oboeverity
Mummy to Ted and Willem
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I know this will get moved as it's a birth story, but I can;t for the life of me find the relevant section, so...
The Birth of Willem Timothy Ernest
27th September 2011
Willem’s labour was exciting, and …. Drawn out! Just over two weeks prior to his due date, early on the Sunday morning, I had woken to contractions that were becoming closer together and more painful. After about an hour of these pains, which were centred in my back, as Willem had been lying back to back for some weeks, they just stopped! And then nothing at all! I was a little relieved, but also very frustrated! I had been much bigger and waddlier with Willem than I had with Ted, and part of me was desperate for labour to begin!
Over a week later, I was having very intense pressure into my bottom, and pain in waves, so had rung the hospital, after midnight, and they had advised me to wait til the pains were five minutes apart and then to set off. I had been diagnosed at 28 weeks with the strepB infection, and knew that once contractions became regular, or my waters broke, I would need to be admitted onto LDRP for IV antibiotics. Labour ward hadn’t been my first choice; after Ted’s ‘textbook’ entry to the world I had wanted a homebirth, but my high BMI (36) and my use of prescription drugs had precluded this, so a compromise of Huddersfield birth centre was offered, and then retracted when the strep B was discovered. Once again, as soon as the contractions started to become regular, they stopped, and we were back to square one! I had been having awful insomnia and restless legs, and by that point, I was VERY fed up!
On the morning of Monday the 26th of September, I had decided to go into town for some last minute baby shopping, and to simply get out of the house! I waddled slowly down to the bus stop at 1pm, and caught the bus into town, where I spent a happy couple of hours wandering and getting bits and pieces. The pressure on my hips and pelvis were astonishing, and I finally gave in and got a taxi home. Lots of people started at my ample belly, and some asked how much longer I had to go. It felt very strange saying that I was due the next day, as I had fully expected to have Willem early (Ted was three days early).
When I got home, the man was repairing the boiler, and we stood and chatted briefly. As I saw him out, I realised I felt damp, and closer inspection showed that my trousers were wet. I knew that if I rang triage, they would tell me to put on a pad, and sit for an hour or so, to see if it was amniotic fluid leaking, so that’s what I did. I texted Richard to tell him what was happening, and he said he was about to collect Ted from nursery and leave. By the time he had got home, and Ted had shown me his new trick of walking, I was ready to check the pad; Richard confirmed that it was damp.
Richard put Ted in the bath and I called triage, explaining that I thought I might have been leaking fluid, and that I was SBP, and they called us in. We put my hospital bags in the boot of the car, just in case, and I checked that it was ok to take Ted to a friend’s, and packed him a bag. I felt awful. The plan was always that Ted would be at the birth of his brother, as it would happen at home, and here we were, making every effort to keep him away.
We took Ted to our friend, and she expertly whisked him off. After a short detour to stock up on sandwhiches at the Co-Op, we wended our way to Calderdale Royal Hospital’s maternity triage ward.
The ward were rushed off their feet, and though we were first in the queue, after the two women already occupying beds, it took an hour and a half to be seen, and by the time we went in, there were three women behind us. We were called to a side ward, I gave a urine sample showing small traces of protein I was and monitored for thirty minutes. I’d been monitored in this pregnancy before, twice. The first time was at 28 weeks after I had experienced tightening, and then late, at 36 weeks, when Will had been uncharacteristically quiet. This time, as well as Willem dancing about, which, thanks to his position, we could clearly see from my tummy, we could also see plenty of uterine activity on the trace. Although I couldn’t feel them, I was having short, irregular contractions and Will was reacting to them.
The CTG being normal, it was decided that an internal exam be done with a speculum, and the kit duly appeared. Richard and I were a bit silly at this point, as when the midwife announced that she would need a torch, we both burst out laughing! A torch was sourced, and though there was no fluid to be seen, there was evidence of a fairly heavy infection, so swabs were taken for analysis, and we were sent home. Instructions were given that we should call the ward and return if the contractions were painful and fewer than five minutes apart.
