this how my son entered the world *warning* it is long
Well it's take me a year to get to this point and I have come to accept that this is my story of how my little boy entered the world.
I was finding it hard to sleep in the last few weeks of pregnancy so I woke Dp, who was sleeping on the lounge, at 1am to go to bed. After everything was done we would have been in bed by 1.30am. As I was going into my 5th day overdue the last thing he said to me was 'I need a few hours of sleep so don't go into labour until the morning'.
So at 2.30 am I was woken with the sudden need to go to the toilet. While sitting on the toilet it dawned on me that I was in some pain and I wasn't peeing but there was still liquid coming out. I realised it had started. I said to Dp, cause the toilet is opposite our bedroom, to wake up as I think I am in labour. Well he did and I got off the toilet. I tried to get comfy in bed but everytime I had a contraction I would leak fluid. So we got out the towels and put them on the bed and floor to the toilet and I tried to get some sleep. Yeah right as if I could rest being very excited, a first time mum, getting fairly regular pains and couldn't get comfortable in bed - it just wasn't going to happen. So I decided to have a shower, we had just installed one of those showerheads with a flexible hose so the hot water could be directed where it needed, for now it just needed to wash my hair. As the time went on we couldn't wait to call our families to tell them what was happening and by about 6am we felt it wasn't too early to start texting people with our news, that way we figured we wouldn't wake them if they didn't want to be woken.
We called the hospital at some stage who told us to stay at home but come in if we were worried. We stayed at home until about 8 - 8.30 am and then went up. I remembered from antenatal classes that you dialated about 1cm an hour in my niavety (sp) I figured after 6hrs of contractions that I would be a few cm's dialated.
Got to the hospital and they put me into a birthing suite. They check that the fluid was amniotic fluid to confirm my waters had broken and did an internal. Yes my waters had broken and I was 3cm's dialated. Not bad I thought and excited as I knew I would be meeting my little man today. They gave us the option of staying there or I could go home if I wanted. I knew we had awhile to go, the room I was in was really small and knew I would be more comfortable at home so we decided to go home for awhile.
I was never really conscous of time, I tried as much as possible to go with the flow. So we come home, family came over and we chatted while I paced the floors, pausing and rocking through the contractions. At about 11.30am things started to get stronger and I thought for sure I would be getting closer to dialating more so I decided I was ready to go back to hospital. They put us into a different birthing suite (this time the biggest yay!) and we settled in for the long haul. They did some more CT monitoring just to check that everything was going ok with bubs and all was well.
Throughout this whole process I kept repeating to myself 'I was born to do this, I was born to breed'. I put a lot of pressure on myself and had some pretty big shoes to fill. I know you can't compare pregnancies and births but I couldn't help comparing myself to my sister who's first labour she didn't have any drugs with an average bub and second bub was 10lb 5oz and she only had gas. I figured if she could do it then so could I. I wasn't trying to be heroic and if I needed drugs then so be it but they were going to be a last resort.
At about 2pm the dr came into to check how things were progressing, by then I was 5cm's dialated. A little slower then I was hoping but still on track, still fairly textbook, nothing to worry about. The contractions were still coming really regularly and getting stronger.
What I didn't realise at that time was that I had eaten and drunk very little, I just wasn't hungry. I was on my feet all day as I couldn't get comfortable in any kind of sitting position and I was starting to tire. The shower was my saviour, I was in and out all the time. As the afternoon wore on things started to slow, the contractions would build up in intensity and be close and then it would back off, I had a lot of pressure in my bum but knew I wasn't ready to push but couldn't go to the toilet for # 2 either. I had a nurse to my obs and she asked me if I was ok, at the time I didn't think anything of it and said of course I am, I am just having a baby with a smile on my face and nothing more was said.
