My Lovely 1st Child

It was a pretty conventional pregnancy, thankfully, after the loss I had had previously. I worried a lot, given I’d had a previous loss, but it was normal pregnancy paranoia. There was a lot of red bleeding along the way for the first six weeks, but she hung on there. At 18 weeks we took a trip to America and Canada (this becomes something of a habit in successful pregnancies it seems!) and all was well. I developed SPD (pain with the ligaments in my pelvis) and could not walk very well from around 22 weeks pregnant, but life went on. And on September 18th 2006, she decided to show up 3 weeks early!

Here’s the birth story:

WARNING - I don’t think it’s too gruesome, but people have differing limits; if you’re very squeamish or don’t like medical details it’s probably worth avoiding reading under the cut and just looking at the nice pictures instead!

Okay, so she wasn’t quite expected so soon, although with hindsight, all the signs were there, I just didn’t want to hope! Stuff like not having felt her hiccup for a few days (they stop practice breathing a few days before labour), a definite feeling that I shouldn’t be making any plans, heartburn from the curry that just didn’t go away, even the few Braxton Hicks I had. The huge feeling of heaviness everywhere I walked.

I’d been reading about people giving birth yesterday morning to try and allay my usual fears, and then I went for a nap. I woke up after the nap feeling all relaxed and not so worried any more. I wandered downstairs to have a late lunch. I was cheerfully replying to an email at about 4:30pm from Kirsten asking how I was, and I replied saying “funny you should mention the Braxton Hicks, as one has just turned up again!” Except the next one about 15 minutes later didn’t stop. I felt ripped off – everything I’d heard about contractions was that they start, then stop. This was just one solid contraction – it ended up going on for about 20 minutes. I leant forward slightly and felt damp and thought “Oh bugger, Steve is gonna be so cross! I’d told him we had ages yet!” I pretended to just need the toilet, but I knew what had happened. I went upstairs feeling like I needed to, well, pass a number two. Whilst being in lots of constant pain. I then noticed my legs were shaking and I was sweating. There was no sign of the number two, despite feeling like there needed to be. I realised what was happening and figured if I lay down on the bed it might pass or something. Never been one for logic in extreme pain.

Now, as luck would have it, I’d arranged for the midwife to come round to visit the house to see if it was suitable for a homebirth, which was what I wanted. Said midwife was due at 5pm – 8pm. She later said she had been planning to go visit someone else first but something made her come to me first – thank goodness she did! I mean, Steve had rung the delivery suite, but you can’t beat a midwife turning up at the door 10 minutes after going into labour really.

This was a nice midwife too (hurrah!) after all my fears about getting “dud” ones. Steve answered the door and explained the situation. Midwife was rather surprised, and gave me an internal examination (totally in favour of this at this point!) and found I was already 6-7cm dilated, and the baby fully engaged and ready to go – she could feel the head, and yes, my waters had broken. I still felt like I wanted to do that darned turd, which I now realised was a slightly bigger one than usual and probably wouldn’t like being described as a turd. Midwife said she was honestly expecting me to deliver on the bed (where I was writhing around; fortunately now I was getting “proper” contractions as opposed to one solid one – they were 2-3 minutes apart, stupidly fierce and lasted a whole minute). Trouble was, although she had some of her kit with her, as she was only expecting a discussion, not an actual delivery, she had no gas and air or anything of immediate use. She decided it was best I immediately transfer to hospital, given the state I was in (clue: not happy and just a bit frightened!)

Time for the neenaw then. Of course, at this point this is when we discover BT have randomly cut off our landline for no reason whatsoever. We still don’t know why, as we can’t find a number on their website, although the automated line testing says “network failure”. We can’t get a signal on our mobiles and phone batteries are nearly flat (of course). So we have to use midwife’s phone. How embarrassing.

Neenaw turns up 25 minutes later from Woolwich ambulance station, which is only 5 minutes away. Guess they were busy. Anyhow, they were very nice and friendly. Midwife reckoned I could “probably” make it to hospital, and went on to say how she’d had one of hers in an ambulance herself so it’s no big deal! So, they gave me some gas and air (which I did actually finish up, oops!) and off we went with sirens and stuff, after Steve had fed the cats. Was quite cool actually – first time I’d felt properly drunk in 8 months! Did not enjoy the speed humps in Woolwich.

