Baby Max

Friday 22nd October 2010 2am - 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant

My niece Jenny arrives from the UK.

Later that day we go to the pirate park with Leah and Yolly.

We take a picnic to the park and I sit on the ground on a blanket. I get up to use the bathroom and I feel like I can't walk properly. I have a painful pressure. We discuss whether I might be in labour because I didn't 'start naturally' the first time and don't know what it feels like so this might be it?

It eases a little and I decide to go home instead of shopping as I originally planned. Yolly doesn't want me to drive home and is going to ferry us back and forth in two trips, but I feel fine when I'm sitting, it's just the walking thing I have a problem with! So Yolly follows us home to make sure I get there safely, which I do and with no dramas.

I'm still in pain the rest of the day and Google my symptoms and find nothing conclusive, just that it's 'normal' and may or may not be a sign of imminent labour!

Paul arrives home that night.


Saturday 23rd October 4am

I have been lying awake for a while, ever since Ame got into our bed. Just can't get comfy especially with the pain. Get up to wee about eleventy billion times, then I feel a warm gush, reach over Ame to tap Paul on the shoulder 'I think my waters just went', go to stand 'yup, this is it' and the best part? the pain/pressure has gone!

I tell Paul to change the sheets and chuck them in the wash, I'm going to have a shower then go back to bed to try and get more sleep! I remember this from last time, waiting all day at the hospital for non-existent contractions.

Paul skypes my Mum, his Mum and his sister to let them know it has all started, his sister is a little surprised that I have gone back to bed (I can hear from the next room) but I can feel nothing is imminent. I text Stacy my doula to let her know too.

At 6am we have all had a little extra sleep (still no contractions) and I phone the hospital.

When Stacy arrives we all head in together (about 8ish I think) leaving Miss Ame with Jenny. I phone Leah and Yolly to let then know what's going on and that we have no decent food in the house (I was supposed to go shopping yesterday but couldn't walk!)

Still no contractions and I'm beginning to worry that this all feels a bit like last time and I'll have to have the syntocin drip but that the midwife won't be as nice as last time and whack it up full blast and I won't be able to cope.

We get settled into a room and Dr Dutt arrives to see me at around 9am. He's pleased to see Paul and that baby waited till he was home! He asks me what I want to do, which I knew he would and I have decided that I won't wait all day for contractions, I'll just go for the drip. He says to the midwife to start the drip around 12, giving me a few hours to start naturally but not all day. Perfect!

So the waiting begins (again)

Go for a few walks round the hospital with Stacy, go on monitor a few times, get a few niggles, nothing concrete, waiting waiting, don't want to wear myself out because still worried I won't cope if I'm too tired. Paul led out on the bed, falling asleep, watching tv
12.00 - have had a few very mild contractions and midwife is wanting to wait for change of shift to start the drip. She doesn't do an internal because she thinks the change of shift middie will want to do one anyway.
- lack of staff/lots of women in labour means they call in an extra middie just for me which means I get to keep her through the entire labour (:
3.15 - syntocin goes in, lots of fussing over trying to get the remote monitor working as I have to have continual monitoring on the drip, will have to stay on the bed if they can't make it work ): finally get it working - hooray
get a new midwife shortly after, called Ellie
start off sat on the edge of a chair, coping ok, drip is on low to start me off slowly - high five with Stacy for that!
Ellie makes no mention of internal and there is no way I'm going to complain or suggest it.
Someone warms up my wheat pack for me. Put my music on which is really nice and Stacy puts the oil burner on with a special blend she got for me which is really very relaxing
Ellie suggests I get into pajamas or a hospital gown as I might not want to fuss about with clothes later. I ask for the bath and so she runs it.
Seems like ages before the bath is ready and contractions are really starting to hit.
Getting in the warm water feels so comforting, I lean on a pillow and move around as I like on the remote monitor. Little bit restricted by the drip pole.
Midwife tells Paul that she is worried that I have gone quiet. I laugh when he tells me.
Paul asks Ellie if I can stay in the water for the birth and she says no, Dr Dutt probably won't allow it. I ask her to ask him and she says she will. She says she'll need to do an internal first as he'll want to know how far I am. She asks me to float to the top of the bath and she does a (pain-free!) internal, I am amazed it doesn't hurt as the ones with Ame were excrutiating! She tells me 5 cm and I am not happy with that, I say '10 is a much better number!'
She phones the doctor and he says I can stay in the water (as I knew he would) as long as the babies stats are good, which they are, and continue to be, good strong heartbeat throughout!

Starting to fall asleep between contractions, Stacy massages my back which is just perfect, but then transition comes and I begin to think it is all impossible. I am going to die.
I ask for my Mum more than once (apparently, I can't remember!) And say all sorts of crazy things about never doing it again and I feel so very, very tired and I just want the contractions to stop for an hour so I can rest and I will start again tomorrow. Feel like I am screaming the hospital down with each contraction now and there is no let up between them.
Dr asks me if the contractions feel any different/where the pain is and I don't know what he's talking about. They asked me that last time and it upsets me because I don't understand.
Transition lasts about 30 minutes.
Finally the feeling changes and my body takes over and starts to feel like pushing, I surface and ask the midwife if I should push and she just tells me to do whatever my body tells me to. The vocalisations I am making are good, she says. So I go back to concentrating on breathing.

I try to breathe through each urge to push and the babies head is born very quickly in only 2 or 3 contractions. People are shouting at me to make little pushes but I'm not doing anything really, just breathing.
I am on my knees in the water looking down and I see the vague shape of my babies head as I wait for the final contraction to birth my baby. Ellie gives him a little push forward and I scoop him up from between my legs out of the water and hold him to me. I turn and sit cuddling him, my little boy born at quarter to 9, just 5 and a half hours after the drip went in.
He lies on me and gives a little cry, I can feel everyone in the room relax at the sound, but I was already relaxed at the feel of his warm body on mine, his breath in my ear.

after...
Dr Dutt pulls out the placenta in the bath, they tell me to stand up slowly, so I do, I feel a bit dizzy and the blood loss is pretty heavy so they tell me to sit back down. I look at the bloody water and refuse!
and then the midwives and Stacy practically carry me to the bed as I am losing too much blood. I'm shivering, They frantically try to warm me up with hot towels
Paul holds baby and then Stacy, all swaddled up like a little sausage before they unwrap him and give him back to me skin on skin. He is warm, they say, He'll warm you up!
Stacy and Ellie soon go home to their own families and we sit and admire out new little man. I let him attach himself and feed for as long as he wants before dressing him in a wooly white suit. Apart from the little cry just after he was born he is happy to just be with us

They had a drip ready because of the PPH last time. No PPH this time but heavier than normal so they want to put a catheter in and I ask if there is any other way because it was so very painful last time. They let me use a bedpan instead which I am very happy about! What weird things can make you happy!
I stay attached to the drip all night and have to call to Paul each time the baby cries so he can hand him to me. He wakes and feeds lots in the night. I give up in the end and sleep with him on my belly but call Paul to put him back in the plastic cot before the midwife 'catches' me.

So happy to have him close to me and could stare at him for hours. I am completely in love with him!