Birth story

Dot writes:

I’m not sure where to start with this. The beginning, obviously; but I don’t think I can convey what it was like just by saying what happened. It was such a straightforward birth and it all went pretty much to plan, even though (as last time) it took me at least half the labour to be thoroughly convinced I was in labour at all. It was a birth as birth is supposed to be – quite ordinary in its way, not frightening, the body doing its job: wonderful, exhilarating, painful, tedious, dramatic, normal, amazing. It was a beautiful birth. And I must say that it was very nice to have the midwives there this time; they were brilliant.

I woke in the small hours on Friday morning, perhaps around 2.30. I was having twingy, tight sensations in the lower abdomen that had started in my dreams and carried on into wakefulness. They weren’t very frequent or very painful. Were these contractions? They seemed to be continuing, and I noticed that Sprout would start to move a little before each one came. At 3.45 Ken seemed to be awake so I told him rather tremulously that I thought I was having contractions. Ken’s reaction was to be frustrated that he hadn’t got round to downloading the contraction timer program for his iPod Touch. We lay in bed for a bit talking, Ken practical, I hesitant. The contractions were so light and I didn’t want to call it too early – what if they were just practice niggles? What if it all went away in a few hours and started again tomorrow night? But Ken went downstairs and began to inflate and fill the pool.

By 5am Ken had persuaded me that I really ought to call the midwives, so I put in a call to the hospital. At this point the contractions were still very mild indeed, so mild I was sometimes unsure it wasn’t just wind, and it was hard to identify a regular interval – we timed them at eight minutes, but then I tried again and got only six, or maybe seven; it wasn’t making much sense. When Sinead, the night-shift midwife, arrived, I greeted her apologetically and told her it was almost certainly a false alarm, but since my labour was fast last time we’d thought it best to be cautious. Sinead said we’d done the right thing. She felt my tummy, listened to the baby’s heartbeat and checked my blood pressure. Then she did an internal examination and, after consultation, a stretch and sweep. My cervix wasn’t open, but it was well forward and ready to go, and Sinead said the stretch and sweep might stir something up. Indeed it did. Sinead hung around for a bit while as Hugh got up and we had some breakfast, and by the time she left at 6.30 I was needing to bend over and breathe to get through each squeeze, though it was still obviously early days. (By the way, things I have done while in [early] labour: carry a 14kg toddler down the stairs. Play with lego. Make toast.)

From this point on I became more and more absorbed in my labour, while Ken rushed around putting out mats and towels, getting Hugh ready and out to the childminder, and checking the temperature and depth of the pool (with the aid of a thermometer in the shape of a rubber duck kindly lent us by Sinead). I took up a position kneeling in front of the sofa, which was surrounded with mats and protected with a couple of waterproof pads and a towel, and this in fact is where I stayed until Frank was born with the exception of frustrating lurches to the bathroom. When each contraction hit I burrowed into the seat with my head on the cushions, much as I did last time with the beanbag, and breathed deeply. With Hugh I remember the pains as being largely in my back and achey in character, which is the kind of pain I get during periods, and the urge to lean forward was driven by wanting to get the weight off my back. This time I experienced the pain as sharper, lower and more to the front, similar to wind, but I still felt a strong need to bend forward, and I was using the breath to try to make some space deep in my abdomen. In case my yoga teacher should happen to read this I wish it to be noted that I did my three-stage yoga breathing, if not with text-book strictness.

When Ken got back from dropping Hugh off he called the midwives again on my behalf. They tell you it should be the woman who calls, but at this stage I couldn’t face the idea of getting a contraction while I was on the phone and I wanted to stay where I was. Ken encouraged me to get in the pool he had so lovingly filled, but I didn’t want to play the trump card too early and I decided to wait until the midwives had confirmed I was at least 4cm dilated.

At ten to nine the day-shift midwives, Bernie and Kate, arrived. I was very happy to see Kate because she did two of my home visits and also spoke to me on the phone when I got the results of the GCT (blood test for gestational diabetes), but it was actually Bernie who gave most of my hands-on care and stayed with us for some hours after the birth. As previously mentioned, the midwives were wonderful; they whisked everything into place with complete calm and efficiency and made us feel that nothing could possibly go wrong while they were there. Again they checked my tummy, my blood pressure and the baby’s heartbeat; Bernie pronounced him to be ‘a very happy little baby’. Moving to lie on the sofa to have my tummy felt was an effort and brought on a mini-contraction while I was there – I had to turn onto my side to cope with it – and Bernie said she would wait a bit before doing an internal. As it turned out, that meant this was another labour in which I had only one internal and that very near the start.

