machka
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Friday 15. 1.10
Woke up to a massive show . Leaked waters all day long. Went for afternoon tea with NCT friends and a walk around the park. Called into the knitting shop and bought yarn for a new jumper. Around 10pm somewhere between a knit one and a purl one, I suddenly thought I should call the hospital to ask if I should do something and they said to come in. So at 10:30pm we drove in and after an examination it was confirmed the waters had gone and that I was already 1cm dilated. The midwife said I would probably not be able to have a home from home midwife-led birth unless I went into labour that night. My BP was high and the doctors said they wanted to induce me but we wanted to go home so negotiated with the midwife who took blood tests to see if I had developed pre-ecampsia. We went home and if it was bad news she would phone and wed return. In the meanwhile, we were booked to go back next day between 8am and 12am for an induction. No phone call came and I slept hardly at all nervous and scared.
Sat 16.1.10
Returned at 12:30pm. Waited until 3pm to be seen. Had a foetal trace and all well. BP highish again. Admitted to ante natal ward. Bizarrely my colleague (with whom I work very closely) is also there waiting to be induced two days later with her 28 week old baby as her placenta had stopped working. Around 5pm had a discussion with a doctor who said I had to be induced within 18 hours of waters breaking in order to avoid infection and that I would definitely need syntocinon. I still have this image of a venn diagram we were shown in NCT classes about syntocinon detailing how terrible it is. I cant remember what the bad things exactly were apart from the fact that it makes contractions faster and stronger, but it was the one thing I was most terrified of. OH argued that in other hospitals the policy was 24-48 hours so could we not wait for labour to occur naturally, or at least for Toni to be able to have a decent sleep before starting induction. She disagreed but neither of us felt at all convinced by her argument or reasoning she just didnt give the impression of being sure of what she was saying. She went away after telling us that wed be called within an hour and I never heard from anyone for another 24 hours when another more senior doctor came back. When we queried how it could be that the day before we were told we needed an emergency induction and then everyone just disappeared she said that the previous doctor had been confused and since spoken to about the correct guidelines (which had apparently only recently changed at St Ts).
Sunday 17.1.10
We get the call induction from about 6pm. At around 6pm we went to the birth centre. Our room overlooked the London Eye, Waterloo Bridge and the Thames. Unfortunately, last minute Id developed the dreaded, much feared infection or at least my high temperature signalled thus. In addition, blood tests showed that I was anaemic and it had not been picked up previously!! Next I got given an iron tablet and hooked up to a drip for antibiotics for the infection.
We were just on the cusp of the midwife shift change and our first (lovely) midwife told us that as I was already dilated it would be completely pointless to give me a prostaglandin gel to help the cervix dilate. She examined me and gave me another sweep, breaking what remains of my waters and left us to go do other stuff. Sods law, into labour I went at that point. I spent the next hour or so labouring using the birth ball and a yoga mat.
I have to say, I was quite surprised how quickly it went from manageable to painful even at that early point at how painful the contractions were and the idea of going ahead for hours and hours like that was pretty daunting.
Anyway, the shift changed and we were moved to another room to give birth in also with the same amazing view. In walks Henrietta our midwife she walked up to me, gave me a big kiss and a hug and said dont worry, youve got the best midwife in the hospital everything is going to be fine.. and promptly found the babys heartbeat instantly with the monitor where everyone else had struggled for days! She was all for giving the prostaglandin gel but for whatever reason in the end I never got given it. I did however get hooked up for the syntocinon after another fruitless attempt to avoid it and decided there and then then if I was going to be tethered anyway with the synto and the baby heart rate straps and the BP cuff and the antiobiotics I may as well have the bloody epidural especially as by this point the contractions were getting pretty painful and I really didnt think I would cope with them without being able to move around. So I got the epidural. At first I hated it I really dont like the feeling of being out of it. I had just before tried the gas and air but again I didnt like the stoned feeling from it at all. When the anaesthetist put the line in he put in 20ml which is apparently twice what you get if you press the boost button yourself, this is what he said was what he normally gave I found it quite overwhelming, but once it calmed down a bit it was ok. I could have pushed the little button up to 3 times per hour but in the end I only needed to push it 3 times during the entire labour and not at all during the last three maybe four hours. I didnt really feel any pain and even slept for an hour so it must be really strong stuff! About 5 hours later the midwife examined me again. I havent dilated at all