Got to the hospital in 10 minutes and got wheeled in through the A&E entrance (hurrah – always wanted to do that!!) and then up to the labour ward. Some stuff happened then but it’s very blurry, but about 20 minutes passed, then it was 7pm, and they said I was ready to push. I was like “errr, what, already?” having been told about the traditional first time labour of 10 hours in the first stage, and not this sudden “Off you go..” In fact, if I hadn’t been transported it’s likely I’d have reached that stage a lot sooner as transfer to hospital does stall things a bit. So no more gas and air. Only had it for about 15 minutes *bleh*

This was the point that I discovered it felt a bit better to make loud, screeching weird noises. Then I got told off *sigh*. Apparently it’s a waste of energy and one should direct it at doing an enormous turd instead of a) noises b) going pink in the face c) pushing in the wrong area and so on. Took me a while to work out how I was supposed to push. Then my contractions weren’t very strong at all, and got quite far apart; it was me doing most of the pushing rather than the contractions. So much for the sodding raspberry leaf tea! The nice midwife who had turned up for my homebirth discussion went home at this point, and I was left with some fierce other midwives.

I was on my back for this bit (although the bed was tilted a bit) and I really don’t think it helped at all. I was too weak to stand though; ideally I think a birthing stool would have been great, but the hospital doesn’t do them, or indeed anything of use besides a sodding bed. They got the stirrups out and I was like “NO!!!!!” cos of my SPD. This was a legitimate request but they thought I was just being batshit; fortunately Steve explained why not. Then they threatened to get out the Drip because my contractions were weak – oh no, I wasn’t having that either as it can make things a lot more painful. I may not have put a birth plan together in time but I knew what I wanted and why.

So I carried on pushing and an hour later they said they could see the head. I put my fingers there and felt her. Steve decided to go look down the business end after all, and reassured me he really could see the head when she decided to start getting out. Such a relief, as for ages it had felt like nothing was happening! Midwife asked if I wanted an episiotomy (a surgical snip where the sun don’t shine). Like, um, no. A few more pushes and she crowned, and we had to wait between contractions with her head half out. Incidentally, this is not very comfortable, in case you were wondering.

Next push and her head came out. A long gap between contractions and the rest of her slithered out at 20:18, in a pile of liquid flying everywhere which really, really bizarrely smelt like lavender. Well, I thought it did. Far greater relief in pressure than even the biggest poo. Immediately they flung her up at me, this blue-purplish slippery warm thing that was snuffling and whimpering with a cord on it, and a apgar of 9. Steve cut the cord. I held the flailing purple object for a few minutes, then they grabbed her away to wash her and put her under the heater as they believed she was 1 day short of full-term (she’s actually 37 weeks 2 days) and suctioned her and stuff. No idea how much of this really was necessary and I was already annoyed they’d clamped the cord immediately instead of waiting a few minutes.

I did go for the drug in the leg they can give you to speed up the third stage (delivery of the placenta) as she was a bit early and I knew my platelets (clotting-related) were low so I didn’t want to run the risk of haemorrage. So 7 minutes later yet another pressure relief as loads of gore came out. Steve took a photo of it as requested but we didn’t bring it home!

Eventually after they weighed her (7lb, 8oz, 48cm long, 34.5cm head circumference) I got her back and started feeding her. Ow. And she was hungry! Lots of confusion over quite *how* to feed her though because nobody wanted to help and loads of people kept disappearing and being replaced with new ones! 2 hours later they gave me painkillers despite asking from the start. Aside from the 15 mins of gas and air, that’s the only pain relief I had, although to be fair it was impossible to offer me anything else at any point as I was gone too far too quick. No idea if I’d have asked for anything with a “normal” birth!

At no point could I get any food – thank *god* for the dried cranberries and chew bars I’d packed; I was beyond weak.

After 4 hours a different midwife appeared and inspected the damage. This hurt. Fortunately I hadn’t torn (thank goodness I turned down the episiotomy) but I did have a few internal lacerations, which were stitched under local anaesthetic. I then was allowed a shower. I trapsed blood everywhere by accident! At 3am we were shown to the private room I’d managed to get (thank god) and I said goodbye to Steve and the baby screamed and screamed. I was totally exhausted and there was no loo roll, only paper towels. Thankfully she shut up after a bit and I rang mum in order to get revenge on her waking me up at 5am to have Jake!

