30th July 2010, 12:16pm
We are now back from a 5 day stay in hospital after the birth of Eric Cable! I thought I'd write about the birth (it'll be very long and detailed because I don't want to forget any of it in the future!)
On 25th July at 02:30 in the morning (so only 1 day overdue, or if you prefer - and I do! - the night of the due date!) I woke up thinking I had wet myself! I was pretty convinced it wasn't my waters breaking as, as you can see from my last post, I thought the baby was going to be late and not come that day after all. I sat in the bathroom unsure if I was weeing or not! About 15 minutes later I started getting tummy pains in the lower half of my bump, and assumed that I just had an upset tummy from the take away curry we'd eaten for tea!
However, these pains started to get worse and also spread into my back, so we rang the pager of the community midwife on call to say we thought I was possibly in labour. An hour later, at 04:00 we still hadn't heard back from anyone, so Alex rang again. Finally at 04:45 we got a call from the community midwife who assessed me on the phone. She asked me to explain what was going on, then said I sounded fine, at which point I got a contraction and couldn't speak, and was moaning and writhing around on the floor, begging Alex to make her come now to help us! She said she'd be there within half an hour, and arrived at 05:15. In the meantime I took 2 paracetamol and put on my Hypnobirthing relaxation on the iPod, and got in the bath. I managed to stay calm and ok for alot of the labour, only finding some of the later contractions unmanageable and was bellowing like a buffalo! After Jane arrived she did some paperwork then made me get out the bath and come downstairs where she examined me, and found I was already fully dilated and ready to push. She called for a second midwife, Mary, who arrived quickly and was really nice, spending lots of time rubbing my back. I spent time pushing in some different positions, but after an hour and a half started to get a bit disheartened as nothing seemed to be happening. Alex was so helpful, being reassuring ad saying how well I was doing, and rubbing my upper back. He tried to make the midwives coffee but had soya milk curdling issues! Jane examined me again to check I was definitely fully dilated, and found she was right and that I was, but now the baby's head was swelling slightly where it was being pushed against the cervix. She made me walk sideways upstairs like a crab, which when you're having strong contractions and urges to push was extremely difficult! But unfortunately nothing was strengthening the contractions and nothing was happening, I could not get the baby out :( The midwife liased with Southmead hospital and at 08:00 an ambulance was sent to take me in. Alex dashed about getting a few essentials for my hospital bag. I put on a dressing gown and managed to just get to the ambulance before needing to push again! The journey to the hospital is a bit of a blur. Alex followed the ambulance in the car. At one point we stopped and pulled over as there was a wasp in the ambulance so they had to shoo it out, Alex thought I must be having the baby there and they were going to get him in the back of the ambulance to witness the birth! At the hospital I was taken on the stretcher to the central delivery suite and saw a new midwife, Sharon, and a doctor. Sharon had an accent like Josie from Big Brother, and she was really positive and helped me with my pushing. The decision was made to give me Syntocinon drip to strengthen the contractions. I was upset about this and had a few more big pushes to see if I could manage without, but in the end agreed. It took about 20 minutes for the contractions to gain any strength and then they did get slightly longer, and I was pushing with all my might! The baby was still not coming out so the midwife, Sharon talked about a ventouse delivery. I started being able to push harder and she said things were looking a bit better, so we'd try to manage without. I pushed for another hour and she was happy with the progress, and said that she could see the baby's head finally coming down so I should be able to have a natural delivery. I kept pushing and the baby just wasn't moving, so she offered to do an episiotomy. I agreed, but then managed some really big pushes and managed to get his head out. Feeling the baby in the birth canal was so uncomfortable and strange, and crowning really hurt! Sharon realised that the problem was that the baby had it's hand up by it's face, which was making it so hard to push out. After the most exertion and hardest push I would ever have thought possible I finally gave birth to a boy! Seeing him come out was bizarre and amazing, and then they put him to my chest. I was overwhelmed and shocked, and couldn't believe the birth was finally over. Unfortunately because of all the trauma baby Eric was a bit blue, so he had some facial oxygen for a little while, whilst I delivered the placenta. But all was not over yet! Because I had pushed for so long, my uterus was too tired to contract and constrict all the blood vessels, so I lost 1 litre of blood, and had a team of 5 people rushing to work on me to fix it. I then had a catheter put in, cannulae put in each hand (which sprayed blood everywhere!) and was given 4 different drugs via injection, drips, and up my botty ;) and the consultant doctor, Kristen, put pressure on the bleed. She also put in some sutures as I had a second degree tear. During the whole birth I had no pain relief! I had to remain on the drips for 4 hours, then be monitored for a further hour, to check the bleed had stopped. I then had to have an antibiotic drip. During the whole time I wasn't allowed any food or water and was SO hot and thirsty! Eric only had to be on the oxygen for a few breaths, and then Alex held him whilst the medical staff worked on me. I then had him back and was able to cuddle him and give him his first feed. He was born 8lb 4oz, head circumference 36.5cm, with lots of dark spikey hair :) Finally we were allowed to move onto the postnatal ward, which I'll write about later as Eric is due a feed!