By about 4/5 pm I couldn't be on my feet anymore, they were just too sore. I was in the new hospital with new fancy beds and in antenatal class we were showed how to put the bed into a position where I could kneel on it and flop myself forwards iykwim. I was starting to become exhausted. Things seemed to be getting erratic as well. I would have heaps of contractions 3-4 mins apart for about 45 - 60 secs and then it would slow down to 10 mins apart. I had a lot of pressure in my backside, I thought I wanted to push but I kind of knew that when it was time to push I would "think" I needed to but would "know" I needed to IYKWIM? I also started to feel kind of weird so thought I was going into transition. The midwife suggested that I go to the toilet but I just couldn't sit down, I can't explain it but there was no way I was sitting on my bum. So this went on for a few hours.
The midwife came in about 6pm to check on me. She did my obs as no-one had been in for awhile. I didn't know it at the time but I think this is when she picked up that I had tachiacardia (sp), I am still not sure if this means my heartbeat was too slow, too quick or just irregular. She then did an internal and thought she felt his bum. Well it is at this point that I started to loose it, I was feeling sick and throwing up bile cause there was nothing in my stomach and I was starting to freak out that he might be breech. They started to talk about putting me on a drip cause I was dehydrated. She went and got the ultrasound machine to check on bubs position. Turns out he was fully effaced, as far forward as he could get apparently which is why my labour had slowed down. At that point bub was ok, I was the problem. The ob came in and said to us that bub wasn't obstructed yet but was obstructing and that we had a choice, cause he could see we were all setup for a vaginal birth with camera's etc... that he could send me to surgery now and have a c/section or we could keep going and trying but in his opinion DS would become obstructed and we while it wasn't critical to get DS out now it might be. Dp and I discussed our options. We had a couple of friends who went for 30 + hours and ended with a c/section, we could keep going and either have a vag birth or keep going and have things go really bad really quickly and have a c/section anyway when I would be even more exhausted. We made the decision for the c/section. Things are a bit blurry here but the anethitist (sp) came and saw me. I was wheeled into surgery and they pulled my little boy out of me. They did what they do and brought him over to me all wrapped up, I could see him but wasn?t really able to touch him but at the time it was ok cause I knew I would be holding him soon. I also think I was in so much relief from the epi, it was bliss after the contractions as it was the first pain relief I had had upto that point.
What I didn't know was that while I was in recovery, shaking from the epi lol, that DS had nasal flaring so he had to go into a humidicrib overnight. I was wheeled back into my room about 11.30pm and the midwife came in and said I couldn't see him as he was in the humidicrib and would be at least until the morning. Dp went and got footage on the video camera but it isn't the same. When everyone had gone home I managed to convince a nurse to wheel me in and we opened the side of the crib for awhile while I was able to touch him but as his oxygen dropped they had to close it up and I could only touch him by putting my hands in through the holes.
They helped me to express a couple of times through the night to syringe it into DS. He lapped it up apparently :lol: at about 4 am I remember the nurse came in to check on me and as I hadn't had any pain relief since the surgery she gave me a jab of pethadine. I didn't really consent but didn't say no either ? I was too exhausted to really know what was going on. I think it was both a good and bad thing. The next morning they got me up about 7.30 to go in and see him and give him his first breastfeed. Lucky for me he latched on straight away and I thought it was good as I didn't feel any pain or anything. I have since realized it was because I still had the pethadine in my system.
He was allowed out of the crib about lunchtime, had to go back in that afternoon for a few hours but spent the 2nd night with him and every other night with me. I think the pethadine messed with my supply cause it didn't really come in until day 4 - 5 and as a result DS lost more than 10% of his body weight so they didn't let us home until day 5.
I look back at it and have had many times when I think what if, could I have tried a bit harder but now I can see that there is nothing I can do to change what has happened and I will be armed with knowledge on how to turn any future bubs if necessary.
So there you go that is the birth of Du5ty Jame5 (the numbers are for google privacy reasons, if you replace the 5 for s you have his name).
If you got this far, thank you
