FLASHBACK FRIDAY - THE BIRTH OF A MOTHER

This is when he was fresh out of the mother ship, under two hours old

Since I never really blogged when Beau was really little, I thought I'd do a post or two on our birth story and those early days. It's nearly two and a half years on, so lets see how much I can remember :o)

Excuse the awful photo quality too. The camera I had at the time was actually broken after I dropped it on the stone floor in the New York Public Library in 2010, and couple that with some dreadful lighting and therefore dreadful flash shadows...it's not pretty. 

So anyway, lets get started.

My due date was 5th September 2011, and as expected with your first, I went overdue.

Me and my friends Sophie and Ashley at Sophie's baby shower when I was 38 weeks pregnant

This is one of, if not the last photo taken of me when I was pregnant. As you can see, I was a  u n i t. And I got bigger than this too....no wonder my stomach now resembles a walnut!

I'd had a growth scan at about 37 weeks as they thought I may have preeclampsia as I was so swollen, and my blood pressure was slightly raised. I didn't have it (thank god) but they did tell me at that point that I was having a whopper of a baby. This obviously freaked me out and I started asking my midwife what the chances of an early induction were. That would be a big fat zero. I did however convince them to give me a sweep the day after my due date instead of a week after which is usually the case. I had a consultant's appointment at the hospital that day with a very sweet doctor, called Dr Who. I'm not even kidding. It way have been spelled Hoo, or something like that, but details schmetails right? 

It was pretty awkward, for all involved. I had never met this consultant in my life, James was there (behind a curtain, like that took any of the awkwardness away) and up to this point, pregnancy hadn't required me to expose my foof to anyone (other than James, naturally!). I had read that sweeps are most effective when done thoroughly. Even as a sweep novice, I could tell that this was not a thorough one at all, and I was kind of glad. I saw my midwife two days later on the 8th September and she kindly agreed to do another one for me. Like all good midwives, Sarah took no prisoners, she got the job done. I had a bit of post sweep bleeding, which I took to be a good sign.

So, on Friday 9th September I went to my mum's for dinner as James was playing football. I had been having tightenings from about 9am that morning but thought nothing of it. You get all kinds of weird sensations when you're that far pregnant. I did start to notice them more while I was at mum's though, and at the back of my mind I wondered whether it was the start of something.

I got home about 9:30pm and by 10 I was in some discomfort and knew that labour was upon me. I had a bath, more because I had read that's what people do in early labour, than because I actually felt like it might give me some relief. I called the delivery suite at midnight and they said to try and get some sleep. This was a joke if ever I heard one. Not only was I now in pain from the contractions, but I was STUPIDLY excited that finally I was going to meet this baby of mine! It sounds weird, but I was more excited about labour than I was scared of the pain. We hadn't found out if we were having a girl or a boy (though everyone and his wife told me I was having a boy) and I had also prepared myself for the fact I would just have an epidural if I felt like it was getting too much. Incidently, I feel very differently about this now, and next time (if I get to have a next time) I would try my damndest to do it without drugs. But more on that another time.

So I couldn't sleep, and finally at 2am I felt enough was enough, so I woke James up and off we went to hospital.

I was only 2-3cm dilated and you have to be 4cm to be classed as in labour. They gave me two options... 1) Pop a co codamol and go home 2) Have a shot of pethadine and they would give me a couple of hours in hospital to see if things progressed. There absolutely no way on earth I was going home at that point. That much I was sure of. So option 2 it was. 

Cut to two hours later and the midwife who is re-examining declares "Congratulations, you're 4cm dilated now, and judging from the noises you're making, I think we'd better get you an epidural hadn't we". I hadn't really been too aware of any noises I was making, but I did agree about the epidural part, so at about 7am, in came a man with a beard to put a huge great needle into my spine, in went the catheter too, and for the first time in about 10 hours, I was pain free. It was bliss.

Epidurals have a habit of slowing things down though...

Eight hours and two shift changes later (the first two midwives had been LOVELY and I had felt instantly at ease with them) I found myself in the hands of Gayle Smith. I will remember that woman's name for as long as I live. Gayle was where it all started to go wrong.

Over the course of the previous eight hours, a few things had been established. Firstly, the baby was partially back to back. Secondly, the epidural was working more on my right side than it was my left. Thirdly, turning me on my left (to try and get baby to turn and to get the epidural drugs to filter down into my left side) caused baby's heart rate to fall suddenly and it was decided that staying on my back was the safest for all, baby would come out one way or another. They put a little rolled up towel under my right side so that I was just tilted slightly and this seemed to help the imbalance of the epidural and baby tolerated it just fine.

 Gayle was brought up to speed on all this by the lovely Pam when she handed over my care. Gayle decided to ignore the third part, thinking she knew better, and she started to turn me over again. It's pretty hard to put up a fight when you've been chemically numbed from the chest down, but I did feel quite strongly that she was doing the wrong thing, and told her so and said I didn't want to be turned. She carried on regardless, and low and behold, down shot baby's heart rate once again. Back over I went! Ten minutes later, I started to notice I was regaining feeling, so Gayle checked the epidural site, only to find that the tube had come out. It seems pretty clear to me that this happened when Gayle was trying to turn a very reluctant me over, despite having been told it was not a good idea. I'm not a violent person, but if I could have flicked Gayle in the forehead and called her a stupid fucking cow at that moment, I would have done.