Kate and Bernie then asked if I would like to have my back massaged or if I would rather they went into the other room and left me to do my thing. I wasn’t sure, but I asked to try the massage and find out if it helped. So Bernie started to prod her way down my spine and apply counterpressure at the base when the contractions came, talking me through them and helping me release the tension I was still holding in my buttocks and shoulders, despite all the breathing. ‘Relax your feet’, I remember her saying; ‘relax your ears.’ The massage was more a distraction than a relief in itself, but it gave me permission to go off completely into my own place, not emerging between contractions but staying with my arms and head on the sofa and focusing on my breath. The surges became more and more intense so that I was beginning to moan aloud – so good to moan and not care and ride the pain – until quite quickly, and without warning for me (though I’m sure Kate and Bernie saw it coming) I began to shout and it turned to pushing. A bulging sensation like a vast, hard bubble, so painful – I don’t remember being that aware of the pain of the second stage with Hugh – but never quite too much, and then, like in all the stories, Bernie told me ‘pant through this one’ – which wasn’t difficult, it was more about not rushing it than resisting the heave – and then ‘reach down and touch your baby’. The vernix felt like a rather dry yoghurt. ‘Now comes his body’, and out he came. They passed him through my legs and clumsily and shakily I took him, with the umbilical cord dragging rather uncomfortably against my private parts. My nightie was manoeuvred off around the cord and I was helped to sit down on the sofa.

As set out in the birth plan, I took the injection and the placenta followed speedily and without fuss, in welcome contrast to the rather anxious wait we had last time; once a good ache had buiIt up they told me to kneel forward and it plopped neatly into a little tray. I had no tearing (hooray!), just a small graze that didn’t require attention. After a short while I was helped into the kitchen and assisted to climb at last into the pool, and there I wallowed in the delicious hot water and gave Frank his first, somewhat inexpert feed. So Ken’s efforts were not wasted; it felt lovely. I was also very happy to be able to wash Frank immediately. One of the things I remember about the days in the hospital after Hugh was born was that he had a blood-clot in his hair and I was longing to wash it off, but he wasn’t given a bath until the morning we were discharged.

So this was my experience, as far as I can tell it, of the birth of our second son. He was most considerate in his arrival; he timed things nicely so we could get Hugh out of the way without disrupting his sleep and then have most of the day to recover and settle in before he came home. It was probably marginally shorter than my first labour, though it’s hard to say as we don’t know when active labour started in either case. I certainly went from zero dilation to the birth in about four hours. I never noticed my waters breaking; apparently they went just before the birth. Frank weighed seven pounds and was born ten days early, at 9.28am, on my parents’ wedding anniversary, which is also the day after my mother’s birthday.

Birth plan

Dot writes: earlier today I typed up my birth plan, ready to discuss it with the midwife when she visits tomorrow.

1. I wish to give birth at home, attended by the Community Midwives.

2. I would like to be supported by my husband, [Ken], and also by my mother, [Katimum], if she is able to be present (my parents are visiting Monday 21st to Monday 28th September).

3. My hope is to have a natural, low-intervention birth, using the resources we have at home and the help and advice of the midwives to manage pain and keep labour going.

4. We have a birthing pool and I would like to use it for at least part of my labour.

5. When the baby is born, assuming there is no need for resuscitation, I would like to hold him and attempt to feed him immediately, leaving weighing and dressing for a little later (though we’ll want to make sure he stays warm).

6. I am happy to have an actively managed third stage if this does not interfere with holding and feeding my baby.

7. In the event of hospital transfer, depending on the reasons for transfer, I realise certain interventions may become necessary, but I would still like to have as natural a labour as possible and in particular to remain upright and mobile. I am especially keen to avoid continuous monitoring unless it is absolutely inevitable, because I am worried about my labour stalling or becoming much more painful if I cannot adopt comfortable positions. I am aware of the dangers of a cascade of intervention if this happens, with resulting risks for the baby as well as for me.

The contentious bit is (7), of course. I wonder if I should just leave it out, because it is unlikely to have much influence on the treatment I receive if we do have to transfer in. I think I’ve already given Sprout and me our best chance of a natural birth by booking the homebirth. Still, it might be good to discuss these issues with the midwife in advance and find out what hospital policy is.

A very good birth – now for the hard part!

