yoshy
Jesse's mum and TTC #2
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My darling boy Jesse came into the world through caesarean section at 6:39am on Thursday, June 13th after 21 hours of labour beginning with my waters breaking with meconium in them on Wednesday morning at 9:20am.
So yeah, that's the short version.
Note before the long version: It includes a fairly graphical description of what a caesarean birth feels like, so please be warned, and skip that bit if you're squeamish.
So like I said, my waters broke at 9:20 on Wednesday morning. I went to the bathroom and sat there for five minutes laughing my head off.
Let's backtrack a minute. At 7am, I'd posted a comment on facebook, something to the tune of "okay, I get it, he's not coming before June 17th (which was the original date I'd predicted after finding out when he was due)". After that, I lay back down in bed, and decided to meditate a little and talk to him a bit like Paula (my doula and hypnobirthing instructor) had suggested. I told him that as far as I was concerned, I was ready for him, and that he could come whenever he liked, but that if he wasn't ready yet, that was also fine. I continued breathing, and all of a sudden, felt a big pop in my lower tummy. I debated for a minute if my water had just broken or if he'd just punched or headbutted me, and then felt the start of a trickle of fluid, jumped out of bed, rushed to the bathroom, and felt a gush of liquid come out into the toilet.
I then sat there for a second in shock, before bursting out laughing, which turned into tears of laughter and happiness. I calmed down, and then called Paula to tell her and ask what I should do. She asked if the fluid looked green, and from what I saw on the toilet paper, it was a bit green. She told me to put a towel between my legs, get ready, and head to the hospital, because it sounded like there was meconium in the waters, which can be a sign of fetal distress.
I then called DH who had, for various reasons, only left the house about half an hour previously, and told him where things were at. He decided to wait for us where he was, which was on our way to the hospital, then I called his dad for a ride to the hospital. I also called my mum at some point during all this, and was delighted to hear she was on her way to a meeting near where the hospital is, so we agreed that once her meeting was done, she'd come and meet us at the hospital.
We got to the hospital, around 11, and because my water had broken and had meconium in it, they processed us as fast as they could, and took us to a room where they strapped monitors for the baby and my contractions to see what was happening, and told me to click when I felt him move. They said the baby's heartbeat looked great, and he wasn't in distress, but that my contractions were still fairly shallow, and I was definitely not in active labour. I saw a doctor next, and she checked my cervix and announced that it was closed, far back, and nothing was happening with it.
She told me they'd start me on pitocin to augment the labour, so we were taken to a delivery room, and they hooked me up to a drip to start giving me fluids before the pitocin. My contractions were starting to get a bit stronger by this point, not painful, but I was starting to need to breathe through them all the same.
At around 1pm, they finally started the pitocin drip, and slowly slowly raised the rate I was getting it. The contractions started getting strong, and I started having to stop talking during them to concentrate on breathing, but they were still manageable. Despite all this, I was very uncomfortable the entire time, because every few minutes, I had amniotic fluid gushing out of me onto the bed, so I was basically sitting in a puddle of water on the bed. My mum arrived I think around 1:30, at which point I had three support people, and only two were allowed in the room at a time, which meant the third could go and take a break when they wanted to.
When they started the pitocin, my mum joked that she thought it would be exactly 7 hours and 25 minutes until I gave birth, because when she was induced with my sister, that was how long she took (incidentally the same time she took with me without the induction). I laughed and said that'd be great. Ha.Ha.Ha.
Little did I know.
After several hours of contractions on the pitocin, and a few checks by the doctors in which they pronounced me to be progressing very slowly, we reached around 10:30pm and I was still only 1.5cm dilated. The doctors came by (two of them, I think cuz they were changing shifts), and they started to prepare me for the possibility that things might end up in a caesarean section because it just didn't seem like things were progressing anywhere. Jesse's heartbeat was dropping on some of the contractions (less so when I was able to take a good deep breath of air first, but still dropping), and they were slightly concerned he might be in distress.
