It is hard to believe that this was almost a year ago now. Still, I thought I would share our story here, and get into the spirit of the new online magazine. I did actually write it just 3 weeks after Arthur's birth.
It
all started on the Sunday, though at a fairly slow pace - my first
signs that my little guy would be a fairly laid back little being. I
woke up with cramps and then discovered that the mucus plug had started
to disintegrate. After a while I noticed that there were times when the
cramps hurt more than others... I thought this might be early signs of
contractions and that perhaps something might be happening.
I
went to bed early on Sunday night just in case. It was a good plan as
the cramps were actually enough to wake me at 2 am. I tried timing the
intervals between the cramps but it was hard to do - there was a dull
ache there all the time which got worse for a bit, but it was really
hard to tell where the worse bit (potentially a contraction) started and
finished, but it seemed like they were lasting about 2 1/2 mins every 8
minutes or so.
After a while I
got up and ate and watched a bit of TV. The cramps became less frequent
and less intense so I went back to bed. I slept through the
'contractions' so you get the idea that they weren't that painful! I
decided to let Justin (Arthur's Daddy who lives in London) and the doula know what was going on,
even though things didn't really seem that imminent to me.
People
started saying that I was in early labour and that things could all
speed up at any minute - I still didn't really feel like that was the
case - but these people had children and I didn't, so I decided that
perhaps I should listen to them. I could now see how people manage to
record massively long labours though - I decided not to start timing
yet!
Justin was encouraged by the
women at his work to get himself here as soon as possible, and so he
arrived early evening on the Monday. That night too, the contractions
were more intense than in the day - I didn't get a wink of sleep.
Tuesday came and went, Justin busied himself in the kitchen, making meals
for the freezer, I tried to rest. My doula came too to see how I was
going. Between them they made me eat and sleep. I took some painkillers
that night and managed to sleep between contractions which was great.
And
so came Wednesday. Now, things were starting to hurt quite a bit now
and I began to feel like I wanted to hurry this baby along. Justin drove me
over to my parents house where I proceeded to walk around the garden.
Then I went to see the reflexologist and massage therapist that I had
been seeing throughout my pregnancy. On the drive there the contractions
seemed worse, on the drive back they seemed worse still. I was thinking
they might calm down once I was out of the car, but no!
So, we took a final photo of Mr Bump
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| Last ever photo of Mr Bump - 41 + 1 |
I
hung out at home for as long as I could and eventually went into
hospital in the early hours of Thursday morning. I was 5 cm on arrival.
All was well at this stage and I was admitted into the midwife led
birthing unit. After a couple of hours, the pool was free and so I moved
into there. I had no other pain relief still at this stage and the
contractions were fairly strong but I could just about manage them with
breathing.
I did have incredible back pain though, the baby was actually back to back, and
on examination a few hours later, they found that and my labour had not progressed at all
since my arrival. Due to his position the baby couldn't break my waters
and so they had to be broken artificially. This made the contractions
incredibly strong - I would say that I rapidly went to 10cm after this,
though the whole thing is in fact a blur. I needed pain relief and
despite having said I wouldn't have pethidine, it seemed like I would be
completely giving in to go straight to an epidural, and so I accepted
the pethidine offer.
It turns
out I am one of those people for whom pethidine has no effect... so
then it was time for the epidural, it seemed to take forever for the
anaethetist to arrive as he had emergencies to deal with. Eventually he
came, and the epidural was inserted. But it only numbed half of my
body. So he had to come back. The wait for that seemed to be forever! After turning me over and trying to make
it drain into the other side (!), and topping me up, eventually it was
taking effect on both sides.
By
this time I think I had been at 10cm for a while. Baby's heart beat was
getting slower and slower when I had contractions and the staff were
starting to worry - they did some tests on the baby's oxygen levels and
they came back "borderline". Suddenly we were an emergency and baby had
to be out within an hour - we were on our way to theatre!
This
was a horrible hour, but somehow I managed to stay focussed on the task
in hand and ignore all the people rushing about and prepping up in the
theatre. I just kept repeating to myself that I was in one of the best
hospitals in the country and I just had to get this baby out...
I
could feel nothing but had to learn to push - with the help of one of
the midwives I learned to tell when I was having a contraction by
feeling it in the the top of my uterus with my hand and then we
practiced pushing so that I knew, even without feeling, which ones were
effective. Once we actually got to the point where the rest of the team
were ready to help, it didn't take too many pushes,
combined with the pulls of ventouse, to bring the baby out.
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| First photo of the little guy |
It
took him a while to cry, he needed help to breathe and had to have
mucus sucked out of his lungs and was fairly unresponsive at first - I
was panicking, but eventually was told that he was fine. It wasn't the
birth I was hoping for, but I am happy with it all the same. Little man
got here safely and I couldn't ask for more than that!
I now know that his APGAR score was 6 at 1min, 8 at 5 min and 9 at 10
mins - so really, after all that he is a very healthy baby. His weight
was 7lb 2.5oz (3.255kg).
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| Arthur and I have our first look at each other |
He changed really quickly as his head became less cone like and his wrinkles ironed out.
 |
| 3 hours old |
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| 6 hours old |
We came home before he was even 24 hours old.
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| Just before we left hospital |
Many
thanks to Justin and my doula and for their support throughout the whole
event, and to the excellent staff at Hinchingbrooke Hospital.
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