the very planned arrival of Thomas Mark (aka Pup)
I'm not sure how much of a story this is going to make....after all, I had known for some weeks that Pup was going to arrive via c-section on a certain date. I guess the unforeseen thing cropped up at about 35.5 weeks when I developed mild pre-eclampsia and ended up being hospitalised twice (once in Melbourne and once in home hospital) prior to the actual delivery day. This pregnancy has been very important to DH and I as - some of you know - we had suffered 6 miscarriages and dealt with unexplained infertility (which included 3 IVF cycles) in the 2.5 years prior to this pg. We spent the first 20 weeks worrying that the pg wasn't going to hold and then the next 20 weeks worrying about the health of the baby and me!
But I did make it to 38wks and 4 days and at 6.30am on Wednesday July 6th, DH and I dutifully turned up at Frances Perry House after a sleepless night in a nearby hotel which involved many tears about whether I would make a fit mum and not "stuff it all up". DH's sleepless night revolved mainly around the whole safety aspect of the whole procedure and anxiousness that both me and Pup would come out of it all fine (funny....I had no such worries).
The staff were expecting us and ushered us into a room to have obs taken, have a public line shave and await the anaethetist. The midwives were very good about explaining exactly what would happen when we left the room and how things would progress. Our anaethetist was just lovely and he put us at ease with his humor. I was the first cab off the rank, so we didn't have to wait around very long before the theatre staff came to get me.
I was wheeled upstairs and into the operating room to have an IV and the spinal block administered, while DH went and got into scrubs with the rest of the surgery team (he said it was so strange being stripped down to your undies alongside the man that was about to cut his wife open!!)
I can honsetly say that I did not feel ANYTHING of the spinal block - not even the pressure of the needle going in. I did feel a little sting of the local, but that was really nothing. The surgeon who was doing the c-section was my OB's locum as my OB was overseas at the time, and whilst our intial impressions of this guy were that he was fairly distant (when we met himt he week earlier), on the dy, he was great. Very personable and quite witty!
It is a bizarre experience (as a first timer) to go into an operating theatre pregnant, but not in any type of labour, and knowing that you are going to be leaving with a baby. Of course, I had no idea that the operation was underway until DH mentioned it and he got some great photos of Pup being born - feet, bum, back then head! All of a sudden there was a bloody, wet, creamy baby being waggled over the screen at me to the words of "here is your baby". It was like they snuck out and got a baby then bought it in to me!
So at 8.27am on July 6th, 2005, little Thomas Mark Simpson Billing came into the world weighing 6lb 13oz, measuring 48cm long and had a head circumference of 35cm.
I got a little touch of him straight away, but being a caesar baby, they took him over to the paediatrician's table to check him out, suction any mucus and do his APGAR score (9 @ 1min; 10 @ 5mins; 10 @ 10mins) before bringing him back to me. I got to hold him for about 10 mins in the operating room before DH took him downstairs to be weighed and await me coming down from recovery.
The stitching up of my belly seemed to take forever, but the surgeon put a drainage tube into the wound, for which I will be eternally grateful as it vastly reduced my swelling and bruising and aided my recovery over the next few days. I was then wheeled out to recovery when I was supposed to stay for only about 20mins, but ended up being there for about 50mins because there seemed to be a shortage of orderlies available to take patients back to wards. In the end a theatre sister took me back down.
And then the fun started. Again, as a first timer, I had no idea what to expect when I got back downstairs and as soon as I greeted my new son (and found out the weight from DH) the midwife had me straight onto breastfeeding. What a bizarre, strange, great, undescribable feeling it is to have a baby latch onto your boob for the first time ever. Thank god the baby knew what it was doing, 'cause I don't think I was much help!
The rest of the hospital stay (both in Melbourne and then back at our home town hospital 3 days later) seemed to meld into one long feed, nappy chaning, sleeping session. I am glad that I did not commit to ringing people to announce the birth, because those days are almost a blur to me, even know. Both DH and I would sincerely like to thank Melbo who passed on the great news to the greater Belly Belly 'family' and who also delivered a lovely bunch of flowers and a toy cow to the hospital (we hope one day soon we can return the favour!)
We've been home now for 5 days and we are coping not too bad. I would hesitate to say that we are in some sort of routine, but Thomas sleeps about 4 hours between feeds and has been steadily putting on weight. In fact just today, the maternal and childcare nurse came to visit and Thomas is now just over his birth weight - he is 3140 or 6lb 15oz! So we can't be doing things too badly!
But what a steep learning curve. And we've only just begun!!!
Check out the website for photos of our first few days. I'm going to have to completely revamp the site now that the lad is with us, but quite honestly, computer stuff is taking a back seat just for the moment while I try and figure out this mummy role!!
Thanks for reading
Hayseed