We went to get Ted, and took him home to bed. Richard too went to bed, and I sat in bed, watching catchup TV on my laptop, shopping on eBay and talking to friends on Facebook chat…. They gradually went to bed too, and I was once again alone in the wee small hours!
At around 3am, I started to feel very uncomfortable. I was cramping, and those cramps, starting in my back, were beginning to feel very uncomfortable. I went to the loo, and notced that there was blood when I wiped. Not being sure if the blood was a show, or from the speculum, I went back to bed. An hour later, being still awake, I went to the loo again, there was more blood, this time with tinged mucus, and I know ‘this was it’. I had a shower to see if the cramps would ease, and they didn’t, so at 5, I woke Richard and explained was was happening, I was desperate to hang on until 7, so we could get Ted up and take him to nursery, but I knew we weren’t going to make it. At around 6 I asked Richard to call our friend, while I called triage. The midwife on the phone could tell I was contracting, and called us in while Richard jumped in the shower. I woke Ted up, and he was surprisingly good natured! I dressed him, and Richard loaded the car. I remember vividly being on all fours breathing through contractions with Ted on all fours copying me! Richard took Ted to our friend and I got dressed. I took two paracetamol.
The drive to the hospital seemed to take forever; we took back roads, and early morning drivers seemed to be going at well below the speed limit!With each contraction, I was inwardly singing the words from ‘Defying Gravity’, which kept me focussed. We were admitted at 6.40 am, however, and after waiting for a bed on triage which didn’t become available we were taken straight to a room on labour ward; it must have been quite evident that this was the real thing, as the midwife asked me to get changed. She said she wasn’t going to examine me, as the shifts were about to change over, and I’d end up with a new midwife. We were left to settle in, and I noticed that there was no window…. This was a bit sad, as I wanted to know what time to day it was from more than simply the clock. A new midwife appeared, called (?) and she examined me, finding me to be 3cm (hurrah!) but that my cervix, though on it’s way, was not especially shortened, and had some way to go. At some point she must have handed me over to someone else, because the next midwife was called Hannah Woods, and she was, simply put, brilliant! It was the one and only time that I was examined.
I was put on the monitor again, and Willem was still moving about well, having been quite quiet since 3. I was in considerable discomfort, but had wanted to hold out on the gas and air for as long as possible. The song words had been replaced by ‘Every contraction is one fewer’, and it seemed to work! The lights were turned right down.
I predicted to Richard that we would have a baby by 11am; this took two hours off our time with Ted!
By the time I finally relented and allowed myself the gas and air, I felt as though my pelvis was being ripped apart. The pains were no longer in my back, though Hannah assured me that he hadn’t turned. They were right down low, and the gas felt brilliant. I uttered the immortal ‘we need this stuff at home’, but only used it as sparingly as I could; as the contraction subsided each time, I stopped, and rode it out myself. I was desperate not to become overly dependent. My affirmations had now become ‘Every contraction is one fewer’ (on the breath in) and ‘I can do this’ (on the out)…. As time went on, I was surprised to change the out breath affirmation to ‘This is His plan’. My faith has taken a beating lately, and I never expected it to come into play. I received the IV antibiotics via a cannular in my right arm.
I must admit to losing track of the time; Hannah was in and out and Richard only left my side once to get food from the car. At some point, I told Hannah that as the contractions were tailing off, they were ending in pressure to push. I know that things were close. I remember at one point asking for some Rennies, as I had awful heartburn. I chewed them up, but was sick on them, as I was on the paracetamol and codeine that Hannah gave me latet on. I was taking sips of water throughout which really helped. At some point, I got up for a wee, only to have a contraction on the loo; no gas and air there!
As the pressure to push grew, I lost all inhibitions, and lay there, legs akimbo, moaning through them; that’s how it feels, though Richard tells me I was very restrained! I do remember at one point, mentally telling myself to remove my fingernails from Richard’s hand; he later admitted that I drew blood.