The anaesthetist refused to put the epidural back in, on account of the fact I was fully dilated by this point. Gayle had decided to leave me for another hour or so to allow baby to move down further so that hopefully the pushing phase would be shorter. By this point, it was all getting a bit fraught. My sister had come in around this time to give me another pillow (the one, wafer thin pillow provided by the hospital just wasn't cutting it after that long spent in the same position) and she ended up staying around, as James was silently freaking out a little bit and needed some moral support. I was in tears, begging for them to re-site the epidural, and Gayle was just being really generally annoying and useless.

If you can imagine...I hadn't eaten anything since dinner at mum's the night before (about 22 hours ago) because once you have an epidural, you can't eat anything and all you can drink is sips of water, and I hadn't slept since the morning before (about 33 hours ago) so my energy levels were sub zero, and my patience was even lower than that. 

By this point I was in a lot of pain again and that urge to push that people talk about? It totally eluded me. I started pushing and apparently I was pushing very well, but how the hell do are you expected to push what was to be a 9lb 7oz baby out of a first timer's body with no food, barely any water and no sleep?? I was at breaking point, and I did the one thing I swore I would never do: I started telling myself and everyone else that I couldn't do it. I was sobbing my heart out, I had nothing left. At some point around this time, Gayle asked if we all (me James and my sister Becs) would like to have a look at my vagina. to see the baby crowning. "No, we fucking don't" I said on behalf of us all. Did she really expect any other answer??? Anyway, I asked for the ventouse so Gayle went and got the doctor on Duty. Jorge. Another name I will remember forever.

Jorge was a real charmer. I think he was Spanish. He was about 5ft tall and had a mess of floppy blonde-ish hair atop his stupid head. He swans in, I ask him for the ventouse, he says no. I beg, he says no. I beg some more, he says "Katie, do you really want to put your child's life at risk here?". I am floored, and through desperate sobs, I respond with "Don't patronise me, you fucking arsehole" and he leaves the room. What a thing to say to a woman in my position!! That's some bedside manner you've got there....fuckface. A more appropriate response from him might have been "Katie, there are risks involved with an assisted delivery, and you are pushing excellently. You really don't need my help yet, but if and when you do, I will be the first to let you know. Trust me, I only want what is best for you and your baby". I know, I know, I should have been an OB/GYN consultant :o)

So anyway, with useless Jorge out of the room, I knew I had to just buckle up and get the baby out. Usually, they get you to control your pushing as the head is coming out, but I think Gayle was almost as fed up with me as I was with her by this point, so she told me to just push. Push as hard as I could, for as long as I could, and not to stop pushing until baby was born. So I did. And it was. And then he was here.

at 18:01 on Saturday 10th September, I felt a weight on my belly, looked down, and there was this little ball of dark bloodied hair on me. It was a boy, and I was stunned into silence. I didn't cry, I didn't really feel anything at that moment. I was just in shock I think. Shock that it was finally all over...

Gayle left his cord uncut until it stopped pulsating, which is probably her one saving grace. I didn't know anything about the benefits of doing that at the time, but I am so glad she did and I would insist that this is done in any future births I may have.

Somewhere in the chaos of the uncontrolled pushing, Gayle had given me an episiotomy and I had also torn a fair bit, so I needed some stitches. I probably shouldn't dwell on this point, but just to say, it was more painful than the birth itself, and she was sewing me for almost an hour. Because she is only a midwife, not a doctor, Gayle could only administer me so much local anaesthetic. That "so much" was two doses which last about 5 minutes each, because she had already give me one when she did the episiotomy. 10 minutes worth of pain relief during about 50 minutes of stitches equals A LOT of screaming from me. In an almost comical twist, she also made me try and breast feed for the first time while she was stitching "to take my mind off the pain". If that isn't sadistic, I don't know what is. I had never breastfed in my life, and it is definitely something which should be started in a calm, relaxed environment. As contrary to popular belief, it isn't actually the most natural thing in the world at first. It takes practise, for both of you. And while some bitch you have grown to hate over the past few hours passes a needle and thread through your already swollen, sensitive flesh, with mostly no pain relief, is not the time to try and get the hang of it, trust me. 

Eventually it was all over, and after falling over the wheely stall she had been sat on (thanks for that one karma, I love you for that) Gayle finally left the room, never to return. My wonderful friend Greer came in the take over, get me cleaned up, and peace was restored.

I'm going to share with you a photo which I have never really show anyone. It was taken at this time, and only after reading the above, will it make any sense. I look pretty much lifeless, because I was.

I'm kind of gutted I don't have that beautiful new mum photo like a lot of people seem to have. This one is all there is, but hey, at least it accurately reflects what I had just been through! 

I think I'll leave it there for now. For anyone who actually read this whole thing, I hope it didn't traumatise you too much. I wrote it more for my own records than anything else, so forgive me for going into the gory details. But if you did, thanks for reading. I'll try and keep it a little lighter with the next post, promise :o)

Here are a few photos from those early days