I thought I'd post a little (well probably a lot) about the birth of little Jamie. It was an intense couple of days, but I know people are probably wondering what happened and why I had to have a caesarean. This will probably be a lot more detail than some people want to know about, so I thought I'd warn you in advance. My friend Jill did this and which she said she found very therapuetic and I am sure I'll find the same.
I had my sweep Monday morning and as I posted, I had progressed over the weekend, probably thanks in part to that awful Norovirus, which well and truly got my guts moving, just like they say spicy food should do. Nothing much happened during Monday, but Tuesday morning I woke up and I realized that I had started contractions. They started about 10-20 minutes apart and not very painful. Throughout the day they became closer and more painful. Paul had gone to work, and he wasn't sure when he should come home and I said to wait a bit, but after about an hour his boss said "What the f* are you still doing here, go home" and so he did. I mostly hung out with my mom during the day and watched tv when I could to try to distract myself. I was also using a TENS machine throughout the day for pain relief, which basically sends through little electrical pulses through electrode pads on my back between contractions, and when I start having a contraction, I push a little boost button which causes the pulse to become continuous until I depress when the contraction is over. In retrospect, I'm not really sure it did much, other than signal to everyone else when the contraction started and ended. I think it did give me something to focus on, but perhaps it caused me to focus too much on each contraction. I didn't really sleep much during the day as I was afraid I'd slow down the process. In retrospect, I think that was a mistake. I spent a lot of the day pacing the house, trying to get them moving along. Here's a photo of me with my TENS and a gingernut:
Most of the late afternoon and evening my contractions were 6-8 minutes apart, lasting for about 90 seconds. The hospital don't really want you coming onto the ward until your 3-4 minutes apart, lasting 90 seconds and are painful. We called to update them a few times and they encouraged us to stay home as long as possible. Around midnight that night, they were getting closer to 4-5 minutes apart and quite painful, and I was sick once with the pain, so I decided it was time to go in. My mom, Paul and I went in. We had our own room and the midwife asked us a few questions, took my blood pressure and disappeared for a long time. She said she was going to assign me a midwife (she was the head midwife on duty), but we're not really sure what happened with that. She came back a while later and asked me how things were going. Contractions had sped up and were more painful, she did an internal and said I was only at 2 cm. She said I wasn't that far along, so I could either go home or go to the maternity ward (where you're in a room with 3 others) and see if I progressed there. At this point it was 4:30am, and I was so exhausted (as were Paul and mom), that we decided to go home, hoping the contractions would go crazy on the way home and we could turn around and come back. Not the case...
When we got home we all were so wiped that we slept for a bit. My contractions did slow and for the rest of the day they became very erratic. In the afternoon, they were still erratic but more and more painful. I had my induction still scheduled for that night, so I called the hospital and asked if I should still come in and they said yes because they could progress the labor (why not the night before, I don't know!). Anyway, I was asked to come in the hospital at 8pm. When we got to the hospital, I was put in the ward with others being induced. They took my BP and hooked me up to a monitor to see how the baby was doing. Within a couple of minutes, I was surrounded by 3 midwives and a doctor, I assume someone pulled some sort of alarm, but had no idea why. Apparently the baby's heart rate dropped. They started talking to me about having to break my waters to see if the baby recovered or they'd have to an emergency caesarean. They rushed me into a labor room and the doctor broke my waters. Luckily he recovered and I continued with contractions, and I at that point I was at 3cm. I had to stay monitored throughout the night. The contractions became stronger and I used 'gas and air' or nitrous oxygen for pain relief. You bastcally just beathe into this tube when you feel the contraction coming on. It worked pretty well. However, occasionally I took too much on and threw up, but it was worth it. Halfway through the night, I was really getting exhausted (it had and decided to have an epidural. Man, that was worth it! I could still slightly feel them on one side (I found out later the epidural came out on one side). Unfortunately, my contractions slowed a bit, though I still progressed to 6cm.
Throughout the night, the baby's heart rate would drop after each contraction for 10s. That can happen as the baby's head descends down the pelvis. However, later in the night, it started dropping for longer, for 60-90s. The doctor said they needed to check the baby's blood oxygen levels, which they do by taking a blood sample for the top of the baby's head with a scope thing (he still has the scratches on his head, poor Jamie). They did this twice in 90 minutes and his stats were dropping, and as I was only at 8cm and progressing about a cm an hour, I wouldn't be ready in enough time and the levels would go too low. They tested one final time, but the machine wasn't working, so they decided they should progress with the c-section anyway. They said it could be the cord around his neck.