The feeling of needing to push is unlike any other, and by the time it came, I was ready to get Willem out! I tried my hardest to bear down with my chin on my chest, and asked for the bed to be lowered. I told everyone that I’d had enough, and that I could do no more but lots of encouragement got me through. I remember biting on the mouthpiece of the gas and air so hard that I thought I was going to break my front teeth. All the time, I saw, and appreciated the fact that Hannah never took her eyes of me, but let me do what I needed to do. It makes me want to cry even now knowing that I listened to my body 100%. That’s something I never thought I could do, and I have Karen to thank for that, as she taught me that I could do it. Even in my moments of greatest pain, I knew I could do it, and that I needed to see it though.
I remember Hannah telling me that ‘we could really do with these waters breaking’…. Willem was born ‘en caul’, or with his membranes intact. Richard says it was very bizarre to watch. As his head had been out for some time, Hannah made the decision to knick the membrane, and with a final push, Willem was out, flowed by a gush of amniotic fluid. I remember that feeling of the body following the head all too well from Ted’s birth, and it was no less a relief this time! The monitor beside me flatlined, and I knew Will was finally Earthside, rather than Mummyside!
Will was put onto my chest, and we had our first cuddle. After finding the scales, it transpired that I had delivered an 8lb 5oz, back to back, en caul baby, on his due date, using only gas and air for pain relief… there are no words.
We were moved to a side room on birth centre as there was simply no space on recovery, and though the bed was awful, being a delivery bed, it gave me the time to get to know Will and get up and about under my own steam. He showed no ill effects from the step B , or my medication, but did have a huge amount of mucus in his tummy which he proceeded to throw up generously over the next 24 hours.
Out of labour, I got a beautiful son, but I also got back some of the control that I felt I lost birthing Ted. Having Ted was the best thing that ever happened to me, but I sometimes feel that delivery left me in shock, and with a number of demons that precipitated my post natal depression.
Will is now 5 days old, and it feels as though he’s always been here. Ted is very accepting of his baby brother, if not always as gentle as we’d hope, but what do you expect from a 15 month old, whose nickname is ‘Mr Bounce and Shout’?! I pray that they grow up to be as close as brothers as they are in age, and that they will always have a best friend in each other. I can’t wait to watch them grow up.
Sunday October 2nd 2011
The Birth of Willem Timothy Ernest
27th September 2011
Willem’s labour was exciting, and …. Drawn out! Just over two weeks prior to his due date, early on the Sunday morning, I had woken to contractions that were becoming closer together and more painful. After about an hour of these pains, which were centred in my back, as Willem had been lying back to back for some weeks, they just stopped! And then nothing at all! I was a little relieved, but also very frustrated! I had been much bigger and waddlier with Willem than I had with Ted, and part of me was desperate for labour to begin!
Over a week later, I was having very intense pressure into my bottom, and pain in waves, so had rung the hospital, after midnight, and they had advised me to wait til the pains were five minutes apart and then to set off. I had been diagnosed at 28 weeks with the strepB infection, and knew that once contractions became regular, or my waters broke, I would need to be admitted onto LDRP for IV antibiotics. Labour ward hadn’t been my first choice; after Ted’s ‘textbook’ entry to the world I had wanted a homebirth, but my high BMI (36) and my use of prescription drugs had precluded this, so a compromise of Huddersfield birth centre was offered, and then retracted when the strep B was discovered. Once again, as soon as the contractions started to become regular, they stopped, and we were back to square one! I had been having awful insomnia and restless legs, and by that point, I was VERY fed up!
On the morning of Monday the 26th of September, I had decided to go into town for some last minute baby shopping, and to simply get out of the house! I waddled slowly down to the bus stop at 1pm, and caught the bus into town, where I spent a happy couple of hours wandering and getting bits and pieces. The pressure on my hips and pelvis were astonishing, and I finally gave in and got a taxi home. Lots of people started at my ample belly, and some asked how much longer I had to go. It felt very strange saying that I was due the next day, as I had fully expected to have Willem early (Ted was three days early).