By 11pm, my midwife suggested I should consider taking the epidural, because it might allow me to get some sleep, and also if I did end up needing a caesarean, it would mean it wasn't an emergency and wouldn't have to be done under general anesthetic. At some time around this point, my dad headed home as he hadn't managed to cancel his morning clinic and needed to get some sleep. I discussed it with my mum and Paula, and we decided to give the epidural a try.
So the anesthesiologist came to do it, and it started to kick in, and I started to lose feeling in my left thigh. But after half an hour or so, I realised I could still feel every single contraction in my entire right hand side, and that the epidural was only working on one side. The anesthesiologist came back and gave me a top up, and I tried lying on my right hand side so it would spread to that side too, but the baby's heartbeat kept dropping whenever I had a contraction, to the point that I had to move back to my left hand side. Add to this the fact that I kept getting the shivers (whether from labour or because I was cold, I don't know), and I was not a happy camper.
They kept turning the pitocin on and off in the early hours of the morning because of the baby's heartbeat dropping, and I kept having contractions of my own which were just as intense, and didn't have the baby's heartbeat dropping, so they kept trying to turn it back on, with the same result.
By around 3am, I was starting to ask my midwife whether I could actually request the caesarean, because I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I remember commenting to Paula that I knew that she said usually when women felt they just couldn't take anymore, it meant the baby was on the way, and would be there soon, but that I doubted that was the case with me.
The midwife told me they wouldn't do the caesarean unless they thought it was best for both me and the baby (with him coming first), and that since he didn't seem to be in distress, they would still wait.
The anesthesiologist came back at some point, and tried to redo the epidural so that it would give me proper relief on both sides, but it still didn't work. Note to self: just don't bother with the epi next time, ask for the spinal for the C section ahead of time.
So I continued to suffer, trying to keep myself encouraged by all the babies I could hear being born in the other delivery rooms (they don't bother closing the doors, they just all have curtains that are kept closed at the door), and staying calm and holding my mum, DH, and Paula's hands (going according to whoever was awake with me at the time). I think both Paula and DH managed to sleep an hour or two each during the night, which was good.
Finally, at around 5:30 or 6am, the doctors came to me again, and started talking more seriously about the caesarean. I was so relieved, that I agreed immediately that it was what I wanted, and signed the papers, after reading them, etc.
They'd started prepping me for the caesarean earlier, just in case, so all my jewelry and things were safely in an envelope in my bag already, and so all that was left was to shave me in the area where the incision would be, then take me down to the operating room. I felt such a relief that they'd finally make a decision that I really felt a lot better just from that.
They helped me move from my bed to the operating table, and to bend over for the spinal, and then had me lie back, spread my arms so they could tie them down (which funnily enough I didn't actually realise they'd done until they were about half way through getting the placenta etc out), and put up the screen between my head and tummy, etc.
The spinal started to take effect almost immediately, and it was a blessed relief not to be feeling the dreadful contractions anymore (I couldn't feel pretty much anything under my boobs), although the side effect of the spinal was that I started getting very powerful shivers (a side effect I'd been expecting, as I'd read that it often happens).
They brought DH in (because it wasn't an emergency, he was able to be there with me), and started to cut.
It was quite an interesting sensation. I couldn't feel any pain, obviously, but I could still feel the pulling and pressure and pushing and things, and I felt everything they were doing, which was really bizzare for me.
The whole time, I kept breathing deeply using the hypnobirthing breathing techniques to keep myself calm, and to make sure I didn't freak out or freak out DH. Finally, about ten minutes in, I heard the first cry of a baby, and I burst into joyful tears when I realised I had a son! Seriously, no joke, despite being on the operating table, it was the absolute happiest moment of my life to date.
They took him off to clean up and make sure everything was okay, and for the paediatrician to check him (because there'd been meconium in the water, they'd told me that regardless, a paediatrician would be there for the birth), and then a few minutes later, they brought him to us, all swaddled up with only his face poking out, and showed him to DH, then to me, and then let DH hold him for a minute or two, as well as letting us take a couple of photos (we have one of me and him right there), before taking him off for all the post birth checkups, at which point I reminded DH that I didn't want him letting Jesse out of his sight, and that the baby was more important than me, so he should go with them.