have I? I said.. Im still 2cm right? ever positive Yep still 2cm, she replied and my heart sank. Then she burst into laughter and said . Youre 8 cm!!. OMG I was so pleased. From then on things happened very quickly. All of a sudden tons of meconium started pouring out doctors etc turned up and I was told that unless the baby came within the next hour theyd give me a C-section and I was damned if I was going to get all the way to 8cm only to be cut open! They also sent off for blood tests from the baby as they were worried about foetal distress. They were worried that the baby might be too distressed to risk natural birth for two potential reasons the lack of clear reading on the heart rates and the risk of infection exacerbated by the amount of meconium. They were also considering switching to a ventouse/forceps delivery as early as possible in order to reduce the risk of trauma to the baby but things were happening so quickly that Henrietta persuaded the doctor that they couldnt wait for the blood tests and to let me push in the meantime. Another doctor came in and made me do a bit of pushing and then basically helped to pull open my cervix more in conjunction with my contractions. They were really struggling to hear the babys heart beat so I also had a monitor attached to the babys head internally. By this point the epidural had basically worn off and OMFG the pain! I never knew!!! A bit of the rebel in me returned and I insisted on getting on all fours to push and accidentally pulled out the synto drip in the process which was obviously not great! I kept saying things like Im so sorry, I really sorry, Ive ruined everything. I guess that from even before the birth my biggest scare was that I would some way fail. I still feel bad about that now which I guess is silly but thats me. Anyway, I pushed for about 45 minutes and good grief what hard work that was. I remember shouting out Can you see the head yet, can you see the head yet and there was this kind of uncomfortable silence so I pushed harder and harder. The baby went from being able to see just a sliver of its head to being out in what felt like seconds but couldnt have been more than a couple of minutes
(according to OH my memory of this bit is very vague). There was no mistaking when the head was on its way out what a feeling! Henrietta warned me that she was going to call the baby doctors because she expected the baby to need resuscitation or help with breathing. Next thing I knew out she popped in a huge huge pool of meconium and blood. I just kept repeating ..OMG its a baby, its a baby.. look.. its a baby.. OH whose job it was to announce the sex cried out Its a boy! According to OH the baby was alert, moving and able to breathe unaided. I remember seeing its legs kicking and it wasnt blue as I had expected it to be. OH says it looked a normal, healthy colour although covered in meconium. No one whisked the baby away and Henrietta was focused on the substantial bleeding coming from me (although I had no idea of this at the time).
Someone came and injected me in the stomach with the injection for getting the placenta out and they set about trying to remove the placenta by gloved hand. However, that pesky placenta was having none of it and there was now concern from the doctors about how to get it out. The syntoconin supply had been disrupted which didnt help in encouraging the body to eject the placenta. Also the anaesthetist said that although as it would normally have been good that I had used so little of the epidural, it was now causing a problem because it had worn off too much to allow the doctor to pull out the placenta by hand so they would have to apply a new anaesthetic and that would take time. Next, I remember going very very funny indeed I think I blacked out or something and then saying something really funny just happened to me and then suddenly the room was filled with loads and loads of doctors and they were wheeling me out to the surgery. OH says as well as the blood on the bed there was blood pooling on the floor where it was leaking through the gaps where the bed folds. Again I had no idea of this at all. I was given well Im not sure really certainly loads more epidural a spinal tap? I dont know whatever it was I was way way way out of it. A white sheet was put up at my waist and someone I dont know who because there were SO many people in the theatre got him/herself elbow deep up into my uterus to remove the placenta and some other stuff too apparently. They also stitched up my 2nd degree tear. When I came out of surgery OH, looking a bit shell shocked, came up to me and said have you heard the news? . actually its a girl!.. He had gotten the swollen genitals and the umbilical cord confused for a boy. Afterwards when we saw our notes it turned out that his word had been taken by the woman who filled in the notes and shed filled in several pages including drawing a graph where there were two templates one for male and one for female under the impression that it was a boy. There was a good bit of crossing out and correcting in that bit of my notes. Poor OH had been left holding the baby in the delivery room by himself and said it was just covered in blood everywhere. I think it was quite hard for him but he took his t-shirt off and did the whole skin to skin thing with the baby and asked for all the blood and stuff to be cleaned up in case my mother turned up. Ill always be so grateful for him for that and our baby now loves to be asleep on his chest.