They prepped me, and had to give me a spinal since the epidural had come out on one side. Paul scrubbed in and was able to stay by my head. The baby came out pretty quick, they took him and gave him a once over, his Apgar was 9 at delivery and 10 one minute later. They gave him to Paul and put him on my pillow too while they stitched me up. Apparently I lost quite a lot of blood (1.4 liters), not sure why, but we both made it through fine. The cord wasn't wrapped around his neck, so they don't know why his heart rate was dropping, but as rough as I felt after, I don't regret the decision as we don't know what might have happened had we waited. And I have my perfect little Jamie, so everything is good.
They recovery wasn't easy, especially the first day, but I'm getting stronger everyday. Paul and my parents have been an extraordinary help. And we all have Courtney to thank for the hundreds of photos she's taken. They left this morning and we'll miss them a lot. I've had a lot of emotional ups and downs these past few days, but after having Norovirus, 46 hours of labor and a major operation, we're doing pretty well and I'm looking forward to motherhood.
Here's our first ever photo together (not that pretty!):
That's right I'm 36 weeks today! Crazy to think how different life will be in a month's time. I haven't yet reached that point of 'get this baby out of me' - I think mainly because I have so much left to do. I also have two more weeks at work left, a big part of me is wondering why I'm not finishing sooner, but I know I'll be glad to have those two more weeks next year at the end of my maternity leave. Anyway, I thought I'd first share a photo, which my family has been asking for. So this is me a few days ago:
I've generally found pregnany quite enjoyable. It's amazing to think there's a little boy growing inside. He's been making his presence known as well. Kicking and stretching out all over the place. I think I've been having more (non-painful) braxton hicks contraction this week. We learned on our course that you have contractions from about 20 weeks onwards and when your belly feels compact and hard, that's most likely a contraction-well a practice contraction anyway. Pregnancy hasn't all been fun, of course, there's been some weird and not-so-wonderful aspects which I think are probably related to pregnancy. I've probably shared some before, but here's a little list (particularly for the many friends I've just found out are expecting this summer!):
- excessive trips to the bathroom to pee (first and third trimester)
- leg cramps-side and back of calves (all 3 trimesters)
- occasional sciatic nerve pain in lower back (first and third)
- sneezing (first)
- occasional lower abdominal cramping (all 3-only very painful once)
- decreased fitness, shortness of breath-especially going up stairs (increasing over pregnancy)
- difficulty rolling over in bed or getting off the floor/deep sofa (third)
- groin/pelvic pain-making crossing legs or standing up after sitting a long time painful (since running through airport at Christmas)
- dry eyes/contacts feeling irritated (6th month only)
- itchy rash on lower legs (for last week)
- shortness of breath when talking quickly! (new this week-particularly when I'm first on the phone to someone or kicking off a meeting)
- wine (particulary red) tastes cheap, and still no cravings (all 3)
To be honest, none of those are particularly bad and I don't seem to mind-especially wen you compare it to all the fun things about being pregnant-I'll try to post about that another day.
A fun weekend ahead with a baby shower tomorrow and our last ever Valentine's day as a childless couple! And, Monday is our last ultrasound and consultant appointment (about the fibroid), and I also have my first midwife appointment at my new GP in Bromley, so expect more news next week!
Last night around 10:15 I started to get some cramping in my lower abdomen. It became quite severe fairly quickly and we decided to call my midwife. She advised us to go to the birthing center at the hospital, so we took a taxi over there. We waited about 25 minutes to get into a private room and a midwife came and checked me out. We listened to the baby's heartrate for a while and she took all my vitals and everything was normal. The doctor then came in and checked for any signs of miscarriage and I wasn't dialating nor were there any signs of leaking fluids or blood, thankfully. The cramping came in waves and was very painful. They gave me some paracetomal and codeine which resulted in me throwing up several times 30 minutes later. They also wanted a urine sample, which despite drinking several liters of water took me until 1:30am to produce. The hospital staff were all very nice and Paul was amazingly supportive. We got home a little after 2 and the cramps had lessened enough for me to sleep.
They don't really know what the cause was. It could be ligaments stretching, but I think the baby's movements yesterday were putting pressure on my intestines. The pain has gone down significantly today, but not gone completely. I went out for one meeting and then came home and took it easy the rest of the day. I plan to most likely work from home tomorrow. I've also had two follow up calls from various midwives.