They continued working on me, getting the placenta out, stitching me back up, etc, and then took me up to the recovery room, where they said I'd be for at least two hours (and that was what they told my mum and DH), so Paula said there wasn't much point in her staying for that, and hugged me goodbye, and headed out.
I was actually only in the recovery room for about an hour before I was able to feel and move my legs again, so they sent me straight up to the maternity ward to get acquainted with my son.
To start with in the ward, they took me to the room they use until you're able to get out of bed, and a lovely nurse came and told me what would happen next, and during the rest of the day. I asked about DH and my mum, because of course, I didn't have anything with me like my bag or my phone, and eventually, the nurse took my mum's phone number and called to let her know I was there, shortly after which she finally came to see me.
I asked when I could see the baby, and they said Y could go and get him soon, so he waited in the nursery for them to finish all the initial checks and tests etc.
And then they finally brought him to me. And he was even more perfect than I'd seen when he was all swaddled after being born
I had to stay in the hospital for 5 days because of the caesarean, and I have to say, all the staff, from the nursery to the maternity ward, to the midwives, everyone was wonderful. It was funny on the first day because everyone had heard of me, they all knew of me as the lady who had a 21 hour pitocin labour and then delivered by caesarean, and everyone was really sympathetic.
I'm really happy with my decision to go to that hospital. The staff were all amazing, the rooms looked nice, the whole building of the hospital where the maternity ward is looks clean and new (I don't know how old it is, but I don't think it's more than about ten years old).
They also had amazing lactation consultants without whom I don't think I would have succeeded in nursing. They all pushed me and helped me to get the latch right, and had endless patience when I was calling them for every feed to help me make sure he was latching right and feeding efficiently. But it was worth it. My nipples may be ridiculously sore right now, but he's latching well, he eats well, and when we were released from the hospital on Monday, he was well on his way back to his birth weight. He went from 2.845kg when he was born down to 2.7kg when he was two days old, back up to 2.725 when we were released Monday at 5 days old. And I had the impression that was pretty good. The chart they had showed that he could even have gone down to 2.6 the third day and that would have been fine and normal, so I'm happy
So yeah, that's the short version.
Note before the long version: It includes a fairly graphical description of what a caesarean birth feels like, so please be warned, and skip that bit if you're squeamish.
So like I said, my waters broke at 9:20 on Wednesday morning. I went to the bathroom and sat there for five minutes laughing my head off.
Let's backtrack a minute. At 7am, I'd posted a comment on facebook, something to the tune of "okay, I get it, he's not coming before June 17th (which was the original date I'd predicted after finding out when he was due)". After that, I lay back down in bed, and decided to meditate a little and talk to him a bit like Paula (my doula and hypnobirthing instructor) had suggested. I told him that as far as I was concerned, I was ready for him, and that he could come whenever he liked, but that if he wasn't ready yet, that was also fine. I continued breathing, and all of a sudden, felt a big pop in my lower tummy. I debated for a minute if my water had just broken or if he'd just punched or headbutted me, and then felt the start of a trickle of fluid, jumped out of bed, rushed to the bathroom, and felt a gush of liquid come out into the toilet.
I then sat there for a second in shock, before bursting out laughing, which turned into tears of laughter and happiness. I calmed down, and then called Paula to tell her and ask what I should do. She asked if the fluid looked green, and from what I saw on the toilet paper, it was a bit green. She told me to put a towel between my legs, get ready, and head to the hospital, because it sounded like there was meconium in the waters, which can be a sign of fetal distress.
I then called DH who had, for various reasons, only left the house about half an hour previously, and told him where things were at. He decided to wait for us where he was, which was on our way to the hospital, then I called his dad for a ride to the hospital. I also called my mum at some point during all this, and was delighted to hear she was on her way to a meeting near where the hospital is, so we agreed that once her meeting was done, she'd come and meet us at the hospital.