Dot writes: Ken has already given his account of the birth of our little boy, with some excellent pictures I hadn’t seen until just now. I’ve been in hospital for two nights. I could have gone home after one but even though I’m not too battered myself I was glad to be somewhere I’d be able to get help with the baby, especially with initiating breastfeeding. This is still a bit precarious – he hasn’t had very much to eat yet and tends to be sleepy and miss feeds or alternatively fight the nipple, though when he finally gets down to it has a ferocious suck. I’m still not sure he’s latching quite right, and it takes ages to get any kind of latch. However, we will learn together… He is stupendously lovely and makes me cry for sheer love, though also for exhaustion.

I’ll just fill in some of what happened in between our trip to the emergency room after my waters broke on Wednesday night and Ken’s rude reawakening to a wife who was about to push. At the hospital they had done a cardiotocograph trace of the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions plus an internal exam (the only one I had the whole time – and I am SOOO pleased I didn’t have to have one when I was really contracting, though the one in the emergency room was very gentle). I was told that I was already 1cm dilated but not in labour, just having preliminary tightenings, and that I should come back in when the contractions were around five minutes apart. In the car home I was a bit uncomfortable but not bad, and I resolved to cope as long as I could before going back. At this stage I expected it all to take ages, of course! We went to bed and for a while I was able to tolerate the contractions just lying on my side and doing three-stage yoga breath. I even fell asleep in between them. About 3am (I think) I felt I could no longer stay still or lie down so I went into the living room. I had to do some furniture moving to set myself up a sort of little camp – Ken had brought his bike into the flat and I had to move that out of the way too! I put a blanket down on the wooden floor for me to kneel on with the beanbag in front of it for me to lean into and fetched the spare duvet because I was very cold and shivering strongly. I was starting to feel the contractions going round into my back as well as in my lower abdomen. When they were strongest I burrowed my head into the bean bag and waggled my bottom in the air. But they didn’t seem to last very long or be regular. At one point I tried sitting on the birthing ball but I found that wasn’t very effective: I wanted to lean forward more than that. A couple of contractions I managed to do sitting tailor and breathing three-stage breath, and even, again, dozed off in between them, but increasingly I was finding the back pain didn’t quite go away in between. The pains didn’t hurt overpoweringly but were somehow very irritating – toe-curling, annoying pain that one could not stay still for. I began to think there was no way I would stick to my birth-plan resolution to have no epidural (I still thought this was just the start).

I went through to the bedroom again at about four and got my watch to try to time the contractions but I wasn’t able to pay enough attention to the watch to do this properly. Some seemed to be only three minutes apart but then I’d get a gap that looked more like six or seven. I was now blowing hard through each contraction, sometimes even moaning, and I decided this had to be the real thing and went to wake Ken. Ken asked me if he could have a shower and I said yes because I knew he hadn’t had a chance of one that day. But then I started to get a pushing urge. I could hardly believe it – I just heard myself yell ‘I need to push!’ and thought ‘that can’t be right’! From here on the character of the labour really changed. In between contractions I went back to feeling completely normal and I even tried to brush my hair and wondered about getting dressed; but then I’d get one of these increasingly obviously expulsive contractions. So I told Ken to ring the ambulance and got down on all fours on the hard wooden floor in the living room.

When you need to push it is absolutely impossible not to. I tried to do the head-down, bum-in-the-air position my yoga teacher suggested as better than panting for push-avoidance, and it made no difference at all. I don’t know how many pushing contractions I had but I think around five before Hugh slithered out into Ken’s arms.

Then we were strangely stuck, with me on all fours, the chord between my legs, an interesting blood slick forming on the floor, and Ken behind me holding the squalling baby. In this position I answered the phone to the ambulance men and told them the door to the flat was propped open! They arrived very soon after the birth and after helping me turn over they clamped and cut the chord, padded me up, lifted me into a chair and put the baby, wrapped in bloody towels, into my arms. I was given some oxygen on the way to the hospital – I felt pretty weak – but I’m not sure I really needed it.

At the hospital we were whisked up to the delivery ward and there Hugh and I were cleaned up. I was given the routine injection to get the placenta come out – the only intervention I had, really. The placenta was actually pretty slow – about an hour after the baby, I think – and they were talking of giving me a drip to get it to speed up, but happily the midwife got round this by suggesting I go to the loo: once back in a leaning-forward position the back-pain that had been building turned back into a pushing urge and the placenta popped into the toilet. Then came the least pleasant part of the whole business from my point of view – cleaning out my poor vagina (very tuggy and rough feeling – ouch) and stitches for a short but deep and ragged tear. (I don’t know how many stitches. It took a while and even after a local anaesthetic was somewhat wincy.) Meanwhile little Hugh was weighed and assessed. The birth weight was recorded as 2.51kg but I was told 6lb 9oz which is actually quite a lot more, and he weighed about 2.8kg yesterday and 2.7kg this morning, so it does seem that original measurement was wrong.