I then had to spend a night in the High Dependency Unit which was, frankly, a blessing. Towards the end of the labour I had had a catheter inserted and that had to stay as now I was being given a blood transfusion to replace all the lost blood as my levels were quite seriously low. I sent OH home with a bunch of unnecessary stuff including my never used tankini! There were only 3 beds in there only two of which were occupied, myself and one other lady and a bunch of dedicated midwives. Apart from the fact I couldnt move at all, it was lovely. I ended up staying quite a bit longer than expected because there were no beds on the post-natal ward and that night I had 1 to 1 midwife care. During my time there I was cared for by 3 midwives, each more lovely than the last and Ill always remember them.
When I did get moved to the post-natal ward it was, frankly, hell on earth and the worst 24 hours or so of my life I reckon. I could not wait to get out of there. Ive been in quieter nightclubs. The view from my bed was of a, not too clean looking, toilet and next to the bed I had two massive industrial waste bins and a basin for the toilet. I had absolutely no privacy at one point trying to BF topless whilst two workmen walked past. All the women were massively stressed out and at one point Im sure I even heard the 1 midwife charged with the care of 10 women on the verge of tears. Medication was not getting delivered on time, tests that were promised not getting done etc etc. I had a stream of people coming in to see me at any time none of whom pulled the curtains back around my bed and as my bed was practically in the corridor it was really awful. I nearly punched the woman who called in to see if I wanted to buy photos of my baby . no I just want to fucking sleep! It was just so so so awful. I felt distraught and more or less cried my way through that entire period. I felt that I was massively letting my baby down having her in this horrible stressful, noisy, bright place and my own BP shot up massively. It honestly felt like an endurance test. The one good thing to come out of it was in the middle of the night, the horribly stressed midwife spent 15 minutes with me showing me how to breastfeed lying down in bed. This is how I am BFing through the night at present as our baby wont go into a crib/moses basket etc yet.
We eventually got discharged on Wednesday 20th in the evening and practically ran out of the hospital after packing up all our stuff. We got a cab home and I walked in through the door put down the car seat in our lounge with the baby in it and burst into tears of happiness.
And thats how KJ became our beautiful daughter Orla.
https://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs223.snc3/21061_318286371130_546266130_5123711_6096702_n.jpg
Woke up to a massive show . Leaked waters all day long. Went for afternoon tea with NCT friends and a walk around the park. Called into the knitting shop and bought yarn for a new jumper. Around 10pm somewhere between a knit one and a purl one, I suddenly thought I should call the hospital to ask if I should do something and they said to come in. So at 10:30pm we drove in and after an examination it was confirmed the waters had gone and that I was already 1cm dilated. The midwife said I would probably not be able to have a home from home midwife-led birth unless I went into labour that night. My BP was high and the doctors said they wanted to induce me but we wanted to go home so negotiated with the midwife who took blood tests to see if I had developed pre-ecampsia. We went home and if it was bad news she would phone and wed return. In the meanwhile, we were booked to go back next day between 8am and 12am for an induction. No phone call came and I slept hardly at all nervous and scared.
Sat 16.1.10
Returned at 12:30pm. Waited until 3pm to be seen. Had a foetal trace and all well. BP highish again. Admitted to ante natal ward. Bizarrely my colleague (with whom I work very closely) is also there waiting to be induced two days later with her 28 week old baby as her placenta had stopped working. Around 5pm had a discussion with a doctor who said I had to be induced within 18 hours of waters breaking in order to avoid infection and that I would definitely need syntocinon. I still have this image of a venn diagram we were shown in NCT classes about syntocinon detailing how terrible it is. I cant remember what the bad things exactly were apart from the fact that it makes contractions faster and stronger, but it was the one thing I was most terrified of. OH argued that in other hospitals the policy was 24-48 hours so could we not wait for labour to occur naturally, or at least for Toni to be able to have a decent sleep before starting induction. She disagreed but neither of us felt at all convinced by her argument or reasoning she just didnt give the impression of being sure of what she was saying. She went away after telling us that wed be called within an hour and I never heard from anyone for another 24 hours when another more senior doctor came back. When we queried how it could be that the day before we were told we needed an emergency induction and then everyone just disappeared she said that the previous doctor had been confused and since spoken to about the correct guidelines (which had apparently only recently changed at St Ts).
