The Birth.

This has taken me pretty much 4 weeks to type!In between feeds,naps and my darling girl, it's quite lengthy and a little too detailed but it's for my own record so bear with me-or skip past!! :)




Induction....
At our last Obstetrician appointment on the 22nd December they confirmed that I would be induced and set the date...it was bizarre how our lovely OB looked through her diary and picked a day as though she was scheduling a coffee date- it was to begin on the 27th December and we had to be at the hospital at 7.30am.
Panic stations sort of set in then, and I felt hugely anxious during my last 2 days at home, as we were packing up to leave our house and stay at mum&dad's house over Christmas and then for a week or so after the birth, so I had to try and make sure we had everything we needed for a new baby-when really I couldn't quite get my head around the fact it was going to happen in merely a few days!
Christmas and Boxing day are a blur...it was fairly low-key for our family this year, still lovely, but everyone was tired from the year that had been, and a little preoccupied with the fact that there would be a baby in the house very soon.
Hubby and I were packed and ready waiting at the hospital on the 27th...it was the start of a fairly long 2 days waiting for it all to start! They put the first lot of Prostoglandin gel in that morning, and the nurse-Judy, said things were looking very favourable already-cervix thin and 1-2cm, so she did a sweep then and there to help things along.
We also had the on-duty OB on his rounds come in and talk to us about what would be happening with the induction- I took an immediate dislike to him-his bedside manner was dreadful and he said he could see nothing wrong with our 37 week scan,and that he would have just left us to go full term, and made us feel as though we shouldn't have even been there...luckily he wasn't the OB that made the decision for us then, because looking back I'm extremely grateful they didn't let us go any longer!

I had mild pains that first day but they had disappeared by the next morning-we spent the day walking the hospital roof garden to try and keep the contractions going along, and eating snacks! Cue second lot of gel the next morning, and then another lot that evening too. They could feel baby's head right there on that second day but it wasn't locked into place and moved a bit when they pushed it so they couldn't break my waters to get things moving just yet. The second night I had stronger contractions- it's funny when I look back as I thought they were rather painful then and felt like things were moving along quite quickly-when really they were nothing!


Labour.....
On the morning of the 29th, the pains had died right off again, that same Dr I disliked was back on the rounds, and after feeling that baby's head was well and truly locked into place by now (the contractions from the night before must have helped move her right into position), he decided then and there to break my waters, which he did and it was painless, and then it was all on and while leaking amniotic fluid everywhere-we were moved into a delivery suite.This was at 8.30am.
They put me on a Syntocin drip which initially freaked me out as I thought I would be stuck on the bed unable to move, but they monitored baby internally for a while with a probe, so I was able to sit on the Swiss ball and move around a little.

Would you believe I hadn't even discussed a birth plan or pain relief with my midwife yet?! She was pretty relaxed though and that suited me just fine, so I really only made my decision about pain relief there and then. I'd had friends recommend asking for an epidural straight away seeing as I was on the Synto drip-as they cause contractions to come hard and fast. But I really hated the idea of it- I have no issues with pain relief itself, but personally I'm just not keen with anything being stuck into my spine, and not being able to feel anything when it came to pushing. My midwife helped me make my decision to use only gas, by telling me she had birthed twice on the Synto drip and only had gas both times, so I was determined to do the same!
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The contractions came on pretty quickly once the drip was in, and after they had stepped up a notch I started feeling a little anxious about whether I really could make it through the whole birth with no other pain relief-the gas didn't feel like it did anything, although it at least gave me something to focus on with each pain.
This is also where the whole labour seems to merge into one event and I'm quite foggy about what happened when etc....basically the contractions got stronger, I can just remember sucking hard on the gas for each one, and they progressed in strength until I was emitting guttural moans at the end of each breath...it seemed to help with the pain actually.
I had always thought that being in labour would be like constant pain...despite knowing that contractions came and went. So I was surprised to find that after the ferocity of each one, once it had passed, I was able to lie back and talk and joke with DH and the midwife about perfectly normal stuff!