I managed an hour of sleep (nose was blocked up and nobody could offer me any nasal decongestent), then had breakfast (totally disorganised and unhelpful), survived a barrage of surly cleaners, had her official photos taken, had the midwife check on me, and the paediatrician check the little one – we all got the okay to go home just before midday so Steve turned up in a taxi with the car seat and my sandals (I had no footwear!) and we got home. Just in time for my massive Sainsburys order to arrive!

I managed 2 hours of sleep this afternoon, and we’ve all eaten properly. She’s had a few tantrums (dirty nappy!) but has generally been good, considering. My body is stupidly stiff and sore from all the straining I did yesterday; I even have “lovebite”-style marks under my neck from when I was bearing down. And it feels like my arse is about to fall out; time to rebuild the pelvic floor I guess – yet I’d been so diligent with the exercises too!

My belly is weirdly podgy, as is expected, and I do still look quite pregnant. Every time she feeds though, it helps contract the womb (ow) so that’s a good start. Only lost a stone in weight; it was probably more initially, but I drank shedloads of water to replace the lost blood. Most of the rest will go in time, and the rest will have to be worked at, and may never go. Ho hum.

Steve has got the art of cuddling the small thing but he still says she’s ruined his life. Tsk.

My mum is remarkably coming to stay tomorrow until Monday to give us a hand – this’ll be the first time she’s visited me in London, and the first time she’s visited me in 7 years!! Hopefully she can show me how to breastfeed properly because it really hurts at the moment and I’m sure it’s not supposed to. For all the much vaunted “breastfeeding” hospital awards, QEH is a load of shite. Nobody gave a damn or helped me, even when I asked for help. Some midwives were great (ironically, the two I saw that were my community midwives after all my bitching about them – these were two nice ones though) – some were average, and some were, well, could do without them, y’know?

My thoughts? Well, I definitely wanted to be at home for the first stage (up to the bit where you start to push) and, um, I accidentally achieved that, although it did only last about half an hour! It’s “supposed” to even take days, but usually 10-18 hours. I was sorta happy being in hospital for the second bit in case anything went wrong, but I didn’t like how I was treated there. I definitely just wanted OUT as soon as she was though and I could walk again. Although I don’t think I was treated exactly terribly by the hospital staff, I’d been doing so much reading around the whole giving birth thing that I know I could have been treated a lot better and the whole thing could have been a lot better. That’s the downside of education I guess; if I hadn’t known what I did I’d have been a lot happier with the outcome. Although I’d have also had a nasty cut in my bits, and made my hips worse by using the stirrups, and been in a lot more pain from the drip.

So, yes I was “lucky” in that it was only 3.5 hours start to finish, and no interventions, but I suspect the pain at the start more than made up for a lot of that.. no gradual build-up for me, just lots of writhing around in a most undignified way on the bed with loads of medical dudes standing around having a friendly chat and looking where the sun don’t shine. And I didn’t enjoy pushing for 1.5 hours which seemed to take five times as long as the bit before (and resisting pushing for some time before that) – all I could think of was those birth stories where “oh, 3 pushes and she was out” and thinking “you lucky cow”.

Nevertheless, nobody died, I got away with an early pretty much natural birth in record time with nothing torn, so, yes, I guess for most people that does count as “lucky cow”! Although I’m sure a lot of the “luck” was down to the agony of my SPD over the last few months. I think my SPD might be better but as I’m aching everywhere right now, I wouldn’t like to say for certain. Still, it’s been fun touching my toes again!

Second labours are meant to be much quicker. Accident.

Would I do it all again? Oh, probably. But I don’t know how I’d feel about it or how I’d want to do it next time. And it would not involve being more than 15 minutes from a hospital after 35 weeks!!

Cats are intrigued, not scared of the baby. Lots of weird looks and staring and definite confusion on their faces. They really don’t know what to make of her at all! They ran from the ambulance people though.

Have we named her yet? No! We’ve lost the book we were going to name her out of, although I’m sure it’s around here somewhere! But anything anyone suggests we *won’t* be naming her, so don’t bother!

Was my time with hospitals over?  I wish.  No, ten days later we were back up there again..