We got to the hospital, around 11, and because my water had broken and had meconium in it, they processed us as fast as they could, and took us to a room where they strapped monitors for the baby and my contractions to see what was happening, and told me to click when I felt him move. They said the baby's heartbeat looked great, and he wasn't in distress, but that my contractions were still fairly shallow, and I was definitely not in active labour. I saw a doctor next, and she checked my cervix and announced that it was closed, far back, and nothing was happening with it.
She told me they'd start me on pitocin to augment the labour, so we were taken to a delivery room, and they hooked me up to a drip to start giving me fluids before the pitocin. My contractions were starting to get a bit stronger by this point, not painful, but I was starting to need to breathe through them all the same.
At around 1pm, they finally started the pitocin drip, and slowly slowly raised the rate I was getting it. The contractions started getting strong, and I started having to stop talking during them to concentrate on breathing, but they were still manageable. Despite all this, I was very uncomfortable the entire time, because every few minutes, I had amniotic fluid gushing out of me onto the bed, so I was basically sitting in a puddle of water on the bed. My mum arrived I think around 1:30, at which point I had three support people, and only two were allowed in the room at a time, which meant the third could go and take a break when they wanted to.
When they started the pitocin, my mum joked that she thought it would be exactly 7 hours and 25 minutes until I gave birth, because when she was induced with my sister, that was how long she took (incidentally the same time she took with me without the induction). I laughed and said that'd be great. Ha.Ha.Ha.
Little did I know.After several hours of contractions on the pitocin, and a few checks by the doctors in which they pronounced me to be progressing very slowly, we reached around 10:30pm and I was still only 1.5cm dilated. The doctors came by (two of them, I think cuz they were changing shifts), and they started to prepare me for the possibility that things might end up in a caesarean section because it just didn't seem like things were progressing anywhere. Jesse's heartbeat was dropping on some of the contractions (less so when I was able to take a good deep breath of air first, but still dropping), and they were slightly concerned he might be in distress.
By 11pm, my midwife suggested I should consider taking the epidural, because it might allow me to get some sleep, and also if I did end up needing a caesarean, it would mean it wasn't an emergency and wouldn't have to be done under general anesthetic. At some time around this point, my dad headed home as he hadn't managed to cancel his morning clinic and needed to get some sleep. I discussed it with my mum and Paula, and we decided to give the epidural a try.
So the anesthesiologist came to do it, and it started to kick in, and I started to lose feeling in my left thigh. But after half an hour or so, I realised I could still feel every single contraction in my entire right hand side, and that the epidural was only working on one side. The anesthesiologist came back and gave me a top up, and I tried lying on my right hand side so it would spread to that side too, but the baby's heartbeat kept dropping whenever I had a contraction, to the point that I had to move back to my left hand side. Add to this the fact that I kept getting the shivers (whether from labour or because I was cold, I don't know), and I was not a happy camper.
They kept turning the pitocin on and off in the early hours of the morning because of the baby's heartbeat dropping, and I kept having contractions of my own which were just as intense, and didn't have the baby's heartbeat dropping, so they kept trying to turn it back on, with the same result.
By around 3am, I was starting to ask my midwife whether I could actually request the caesarean, because I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I remember commenting to Paula that I knew that she said usually when women felt they just couldn't take anymore, it meant the baby was on the way, and would be there soon, but that I doubted that was the case with me.
The midwife told me they wouldn't do the caesarean unless they thought it was best for both me and the baby (with him coming first), and that since he didn't seem to be in distress, they would still wait.
The anesthesiologist came back at some point, and tried to redo the epidural so that it would give me proper relief on both sides, but it still didn't work. Note to self: just don't bother with the epi next time, ask for the spinal for the C section ahead of time.
So I continued to suffer, trying to keep myself encouraged by all the babies I could hear being born in the other delivery rooms (they don't bother closing the doors, they just all have curtains that are kept closed at the door), and staying calm and holding my mum, DH, and Paula's hands (going according to whoever was awake with me at the time). I think both Paula and DH managed to sleep an hour or two each during the night, which was good.
Finally, at around 5:30 or 6am, the doctors came to me again, and started talking more seriously about the caesarean. I was so relieved, that I agreed immediately that it was what I wanted, and signed the papers, after reading them, etc.
