The birth of Tomas ..... warning very long, so grap a cuppa
Here it is girls as promised.... sorry its so long, but it would appear that woman of few words I am not! Thanks for reading it.
Birth Story of Tomas
Well, here the story continues where I left off from our TTC journey (posted in the pregnancy after long term TTC for those interested!)
On Sunday, the 27th of November, I woke up, had breakfast and did all the usual things that I had been doing since going on maternity leave a few weeks earlier. Being reasonably restricted in movement – yep, my poor old pelvis wasn’t (and still isn’t LOL), up to much, I had to sit down and planned to finish Munchy’s little pirate tapestry to go on his wall (I had optimistically planned to do 3 of these in a series before he was born – who was I kidding??). My hubby was home and watching the golf on the telly, so it was a lovely relaxing morning. I felt well, my usual self, other than a little restless…
At lunchtime, I got up to make us some sandwiches and when I went into the kitchen I felt really a bit weird, and realised that I could not see very well in my periphery, and my central vision was like looking through moving water. I rubbed my eyes (a lot) and this did nothing to improve things. Oh well, I thought, I must have just looked into the bright light out the window in the kitchen, and that is what has done it, (dah..), so as any good medico would, I decided to ignore it and continue making lunch.
Unfortunately, things got kind of worse and I found that I could not actually see the bench or other parts of the kitchen unless I looked, and moved my head to look directly at it. This was starting to be a bit freaky (for a training surgeon particularly), so I thought it was about time I should, perhaps, confide in my hubby that something was not quite right.
I went into the living room, and found that there were five of my hubbies…. Lucky I love him so… I still did not say anything (stupid I know), and instead thought maybe I should try my glasses. Still I rubbed my eyes, and well, my hubby noticed, so I had to own up.
Hubby went into a bit of a tizz, and thought we should ring the hospital straight away – oh, and I so did not want to… I decided to check my blood pressure first and found it to be 150/100, very elevated for me – I sailed through pregnancy with a BP of 100/60 throughout! Something was definitely up.
We did ring in the end, and after deciding to check my BP in ½ hour and having to promise to call the midwives back at that time, we ended up going to the hospital as my BP was still so high. Shall we take the bags, asked my hubby?? No, I said, they’ll just check the baby and send me home.. just a hiccup, nothing to worry about, said I – lucky, he did not listen to me…
Once at the hospital, the midwives checked my urine – no protein in it so that was good, but my BP was still 145/95, and I was getting a pretty bad headache, but at least my vision was completely back to normal. My obstetrician was not coming back on duty until 7 pm, so the on call obstetrician decided to do some blood tests to check my kidneys and liver – being now reasonably worried about preeclampsia. The CTG trace showed than Munchy was very content and happy inside, his little heart pumping away at 130-150, steady as a rock. The CTG also showed however, that I was having regular contractions 6 minutes apart. I was having some very mild period type pain (but I used to faint with period pain, so this was really not even registering on my radar) so the midwife decided that I was in fact in early labour, and that perhaps the rise in BP was just my body deciding it had had enough. (My body might have but my head certainly had not ….)
The blood tests came back and they were a bit abnormal – my kidney function was a bit off, so indeed I had preeclampsia. The on call obstetrician came in and said I had to stay in overnight for my obstetrician to decide what to do with me and have more blood tests in the morning. Well, I was so happy, not, I cried….
Later that night my own obstetrician actually came in to check me over because he was so concerned about the vision thing, but decided that even though I was apparently very puffy in the face as well as feet and hands (I had not noticed the face..) he would leave me to rest overnight and induce me first thing in the morning. I had an internal examination, and my cervix was closed but completely effaced. He said the birthday would be 28/11 and in the morning he would find some way of breaking my waters.
So, hubby went home, and I spent a sleepless night wondering around my room, getting panadeine for the headaches, and crying because I would not have my baby in my belly any more (I know I would get to cuddle him and see him, but I was still so in love with my fat belly…) – completely irrational, I know.
The next morning, 6:30 am, off to the delivery suite I go, hubby was nowhere to be found yet, and I got a bit worried that it would all start before he got there. I had spent hours with my mum looking for a birthing ‘suite’ and well, I did not need one, the midwife came with a sexy blue gown thingy that was accessible from every angle, and no orifice was covered and asked me to change into it. So I did, and in this passion killer I awaited my hubby’s arrival, and bemusedly kept thinking that I could not believe this was actually happening – we were having a baby today!
