In having a son I have learnt much about myself as a person and have been challenged to think about the sort of person I want my son to become, who I want to be, how to emulate that to him, what parenting style best suits the natural instincts that love for my son produce and how I plan to discipline.
Lots of blog fodder. For right now though I feel like I should write a bit about how said soul inspiring little dude came into the world. (advanced warning: pretty nasty if you are squeamish)
At 37 weeks pregnant I had, for lack of a better phrase, an emotional breakdown. I felt like I was ready to burst. I was having cramps but nothing that felt like labour. I was sitting on a Swiss ball when my husband got home at 10:30pm crying my eyes out and all I could say was "he has to come now. He's ready to be born! why wont he come out!?"
Due to finding out early in pregnancy that his left arm had not formed properly we were due to have another scan at 38 weeks. It was discovered that he had stopped growing and they suggested inducing me. I had done research on this and knew it was a better idea to wait for nature to do its thing but to be fair I was completely and utterly over being pregnant. So I said yes and my induction was booked for that Wednesday.
Due to finding out early in pregnancy that his left arm had not formed properly we were due to have another scan at 38 weeks. It was discovered that he had stopped growing and they suggested inducing me. I had done research on this and knew it was a better idea to wait for nature to do its thing but to be fair I was completely and utterly over being pregnant. So I said yes and my induction was booked for that Wednesday.
Upon being checked (which was horrible! It's like they don't even bother to be gentle because you're going to be in pain. Yeah sure, I get it. Why would someone who is in pain want the part that hurts the most to be treated gently, right?) the doctor exclaimed "well you are already 1cm dilated. I could just break your waters right now" but they didn't they just used a 1/4 of the amount of gel they usually use. I went into labour at 4pm. I had to stay in the hospital overnight for observation strapped up to an infernal machine. It's cool to hear the heartbeat and see how strong your contractions are getting for a while but after that it is a pain. I wanted to move so I just took it off and started pacing the corridor. It's quite lonely in a hospital at night but I got no sleep. I was a bit excited. Then I was a bit sore. And then I was crying to myself wishing that my husband was there to give me a cuddle. Then a nurse told me I could get in the shower if I wanted. Shower? It was heaven! I hadn't done it sooner because I didn't know if it would wash the gel away. This has made me convinced that I would have done much better with a water birth like originally planned but alas, I was not allowed one because I had been induced and therefore 'had' to be monitored.
By 7am the next morning my contractions were so strong they were making me throw up and I couldn't talk. This made it particularly hard to tell the nurse that I wanted my midwife now. She was due to come in at 8:30. The nurse kept asking me questions. "Are you in pain?" what I wanted to reply was "oh no I'm just hanging over this toilet and shaking for fun" but not being able to talk all I could do was nod.
My midwife was on the way! I was walked into a delivery room (no easy feat) and tried the gas. No go there. Just made me sick and gave me a headache. By the time my midwife got there I was convinced I was in transition. Contractions didn't seem to have more than 5 seconds between them and just went on and on. A check revealed I was only 3cm. I was biting the mattress to keep from screaming at this point and I managed to get out that I wanted an epidural. It's a funny thing being in so much pain that the idea of someone shoving a needle in your spine sounds like a lovely holiday. My midwife said ok I will just get the paperwork ready and go find an anaesthetist. Seriously? When you have reached the point of wanting drugs you kind of want them RIGHT NOW but there was nothing I could do except wait. When she came back the news was not what I wanted. "there have been two emergency c-secs so both the house and floor anaesthetists are occupied. They wont be able to get to you for a couple of hours". oh fantastic. "we don't like to do this but would you like some pethidine?". Ah pethidine. The one drug I had decided absolutely not on. My mother had used it for my sisters birth with horrible side effects and I had done enough research to put myself off it, not to mention a lot of midwives felt the same way and didn't like to use it. "sure give it to me". Desperation thou art a heartless so and so... My husband prayed for me. "God we really don't want pethidine. Please find a way for her to get the pain relief she needs".
When my midwife came back in she was followed by a black man called Ash. Later I would ask to marry him. He was sadly already married. Anyway, he greeted me with the most amazing words I had heard come out of a man's mouth: "Hi, I'm here to do your epidural". As it turns out he was having a coffee and heard my midwife talking about getting me pethidine and wondered why she was getting it when I was going to have an epidural so he just said "I'll do it :) ". He found a vein on the first go where other nurses had failed. They seem to be a witty bunch. I guess you have to be when you stab people for a living. The epidural went in first time and numbed me perfectly, which apparently is weird because he kept coming back in to check on me. "are you sure its working?" "can you feel this?" "it's not uncomfortable?" and then walked away muttering "too easy... it was too easy". I didn't care. It was bliss. My butt went all warm and tingly and the pain went away. I'm pretty sure it makes you euphoric. Or perhaps instant relief from pain does that, who knows. I lay back and rested. I was so happy that when one of the doctors came in and asked if I was open to having a medical student watch the proceedings (something which I originally said no to) I said sure and ended up talking to her for hours.