When I got home, the man was repairing the boiler, and we stood and chatted briefly. As I saw him out, I realised I felt damp, and closer inspection showed that my trousers were wet. I knew that if I rang triage, they would tell me to put on a pad, and sit for an hour or so, to see if it was amniotic fluid leaking, so that’s what I did. I texted Richard to tell him what was happening, and he said he was about to collect Ted from nursery and leave. By the time he had got home, and Ted had shown me his new trick of walking, I was ready to check the pad; Richard confirmed that it was damp.
Richard put Ted in the bath and I called triage, explaining that I thought I might have been leaking fluid, and that I was SBP, and they called us in. We put my hospital bags in the boot of the car, just in case, and I checked that it was ok to take Ted to a friend’s, and packed him a bag. I felt awful. The plan was always that Ted would be at the birth of his brother, as it would happen at home, and here we were, making every effort to keep him away.
We took Ted to our friend, and she expertly whisked him off. After a short detour to stock up on sandwhiches at the Co-Op, we wended our way to Calderdale Royal Hospital’s maternity triage ward.
The ward were rushed off their feet, and though we were first in the queue, after the two women already occupying beds, it took an hour and a half to be seen, and by the time we went in, there were three women behind us. We were called to a side ward, I gave a urine sample showing small traces of protein I was and monitored for thirty minutes. I’d been monitored in this pregnancy before, twice. The first time was at 28 weeks after I had experienced tightening, and then late, at 36 weeks, when Will had been uncharacteristically quiet. This time, as well as Willem dancing about, which, thanks to his position, we could clearly see from my tummy, we could also see plenty of uterine activity on the trace. Although I couldn’t feel them, I was having short, irregular contractions and Will was reacting to them.
The CTG being normal, it was decided that an internal exam be done with a speculum, and the kit duly appeared. Richard and I were a bit silly at this point, as when the midwife announced that she would need a torch, we both burst out laughing! A torch was sourced, and though there was no fluid to be seen, there was evidence of a fairly heavy infection, so swabs were taken for analysis, and we were sent home. Instructions were given that we should call the ward and return if the contractions were painful and fewer than five minutes apart.
We went to get Ted, and took him home to bed. Richard too went to bed, and I sat in bed, watching catchup TV on my laptop, shopping on eBay and talking to friends on Facebook chat…. They gradually went to bed too, and I was once again alone in the wee small hours!
At around 3am, I started to feel very uncomfortable. I was cramping, and those cramps, starting in my back, were beginning to feel very uncomfortable. I went to the loo, and notced that there was blood when I wiped. Not being sure if the blood was a show, or from the speculum, I went back to bed. An hour later, being still awake, I went to the loo again, there was more blood, this time with tinged mucus, and I know ‘this was it’. I had a shower to see if the cramps would ease, and they didn’t, so at 5, I woke Richard and explained was was happening, I was desperate to hang on until 7, so we could get Ted up and take him to nursery, but I knew we weren’t going to make it. At around 6 I asked Richard to call our friend, while I called triage. The midwife on the phone could tell I was contracting, and called us in while Richard jumped in the shower. I woke Ted up, and he was surprisingly good natured! I dressed him, and Richard loaded the car. I remember vividly being on all fours breathing through contractions with Ted on all fours copying me! Richard took Ted to our friend and I got dressed. I took two paracetamol.
The drive to the hospital seemed to take forever; we took back roads, and early morning drivers seemed to be going at well below the speed limit!With each contraction, I was inwardly singing the words from ‘Defying Gravity’, which kept me focussed. We were admitted at 6.40 am, however, and after waiting for a bed on triage which didn’t become available we were taken straight to a room on labour ward; it must have been quite evident that this was the real thing, as the midwife asked me to get changed. She said she wasn’t going to examine me, as the shifts were about to change over, and I’d end up with a new midwife. We were left to settle in, and I noticed that there was no window…. This was a bit sad, as I wanted to know what time to day it was from more than simply the clock. A new midwife appeared, called (?) and she examined me, finding me to be 3cm (hurrah!) but that my cervix, though on it’s way, was not especially shortened, and had some way to go. At some point she must have handed me over to someone else, because the next midwife was called Hannah Woods, and she was, simply put, brilliant! It was the one and only time that I was examined.