And since then Hugh and I have been getting to know each other and Ken has been spreading the tidings. It was strange to have this baby after all those months of familiarity with the lively bump Prawn. He was gorgeous but didn’t seem quite ours. And sometimes I just can’t seem to work out how to get him to open his tiny mouth; and sometimes he sucks and sucks and looks around with unfocused slate-blue eyes at this odd, unreliable world. We had a day and night on the public ward and then – because after all I paid to go semi-private! – an afternoon, night and morning in a three-bed room in the Lillie Suite. I’d like to blog about all the happenings in those wards. The public ward was very noisy and busy but rather more interesting; the other women in the Lillie suite seemed iller on the whole. However, I think I need to fulfil an urgent appointment with the bathroom before, possibly, going back to the Grand Nipple Project. My sister has come over, bless her, so Hugh is having a restful cuddle with auntie after his extremely belated feed. I don’t want to let there be such a big gap before the next one.

Just a couple more points about the labour: Ken asked me how much it hurt, and it defintely hurt a lot, but never so that I couldn’t imagine it would hurt a lot more later. It never went beyond what I could certainly deal with. Given nothing went wrong, I am very happy to have had the baby at home, even in that perilously dramatic manner. I had nobody poking me, I did exactly what I needed to to stay as comfy as possible, and I followed what my body told me. My perineum aches now and the stitches tug a little but they seem to be healing up well. Next time I guess I would like to be warmer and it might be nice to have a midwife to help, just in case things aren’t so straight-forward! But I will certainly want a home birth. The point at which it was good to be in hospital was afterwards.

A home birth after all

Ken writes: Finally an end to all those pregnancy posts! Now Dot can write about child birth and rearing instead. I need to write this one, however, as Dot is in hospital.

Our son Hugh was born at home this morning, which came as a surprise since we were planning a hospital birth.

The waters began to trickle out just after nine o’clock last night, and burst well and truly at about ten. We knew we were supposed to go in to the hospital if this happened to get it checked out. Somehow it took about an hour to get there although there was no traffic on the roads. I guess it’s hard to be efficient when you’re very excited as we were.

There was a palpable sense of possibility in the air. Alice’s contractions hadn’t really started yet, in her opinion, and though there were a few twitches in the car on the way in, they were no way near regular. It felt like we were on a threshold. The labour and the new role of being parents hadn’t started yet, but the old life stage was coming to an end. I’m told you know you should answer yes to a marriage proposal if you feel a tiny bit scared and excited at the same time. Well, I think I felt that way last night. The moment had come to affirm our son in the loudest, proudest and most heart-felt terms! He shall be! He is!

At hospital, they examined her and sent us home, with an appointment for the birth to be induced if she hadn’t gone into labour before Friday morning. On the drive home we saw a fox carrying a bag. Hugh the fox. He will be clever.

We were both exhausted when we got home around 1am. It was hard to get to sleep.

It was harder to wake up, when at 5:15 or thereabouts Alice gave me a shake. She astutely thought it was time to go into hospital. The labour must have been waiting for me to get up, because once she woke me the labour really accelerated. I was dithering trying to get on clothes and running back over the same ground. I actually had a very quick shower. Outwardly I played it cool, but I was fast and she was talking. We had been told that you know it’s time to go in to hospital when the woman can no longer talk through a contraction. But, there was no way we were going to get in to hospital on time, even if I drove really fast and Alice sat with her legs crossed all the way!

Alice was on her hands and knees in the living room and she needed to push. I checked and there was no sign of the baby. We called the ambulance, and it seemed to take a hundred years to give them our name and address. Hung up. Rushed around flat putting on lights for said ambulance. Ran outside and moved car out of way of ambulance. Ran inside. Checked stuff. Alice was on hands and knees and needing to push. I began timing a contraction and the phone rang and it was the emergency operator. Alice pushed. I checked and the baby’s head was completely out and he was breathing. I dropped the phone and held the baby’s head. He came out with the next push. 5:45 am. Probably.

That part of it, from what I can tell from remembering looking at my watch and then later when the ambulance men arrived pretty much immediately afterwards, may have taken about eight minutes.

in the maternity ward

at the hospital

a proud dad (who need to learn how not to over-expose photos)

Now I’ve posted this, I can get set tidying the flat, as you can imagine it’s a bit of a mess.