Birth Story

-warning - contains references to girly bits and gross stuff....

31/12
I woke up from a nap at 5pm with what felt like a contraction to me, a sore tightening feeling which lasted over a minute. Another one came 20 minutes later while I was still in bed.

I got up and later in the evening I went for a walk with my husband. During the walk I started feeling the contractions again and they were painful, but I could stay upright and even still shuffle a bit. They seemed to be coming between 5 and 15 minutes apart. Once we got home and sat down they tailed off. I put te final things into my hospital bags though just in case. The contractions started up again later and I went to have a bath.

At midnight my husband and I celebrated the new year and my birthday with a kiss and some presents for me. Around 1am we decided to try and get some sleep because we'd probably need it for the following day. however, once I went to lie down I realised there was no way that I'd be able to sleep through the contractions. I went and talked to my husband and we decided to call the midwife while she might still be up from new years celebrations and let her know what was happening.

I spoke to her on the phone and felt a bit foolish because I couldn't tell her how far apart the contractions were or how long they lasted and I had no other signs like show or waters breaking. She said to ring her again if they became spaced out at about 5 minutes apart. I ran another bath and Michael came and timed contractions for me. They were 5 minutes apart and over a minutes duration, so we knew that we were properly in labour. Around then I suddenly felt really nauseus and threw up my dinner all over the toilet floor - yuck!

We are close to the hospital and so wanted to stay at home for as long as possible, however at 4am I was feeling that I wanted to head over there. Michael loaded the bags in the car. We called the midwife again. I know I probably sounded cheerful on the phone as I have a knack for putting on a happy telephone voice. I'm not sure that she believed that I was ready to go to hospital but she agreed to meet us there half an hour later anyway. We drove to the hospital and made our way through the maze of corridors and doors up to the delivery suite where our midwife was waiting for us. She took us into a delivery room and put the belt monitors on me.

Sure enough, I was having regular contractions. It was quite good watching the machine because you could see the intensity of the contraction and so you could see when the contraction was starting to subside. The contractions did hurt though, I went very quiet each time one was happening.

Soon after that that my midwife did an internal examination and I was 3 cms dilated. The exam didn't feel sore although she warned me it would.

I was feeling nauseus again and over the course of the labour was throwing up quite regularly, and managed to do a bit of damage to my oesphagus which made eating quite sore for several days. I had a bath for a while (twice!) which was very nice as I could move around quite freely in the deep water compared to on the bed. I also had a yummy lemonade iceblock which was just exactly what I needed, although I think it came up again.

Another exam and I was 5 cms dilated - yay. My midwife recommended that she break my waters. She did that and it was quite a strange sensation, a sort of tugging, and then everything was very puddlely. From then on there was bloody show whenever I sat on the toilet, which was quite often as I found it more comfortable to sit there than be in bed. After another while she did another internal exam but to my disappointment I was still 5 cms dilated.

At that point my midwife suggested we try syntocin to speed things up. She said it would increase the frequency and the pain of the contractions and said that if I was thinking about having an epidural then it was a good time to get one done. I talked to my husband about it and we agreed to get an epidural and the syntocin. The anesthetist arrived after a while and put the epidural in. It was actually not scary at all having it put in, just a bit uncomfortable and strange for 30 seconds, and I remember wondering why I had been quite anti them beforehand.

The syntocin drip got going and the midwife had to keep turning it up, although my contractions weren't really coming any faster. The epidural kicked in, BUT, only on the left side of my body, on the right hand side I could still feel the contractions and everything. The epidural drugs were due for a top-up and the top-up didn't fix the problem. However, the syntocin was finally doing its job and I was getting closer to fully dilated. The Obstetrician on duty came and had a look and thought I was about 8cms dilated. (I get a bit hazy after this point in the story).

Finally to my relief I got to full dilation. Strangely though, I had no urge to push or bear down. My midwife told me to take a deep breath when the contractions were winding up and then bear down towards my bottom, so I tried doing that. I couldn't have another epidural top-up for some reason, I think because it might have been interfering with my pushing urge. I was pushing anyway, but Bevan wasn't coming down any further and he was staying at station 0 for some reason. At some point he'd managed to twist around from being anterior to posterior, so that may have had some bearing.

I felt like I hadn't really tried my hardest with the pushing, but then I know I would've put more effort in if there had been some progress at all. After about an hour or 90 minutes of trying the pushing my midwife spoke to the obstretician again and discussed what could be done. Apparently he was too high to try a forceps or ventouse extraction. It was me who said, "so does that mean a caesarian?"

And yes, it did mean a caesarian. So all the required staff were paged in and I was prepared for the operation. My midwife whipped out an electric razor and trimmed my hair down there a bit. I think it was around then that a cathetar was put in too. It was evening by this time and my midwife was quite tired and so she handed over my care to the other staff. They wheeled me down to the operating theatre (strange looking up at the ceiling during the trip) and they took my husband aside to get him kitted up in a fetching blue surgery outfit, complete with bonnet.

The anesthetist put in some strong doses of the epidural drug and some morphine and then tested whether it was working by running cubes of ice up my legs. Pretty soon I couldn't feel that they were cold and it was time for the op to start. A small screen was put up to stop any splatter and I guess that is when they started with the incisions. The surgeon was performing the c-section for her first time at Hutt Hospital as she was normally based at Wellington hospital, so she had to ask the nurses for a bit of help to find things in the theatre and that sort of thing. The anesthetist distracted my husband and I quite well with a lot of chatter. I could feel quite vigourous but not painful tugging happening then.

Shortly afterwards they pulled out our baby. I couldn't see anything, but my husband could and he got teary eyed and said that our baby was beautiful. We heard a cry a little while later. Little Bevan had an apgar of 8 at 1 minute (or 9 according to some other notes) and 10 at 5 minutes. I imagine they checked him over and cleaned him up and then they wrapped him in a towel and brought him over to my husband to hold. I was lying right next to where my husband was sitting at my head, so I could see my babys face profile. It was a bit weird because I couldn't really tell anything about him. He was born at 7:31 pm on my birthday, new years day. His birth weight was 9lbs 11oz.

They suctioned out lots of fluid from inside me and then did the stitching up. Eventually we were wheeled to the recovery room where the hospital midwives encouraged me to try breastfeeding. We were there for quite a while before we were wheeled up to our postnatal room. Michael and I were pretty tired by then and I was woozy from the drugs. At around 10:30pm Michael headed home to sleep. I don't remember much at all of the first night, but I know the midwives were quite attentive and that they put Bevan to my breast several times during the night. In the morning I was still a bit out of it and didn't really feel human until after my cathetar and IV thingy was removed and I'd been helped to the shower to freshen up - thank goodness they had a seat in the shower.

Bevan's birth story ends there, and his baby story really begins at that point. My recovery will hopefully be short. I was in the hospital from early Monday morning to Saturday mid-morning, and that was plenty enough time to build my confidence and have my milk come in.