Sunday 17.1.10
We get the call induction from about 6pm. At around 6pm we went to the birth centre. Our room overlooked the London Eye, Waterloo Bridge and the Thames. Unfortunately, last minute Id developed the dreaded, much feared infection or at least my high temperature signalled thus. In addition, blood tests showed that I was anaemic and it had not been picked up previously!! Next I got given an iron tablet and hooked up to a drip for antibiotics for the infection.
We were just on the cusp of the midwife shift change and our first (lovely) midwife told us that as I was already dilated it would be completely pointless to give me a prostaglandin gel to help the cervix dilate. She examined me and gave me another sweep, breaking what remains of my waters and left us to go do other stuff. Sods law, into labour I went at that point. I spent the next hour or so labouring using the birth ball and a yoga mat.
I have to say, I was quite surprised how quickly it went from manageable to painful even at that early point at how painful the contractions were and the idea of going ahead for hours and hours like that was pretty daunting.
Anyway, the shift changed and we were moved to another room to give birth in also with the same amazing view. In walks Henrietta our midwife she walked up to me, gave me a big kiss and a hug and said dont worry, youve got the best midwife in the hospital everything is going to be fine.. and promptly found the babys heartbeat instantly with the monitor where everyone else had struggled for days! She was all for giving the prostaglandin gel but for whatever reason in the end I never got given it. I did however get hooked up for the syntocinon after another fruitless attempt to avoid it and decided there and then then if I was going to be tethered anyway with the synto and the baby heart rate straps and the BP cuff and the antiobiotics I may as well have the bloody epidural especially as by this point the contractions were getting pretty painful and I really didnt think I would cope with them without being able to move around. So I got the epidural. At first I hated it I really dont like the feeling of being out of it. I had just before tried the gas and air but again I didnt like the stoned feeling from it at all. When the anaesthetist put the line in he put in 20ml which is apparently twice what you get if you press the boost button yourself, this is what he said was what he normally gave I found it quite overwhelming, but once it calmed down a bit it was ok. I could have pushed the little button up to 3 times per hour but in the end I only needed to push it 3 times during the entire labour and not at all during the last three maybe four hours. I didnt really feel any pain and even slept for an hour so it must be really strong stuff! About 5 hours later the midwife examined me again. I havent dilated at all have I? I said.. Im still 2cm right? ever positive Yep still 2cm, she replied and my heart sank. Then she burst into laughter and said . Youre 8 cm!!. OMG I was so pleased. From then on things happened very quickly. All of a sudden tons of meconium started pouring out doctors etc turned up and I was told that unless the baby came within the next hour theyd give me a C-section and I was damned if I was going to get all the way to 8cm only to be cut open! They also sent off for blood tests from the baby as they were worried about foetal distress. They were worried that the baby might be too distressed to risk natural birth for two potential reasons the lack of clear reading on the heart rates and the risk of infection exacerbated by the amount of meconium. They were also considering switching to a ventouse/forceps delivery as early as possible in order to reduce the risk of trauma to the baby but things were happening so quickly that Henrietta persuaded the doctor that they couldnt wait for the blood tests and to let me push in the meantime. Another doctor came in and made me do a bit of pushing and then basically helped to pull open my cervix more in conjunction with my contractions. They were really struggling to hear the babys heart beat so I also had a monitor attached to the babys head internally. By this point the epidural had basically worn off and OMFG the pain! I never knew!!! A bit of the rebel in me returned and I insisted on getting on all fours to push and accidentally pulled out the synto drip in the process which was obviously not great! I kept saying things like Im so sorry, I really sorry, Ive ruined everything. I guess that from even before the birth my biggest scare was that I would some way fail. I still feel bad about that now which I guess is silly but thats me. Anyway, I pushed for about 45 minutes and good grief what hard work that was. I remember shouting out Can you see the head yet, can you see the head yet and there was this kind of uncomfortable silence so I pushed harder and harder. The baby went from being able to see just a sliver of its head to being out in what felt like seconds but couldnt have been more than a couple of minutes
(according to OH my memory of this bit is very vague). There was no mistaking when the head was on its way out what a feeling! Henrietta warned me that she was going to call the baby doctors because she expected the baby to need resuscitation or help with breathing. Next thing I knew out she popped in a huge huge pool of meconium and blood. I just kept repeating ..OMG its a baby, its a baby.. look.. its a baby.. OH whose job it was to announce the sex cried out Its a boy! According to OH the baby was alert, moving and able to breathe unaided. I remember seeing its legs kicking and it wasnt blue as I had expected it to be. OH says it looked a normal, healthy colour although covered in meconium. No one whisked the baby away and Henrietta was focused on the substantial bleeding coming from me (although I had no idea of this at the time).