Anyways, my hubby got there in time for the obstetrician to come and break my waters. I found the internal examinations extremely painful, and it would seem that this was because my cervix was very posterior, so they really had to dig in to feel what they needed to feel. I think that the process of breaking my waters was as painful as the dilation part of labour, but I think it was mainly the position of my cervix that made it so, rather than the breaking the waters part. The amniotic fluid was all clear, so everyone was happy. At this point I had to have more blood tests because my blood pressure was still up, and they did not want to put me on the drip until they have seen the results – I think I would have been in for a caesarean if the bloods came back more abnormal.
The Syntocinon drip went up at 10am, and they increased the rate every 30 minutes. The midwife kept coming in and saying, nope, you still have a smile on your face, need to wipe it off and then we’ll know it is working! At 1:30 pm I had another internal exam and I was 2cm dilated (same as when I had my waters broken) so I figured we were in for a long, long wait yet, so I decided to hop into the bath. At this time I still only had very mild period pains (for me) so it was more a nice thing to do, rather than for pain relief. But this soon changed…
My hubby tells me that after about ½ hour in the bath my contractions seemed constant to him. I don’t really remember anything other than concentrating on my breathing and asking hubby to help me out of the bath as I felt a change of position was needed. In retrospect, the contractions were constant and I had a lot of pain in my nether regions, but I was still coping.
My hubby also tells me that it took me something like 10 attempts to actually get out of the bath, and then I only made it two steps to the toilet before I had to rest and breath through more contractions. Eventually, we made it back to the bed, and I sat on the side of it, hands on my knees, and I really became aware that I was in pain, and constantly. I thought that I must have been screaming, but my hubby, the midwife and the obstetrician all told me that I was absolutely silent, which is what scared my hubby the most. DH went to fetch the midwife to get me some pain relief, and to my surprise I had an epidural in within 5 minutes of us asking – I was expecting to get the gas, but my ob told me he was always planning the epidural.
Anyway, once it was in, I had another internal, and this time, I was fully dilated. Imagine my shock! I thought I had hours ahead of me, and here I was from 2 to 10 cm in an hour – well, no wonder it hurt, is all I can say.
The epidural took about an hour and a half to fully take effect, but after about ½ hour the pain was a lot better. I guess the description of how it works – think of pain of the contraction as a pyramid, and the epidural just takes the base off it, so that the pain is just as intense but is shorter and more spread apart – really does describe it accurately. And, well, if offered girls – take it!
The epidural gave me a break, and in fact I had a little sleep. The midwives were happy to let me be for a while…. At 4pm, they told me to start pushing, so I did for 2 ½ hours, but to no avail… Munchy was not coming out ..and my blood pressure was 170/110….
The obstetrician then came, and said “so you are still pregnant…. It is time for this baby to come out now…. (he had a dinner date with his wife!)â€. After much ado, and trying to hide the fact he was going to have to do an episiotomy (one of my fears, but I knew the score as soon as I saw the scissors on his tray…), it was decided that Munchy would need at least a vacuum extraction to get him out.
So, a few snips later, and with maximum suction on the vacuum bell, and a lot of pushing on my part, Munchy – now known as Tomas (LOL!) was born at 6:32pm on Monday the 28th November, 2005. He was 4.175kg, 58cm long and 37cm head and well, altogether perfect. I fell in love the minute I saw him, even if he looked a bit blurry through all my happy tears!
My hubby cut the cord, and after that it took the poor obstetrician an hour and a half to stich me back together again. My parents in law walked in on the last stitch whilst my hubby was throwing towels on the floor to soak up the blood and mess, and the midwife was ripping off my stained gown and putting on a clean one – not one of my picture perfect moments!
Today, Munchy is one month old already and I cannot believe it. He is thriving – after an initial period of weight loss and jaundice, he put on 780g in our first 13 days at home which is off the scale (proud mum already!!).
Overall, my end impression of pregnancy, birth and the first four weeks is – when can I do it all again!!
Thanks for reading my little novel and I hope your experience is as rewarding as ours.