Contractions did slow down however so I was also hooked up to a syntocin drip. At this point it was clear that what my midwife had suspected was right and my contractions were reading like a posterior labour. I had been working really hard to get my baby to turn around since our 35 week scan had shown he was posterior and at 38 weeks he had. It explained a lot. I had been having a massive contraction and then a smaller one in between. It also explained why it hurt so much.
My second midwife had been summoned to the hospital that day for another lady who had a relatively painless 5 hour labour. The stuff of legends. I felt like a bit of a failure for taking so long. It must have been a bit boring for everyone I'm sure. She came in to say hi and also broke my waters for me.
Fast forward a few hours to about 7pm and a doctor came in to check my progress. She also decided it would be fun to stretch me. I'm sure she stuffed something up because it hurt... and then it kept hurting. A constant blinding pain that had me writhing on the bed and nurses rushing to shove needles in me to draw blood (not very successfully) as I spiked a fever. They tried topping up my epidural to no avail. The student came in handy here because she passed cooled towels to my husband to put on my back. somehow I had managed to get onto all fours. I really wanted something cold and some pressure down there but no one was listening to me. Finally I swiped a cold facecloth and just did it myself. Then I found out why there was so much pressure but no action:
My baby was stuck.
In the process of "checking" me I think the doctor pushed his head out of alignment and threw off the even thinning of my cervix. My midwife managed to let her check me after much protest from me. I never wanted anyone to go near my hoo-ha again. Not after that. I had been forced to roll back over and I was shaved for a c-sec which I really did not want. This was enough motivation to let her check me. She found a lip of my cervix which had not thinned and told me she was going to try something and it was really going to hurt. She pushed the lip back over his head, it went ping and there was relief enough that I could just weather through the pain by breathing. Someone had to remind me to do this and I now wish I could have laboured at home so that my husband would have been there to tell me to breathe. Being scared because you are alone and then being told you aren't allowed to birth how you want and on top of all that not having had any sleep for almost 2 days definitely made the pain worse overall.
My midwife told me that I could push now. I had none of the powerful urges to push that I had heard so many women talk about. I said to my husband "I can't. I have no energy to do crunches right now". He is the hero of this story. He put his arm under my shoulders and lifted me up every time I said ok. I had no idea how hard you have to push! You get past the point of pain and all the pain transfers to your face and you feel like every blood vessel you own is going to burst. I couldn't tell if I was having contractions or not. My midwife told me that epidurals only stopped contraction pain not vaginal pain. I wish someone had told me that before. I was expecting no pain.
I pushed for 30 mins which only felt like 5 and felt good to be making progress. His head was half out and it looked like his forehead was stuck but one big push revealed the other 50% of his head. It must've been a shock because I heard both midwives and the student say "oh..." I wasn't told to wait when he crowned. I think everyone was so tired and just wanted it to be over. At this point I had been in labour for 30 hours. So I tore, which sucked afterwards but I was just glad he was out. His body took longer than I expected to slither out and after the hardness of the head it felt like he had no bones. The resultant feeling being as if my insides were falling out which was scary as heck. He cried once, did a poo (out just in the nick of time then, so he avoided muconium aspiration) and then went straight on my tummy.
My husband said "look babe! There he is!" I replied "cool. I can't see him. I can't sit up" He helped me sit up a bit again and then I saw him. He was beautiful. His skin was a bit dry and there was no vernix. I decided then that when I was having my breakdown he was actually ready to come out as he looked over done.
His head was gourd shaped because it came out on a slight angle (no doubt from the confounded "checking") but it came right pretty quickly. Apgar scores of 9,10 and 10 which is awesome!
Having gone through it now I don't just have to guess at what might happen so my next pregnancy and labour are going to go a bit differently I think. Don't take no for an answer when I know my body needs something. Avoid labour on my back as far as possible. Labour in water and with someone else there keeping me calm and reminding me to breathe. Less interference in the form of being strapped to machines and no checking unless by someone who promises to be gentle and not augment my progress in any way.
But at the end of the day: he's out, he's safe, he's perfect for us :)
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