my back anymore (even supported by water), but the bath wasn?t deep enough for any other positions.

The midwife thought things were progressing really well. She had spoken to my obs and told me he would be there at 9.30 (he was doing a caesar at another hospital). She said I would have to get out of the bath when he got there so that he could check on me, but encouraged me that she thought I would probably be just about ready to push by then.

I got out of the bath a little before the doc arrived and alternated between the fitball and standing while leaning on DH, the bed or a table. It was agony to lie on the bed when the doc finally arrived, and I remember getting all set up and then him not being there. I told the midwife to tell him to hurry up, cos I didn't want to spend any longer than necessary lying down!

He finally came back and did the internal - imagine my disappointment to hear the words '5-6 cms'! No progress at all according to him, although I'm pretty sure the midwife disagreed. (She hadn't checked me again though; I think she was just going on her observations of me.)

Anyway, that announcement by the obs was the end of all my good intentions and I promptly asked for an epidural. I think part of me thought it would take a while to organise and I could still change my mind, but the anaesthetist was there within 5 minutes. Apparently he had been just about to start a theatre list, so he squeezed me in first. The epidural didn't really hurt - I think I felt the fluid going in more than the actual needle. It took a few minutes to work, and initially wasn't as effective on one side, but within about 10 minutes I was pain free! (Except for a patch on one side of my groin, which felt achy every time a contraction hit.) They also put a catheter in, which I could feel. The whole time I had the epidural I had varying degrees of sensation still - I could move my right leg the whole time, and could wiggle my toes on my left leg, but couldn't move my left thigh muscles. In fact, my left thigh muscles took a good few hours to get sensation back - I nearly fell over trying to get off the bed I had laboured on and into a wheelchair, and had to shower sitting down (and that was probably about 3-4 hours after the birth).

From what I can remember, the epidural went in at about 10am. The obs wanted me on the drip straight away, but the midwives decided I didn't really need it and so held off. The obs came back at about midday to check on me. The midwife had just done an internal and thought I was ready to push, although she said there was a small lip of cervix still in the way. Then the ob came back and said no, I was only 8cm, so put me on the drip now and call him in 2 hours - I should be ready by then. So this time, the drip went on. I figured I had the epidural in now, so it didn't make much difference to me how strong the contractions were.

At about midday there was another shift change and I now had Elaine looking after me. She was lovely too (I was very lucky with my midwives I think - they were all great!). Elaine also thought I probably didn't need the drip, but agreed with me that seeing as I had the epidural, it didn't make much difference.

Around 1.30-1.40 the midwife decided I was ready to push, so started me off with some smallish ones to see how I went. She had turned down the epidural a bit so that I could feel the contractions. It wasn't painful still though, I just felt some pressure (kind of like a balloon was being blown up) under my rib cage, and then pressure in my groin area.

The pushing was going well. DH was quite amazed by it all, as was I when the midwife held up a mirror and showed me what was going on. I couldn?t believe the baby's head was so close already!

About 2pm the midwife called the doc and he came in to oversee the birth. By this stage I was pushing with everything I had - it's amazing how tiring it is even when you're not in any pain! They were trying to get me to do 3 big pushes with each contraction, even though I felt that the last push wasn't doing anything as the contractions were over by then.

Because I had the epidural I was on the monitor constantly. There had been an occasion earlier when the baby's heart rate had dropped, but the midwife decided that she thought the machine was just picking up my heart rate instead of the baby's. This happened again during the delivery and the doctor thought it was the baby's heart rate dropping, so he decided to use the ventouse to get bubs out quickly. By this stage I didn't care, so long as the baby was healthy. I did ask if that meant he would have to cut me and he said no, so I was happy to go with the suction.

I think I pushed with one more contraction after the suction was attached, then at the end I said I thought something was happening with the catheter as I felt strange 'down there'. The midwife said 'No, that's your baby', and I was like 'No, I think it's the catheter', then looked down and she was right - the baby's head was out!!!! I started pushing again but the doctor told me not too, and the next thing I knew he had pulled the baby out without even waiting for another contraction.

The baby was immediately passed up to me and put on my chest. I had a look and announced that he was a boy! That was about all we had time for though, as he hadn't started breathing yet so they whisked him away to the resuscitation table. By now the obs was stitching me up, or preparing to at least, (I had a second degree tear) so I was a bit distracted by that and didn't really follow what was going on with bubs. Finally I realised they were still working on him and that DH was quite scared. The midwives were saying that it was ok, his heart rate was still fine, and eventually they got him to breathe. What a relief! I asked one of the midwives a few days later how long it had taken and she said 'Not long - maybe about 2 minutes or so.' I think it was probably the longest 2 minutes of DH's life!

DH took a couple of photos and I think at this stage we announced his name - Max William John. Max was then wrapped in a towel and I asked if DH could bring him back to me (as I knew that otherwise it would be ages before he got to hold him). Once I had him again we tried feeding. He wouldn't go on to begin with, so the midwife took him off and just laid him on my chest. Within a minute or so he did the 'breast crawl' all by himself and made his way down to latch on to my left nipple. It was quite amazing to watch.

We were left in the birth suite for about an hour and a half, then went to weigh him and back to our room. We had a few scares on the first night, when Max choked a bit trying to bring up some mucus left over from being in the womb, but all is well now. Max is just a perfect little baby, very well behaved and looks just like his dad. DH has been a great support to me - he helped out with advice and guidance when I was still trying to get the breastfeeding working, has spent a good few hours settling Max during the night so I could go back to sleep after feeding him, and has generally been everything I could have hoped for. He went back to work after 2 weeks, so Max and I are on our own during the day now and doing just great!

All in all, I'm very pleased with how the birth went. I am a bit disappointed in myself for having the epidural, as I had wanted to have a natural birth, but at the time I was very sure in my decision, so I just tell myself to remember that. I am pleased that I tried natural pain relief methods first, including the fitball and bath. So even though it wasn't quite what I had planned, I think I did a good job and the most important thing is that Max and I are healthy.

Finally, some stats.
Max William John was born at 2.25 pm on 21 January 2009 (his due date!).
Weight: 7 pound 8 (3.39kg)
Length: 51 cm
Head: 35 cm
APGARS: 5 and 9
Labour was 12 hours long from the time my waters broke, with a second stage of about 45 minutes.