Someone came and injected me in the stomach with the injection for getting the placenta out and they set about trying to remove the placenta by gloved hand. However, that pesky placenta was having none of it and there was now concern from the doctors about how to get it out. The syntoconin supply had been disrupted which didnt help in encouraging the body to eject the placenta. Also the anaesthetist said that although as it would normally have been good that I had used so little of the epidural, it was now causing a problem because it had worn off too much to allow the doctor to pull out the placenta by hand so they would have to apply a new anaesthetic and that would take time. Next, I remember going very very funny indeed I think I blacked out or something and then saying something really funny just happened to me and then suddenly the room was filled with loads and loads of doctors and they were wheeling me out to the surgery. OH says as well as the blood on the bed there was blood pooling on the floor where it was leaking through the gaps where the bed folds. Again I had no idea of this at all. I was given well Im not sure really certainly loads more epidural a spinal tap? I dont know whatever it was I was way way way out of it. A white sheet was put up at my waist and someone I dont know who because there were SO many people in the theatre got him/herself elbow deep up into my uterus to remove the placenta and some other stuff too apparently. They also stitched up my 2nd degree tear. When I came out of surgery OH, looking a bit shell shocked, came up to me and said have you heard the news? . actually its a girl!.. He had gotten the swollen genitals and the umbilical cord confused for a boy. Afterwards when we saw our notes it turned out that his word had been taken by the woman who filled in the notes and shed filled in several pages including drawing a graph where there were two templates one for male and one for female under the impression that it was a boy. There was a good bit of crossing out and correcting in that bit of my notes. Poor OH had been left holding the baby in the delivery room by himself and said it was just covered in blood everywhere. I think it was quite hard for him but he took his t-shirt off and did the whole skin to skin thing with the baby and asked for all the blood and stuff to be cleaned up in case my mother turned up. Ill always be so grateful for him for that and our baby now loves to be asleep on his chest.
I then had to spend a night in the High Dependency Unit which was, frankly, a blessing. Towards the end of the labour I had had a catheter inserted and that had to stay as now I was being given a blood transfusion to replace all the lost blood as my levels were quite seriously low. I sent OH home with a bunch of unnecessary stuff including my never used tankini! There were only 3 beds in there only two of which were occupied, myself and one other lady and a bunch of dedicated midwives. Apart from the fact I couldnt move at all, it was lovely. I ended up staying quite a bit longer than expected because there were no beds on the post-natal ward and that night I had 1 to 1 midwife care. During my time there I was cared for by 3 midwives, each more lovely than the last and Ill always remember them.
When I did get moved to the post-natal ward it was, frankly, hell on earth and the worst 24 hours or so of my life I reckon. I could not wait to get out of there. Ive been in quieter nightclubs. The view from my bed was of a, not too clean looking, toilet and next to the bed I had two massive industrial waste bins and a basin for the toilet. I had absolutely no privacy at one point trying to BF topless whilst two workmen walked past. All the women were massively stressed out and at one point Im sure I even heard the 1 midwife charged with the care of 10 women on the verge of tears. Medication was not getting delivered on time, tests that were promised not getting done etc etc. I had a stream of people coming in to see me at any time none of whom pulled the curtains back around my bed and as my bed was practically in the corridor it was really awful. I nearly punched the woman who called in to see if I wanted to buy photos of my baby . no I just want to fucking sleep! It was just so so so awful. I felt distraught and more or less cried my way through that entire period. I felt that I was massively letting my baby down having her in this horrible stressful, noisy, bright place and my own BP shot up massively. It honestly felt like an endurance test. The one good thing to come out of it was in the middle of the night, the horribly stressed midwife spent 15 minutes with me showing me how to breastfeed lying down in bed. This is how I am BFing through the night at present as our baby wont go into a crib/moses basket etc yet.
We eventually got discharged on Wednesday 20th in the evening and practically ran out of the hospital after packing up all our stuff. We got a cab home and I walked in through the door put down the car seat in our lounge with the baby in it and burst into tears of happiness.
And thats how KJ became our beautiful daughter Orla.
https://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs223.snc3/21061_318286371130_546266130_5123711_6096702_n.jpg
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