They'd started prepping me for the caesarean earlier, just in case, so all my jewelry and things were safely in an envelope in my bag already, and so all that was left was to shave me in the area where the incision would be, then take me down to the operating room. I felt such a relief that they'd finally make a decision that I really felt a lot better just from that.
They helped me move from my bed to the operating table, and to bend over for the spinal, and then had me lie back, spread my arms so they could tie them down (which funnily enough I didn't actually realise they'd done until they were about half way through getting the placenta etc out), and put up the screen between my head and tummy, etc.
The spinal started to take effect almost immediately, and it was a blessed relief not to be feeling the dreadful contractions anymore (I couldn't feel pretty much anything under my boobs), although the side effect of the spinal was that I started getting very powerful shivers (a side effect I'd been expecting, as I'd read that it often happens).
They brought DH in (because it wasn't an emergency, he was able to be there with me), and started to cut.
It was quite an interesting sensation. I couldn't feel any pain, obviously, but I could still feel the pulling and pressure and pushing and things, and I felt everything they were doing, which was really bizzare for me.
The whole time, I kept breathing deeply using the hypnobirthing breathing techniques to keep myself calm, and to make sure I didn't freak out or freak out DH. Finally, about ten minutes in, I heard the first cry of a baby, and I burst into joyful tears when I realised I had a son! Seriously, no joke, despite being on the operating table, it was the absolute happiest moment of my life to date.
They took him off to clean up and make sure everything was okay, and for the paediatrician to check him (because there'd been meconium in the water, they'd told me that regardless, a paediatrician would be there for the birth), and then a few minutes later, they brought him to us, all swaddled up with only his face poking out, and showed him to DH, then to me, and then let DH hold him for a minute or two, as well as letting us take a couple of photos (we have one of me and him right there), before taking him off for all the post birth checkups, at which point I reminded DH that I didn't want him letting Jesse out of his sight, and that the baby was more important than me, so he should go with them.
They continued working on me, getting the placenta out, stitching me back up, etc, and then took me up to the recovery room, where they said I'd be for at least two hours (and that was what they told my mum and DH), so Paula said there wasn't much point in her staying for that, and hugged me goodbye, and headed out.
I was actually only in the recovery room for about an hour before I was able to feel and move my legs again, so they sent me straight up to the maternity ward to get acquainted with my son.
To start with in the ward, they took me to the room they use until you're able to get out of bed, and a lovely nurse came and told me what would happen next, and during the rest of the day. I asked about DH and my mum, because of course, I didn't have anything with me like my bag or my phone, and eventually, the nurse took my mum's phone number and called to let her know I was there, shortly after which she finally came to see me.
I asked when I could see the baby, and they said Y could go and get him soon, so he waited in the nursery for them to finish all the initial checks and tests etc.
And then they finally brought him to me. And he was even more perfect than I'd seen when he was all swaddled after being born
I had to stay in the hospital for 5 days because of the caesarean, and I have to say, all the staff, from the nursery to the maternity ward, to the midwives, everyone was wonderful. It was funny on the first day because everyone had heard of me, they all knew of me as the lady who had a 21 hour pitocin labour and then delivered by caesarean, and everyone was really sympathetic.
I'm really happy with my decision to go to that hospital. The staff were all amazing, the rooms looked nice, the whole building of the hospital where the maternity ward is looks clean and new (I don't know how old it is, but I don't think it's more than about ten years old).
They also had amazing lactation consultants without whom I don't think I would have succeeded in nursing. They all pushed me and helped me to get the latch right, and had endless patience when I was calling them for every feed to help me make sure he was latching right and feeding efficiently. But it was worth it. My nipples may be ridiculously sore right now, but he's latching well, he eats well, and when we were released from the hospital on Monday, he was well on his way back to his birth weight. He went from 2.845kg when he was born down to 2.7kg when he was two days old, back up to 2.725 when we were released Monday at 5 days old. And I had the impression that was pretty good. The chart they had showed that he could even have gone down to 2.6 the third day and that would have been fine and normal, so I'm happy