I was put on the monitor again, and Willem was still moving about well, having been quite quiet since 3. I was in considerable discomfort, but had wanted to hold out on the gas and air for as long as possible. The song words had been replaced by ‘Every contraction is one fewer’, and it seemed to work! The lights were turned right down.
I predicted to Richard that we would have a baby by 11am; this took two hours off our time with Ted!
By the time I finally relented and allowed myself the gas and air, I felt as though my pelvis was being ripped apart. The pains were no longer in my back, though Hannah assured me that he hadn’t turned. They were right down low, and the gas felt brilliant. I uttered the immortal ‘we need this stuff at home’, but only used it as sparingly as I could; as the contraction subsided each time, I stopped, and rode it out myself. I was desperate not to become overly dependent. My affirmations had now become ‘Every contraction is one fewer’ (on the breath in) and ‘I can do this’ (on the out)…. As time went on, I was surprised to change the out breath affirmation to ‘This is His plan’. My faith has taken a beating lately, and I never expected it to come into play. I received the IV antibiotics via a cannular in my right arm.
I must admit to losing track of the time; Hannah was in and out and Richard only left my side once to get food from the car. At some point, I told Hannah that as the contractions were tailing off, they were ending in pressure to push. I know that things were close. I remember at one point asking for some Rennies, as I had awful heartburn. I chewed them up, but was sick on them, as I was on the paracetamol and codeine that Hannah gave me latet on. I was taking sips of water throughout which really helped. At some point, I got up for a wee, only to have a contraction on the loo; no gas and air there!
As the pressure to push grew, I lost all inhibitions, and lay there, legs akimbo, moaning through them; that’s how it feels, though Richard tells me I was very restrained! I do remember at one point, mentally telling myself to remove my fingernails from Richard’s hand; he later admitted that I drew blood.
The feeling of needing to push is unlike any other, and by the time it came, I was ready to get Willem out! I tried my hardest to bear down with my chin on my chest, and asked for the bed to be lowered. I told everyone that I’d had enough, and that I could do no more but lots of encouragement got me through. I remember biting on the mouthpiece of the gas and air so hard that I thought I was going to break my front teeth. All the time, I saw, and appreciated the fact that Hannah never took her eyes of me, but let me do what I needed to do. It makes me want to cry even now knowing that I listened to my body 100%. That’s something I never thought I could do, and I have Karen to thank for that, as she taught me that I could do it. Even in my moments of greatest pain, I knew I could do it, and that I needed to see it though.
I remember Hannah telling me that ‘we could really do with these waters breaking’…. Willem was born ‘en caul’, or with his membranes intact. Richard says it was very bizarre to watch. As his head had been out for some time, Hannah made the decision to knick the membrane, and with a final push, Willem was out, flowed by a gush of amniotic fluid. I remember that feeling of the body following the head all too well from Ted’s birth, and it was no less a relief this time! The monitor beside me flatlined, and I knew Will was finally Earthside, rather than Mummyside!
Will was put onto my chest, and we had our first cuddle. After finding the scales, it transpired that I had delivered an 8lb 5oz, back to back, en caul baby, on his due date, using only gas and air for pain relief… there are no words.
We were moved to a side room on birth centre as there was simply no space on recovery, and though the bed was awful, being a delivery bed, it gave me the time to get to know Will and get up and about under my own steam. He showed no ill effects from the step B , or my medication, but did have a huge amount of mucus in his tummy which he proceeded to throw up generously over the next 24 hours.
Out of labour, I got a beautiful son, but I also got back some of the control that I felt I lost birthing Ted. Having Ted was the best thing that ever happened to me, but I sometimes feel that delivery left me in shock, and with a number of demons that precipitated my post natal depression.
Will is now 5 days old, and it feels as though he’s always been here. Ted is very accepting of his baby brother, if not always as gentle as we’d hope, but what do you expect from a 15 month old, whose nickname is ‘Mr Bounce and Shout’?! I pray that they grow up to be as close as brothers as they are in age, and that they will always have a best friend in each other. I can’t wait to watch them grow up.
Sunday October 2nd 2011
xxx