DH said afterwards that it was strange to see me in such pain one minute, and then quite normal the next-must have been bizarre for him! He tried to help as much as he could with rubbing my back etc, but really I don't think any of it actually helped with the pain, just having him there was all I needed.
I ended up vomiting with the pain at one point too- it must have been near full dilation because everything started moving quite quickly and seems like a blur in my memory now.
I reached 5-6 cm dilation pretty quickly, and then by around 2:30-3pm I was fully dilated and my midwife said I could start pushing.
I had DH on my right, another lovely midwife on my left (who's shift finished at 3:30 but she was determined to stay on and see our baby born as she wanted to see how long she was haha!) who both held my legs for leverage with each push, and my midwife was at the foot of the bed. I did my best with the pushing, and was meant to be doing 3-4 with each contraction- but I was finding that I just had no urge to push after the second one...this was because the contractions were starting to wear off-right when you need them the most!So they cranked up the drip which helped for a bit, and they could see baby's head coming back and forth but I just couldn't push her far enough past 'the bend' as they put it.
So eventually they decided I would need a Venthouse(suction cup)to help get her out, and a male Dr or OB was called in to assist.
He was this huge guy who looked like he would be more at home in a Boxing Ring than a delivery room, but SO lovely and I immediately felt at ease with him there.


The birth.... I remember reading in one of my baby/birth books about how you appear to 'lose the plot' once you reach transition stage of labour...and I now understand what that means! I can't really even remember enough to describe the actual sensation of having baby gently pulled through with the suction...I think it was just immense pressure and stretching-At one point my midwife asked me to pant, and then the head was out! It was here that I started to lose the plot and was making all sorts of strange little shrieking sounds- just because I could still feel that sensation of stretching and I KNEW my baby's head was just sitting there-it's the most bizarre thing!
 They asked if I wanted to feel the head or have a look with a mirror but I knew if I did then I might start to freak out and I really just wanted her out at that stage....we waited until the next urge to push came, and then out came her body-it was still a tight sensation but the pain immediately disappeared once she was completely out.

Baby H was born at 3:59pm that day, weighing 8lb 10oz.

I forget which order that everything happened from here on....but the cord was cut, baby H was placed on my chest...and at some point they must have measured and checked her over-I remember seeing them do that but I'm not entirely sure when that was!I also had minimal tearing and a couple of stitches put in.

I couldn't quite believe that our baby was finally here, I couldn't even see her face yet- I just loved her, she was long, and beautiful, and our little giraffe- it's as though you know what they look like without even seeing them...if that makes sense.

While she was on my chest the OB started massaging my abdomen to try and get my uterus to contract and expel the placenta, I had also been given a shot of something in my thigh to help this along too. It was immensely painful- I'm not sure if that's normal or a precursor to what happened next, but I ended up sucking on the gas again as he was massaging my abdomen, I remember thinking 'my poor baby' as she was lying on my chest while I was in such pain and hoped she wasn't picking up on how awful it was! I couldn't even enjoy those moments with her unfortunately.
At some point they must have taken her off my chest...I remember feeling a huge gush,  and then next minute I noticed there was about 10 people in the room, the OB had his hands down in my nether regions and had the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear saying they needed a theatre room urgently, and it couldn't wait. I had IV lines put in either arms, a shot of something on my thigh again....the whole thing was a bit surreal and I just remember feeling like my eyes were as big as saucers trying to take in what was going on around me- and no-one was actually telling me.
I could see DH with my midwife on the opposite side of the room-he had his back to me and was holding Harriet with his shoulders shaking...that's when I felt REALLY scared that something quite bad had happened and I was going to miss out on meeting my daughter after everything we had been through to get her.... DH and both of the midwives kissed me and told me they'd see me soon and I was wheeled out- hearing one of the nurses saying that we had left a trail of blood all the way to theatre.
Once I was in there the staff were lovely and made me feel a little more at ease-asking me about baby H and what we were going to name her etc...and then I was put under, and woke up 2 hours later in recovery.

Afterwards.... When I woke up I found out I had haemorrhaged while they were trying to get the placenta out- my uterus failed to contract, so I lost 2 Litres of blood, and also had some retained placenta which they removed while I was under anaesthetic.
The placenta was also apparently in a terrible state- which WAS picked up on the 37 week scan, and which is why I'm so scathing of the on-duty OB at the hospital who came and told us the induction was unnecessary.
Finally finally....my midwife came in and they wheeled me to my room where DH was waiting with our wee bundle all wrapped up. He had had skin to skin with her the whole time while he was waiting for me. My midwife left us alone for 10 minutes and I finally got to hold my baby on my chest-she was, and still is, the most beautiful baby I have ever seen- not biased of course!
I don't think I cried the whole time...it wasn't until 2 days later that it finally hit me, and then at a few odd times over the next couple of weeks.
It hit DH harder- I've been told the floor of the delivery room looked like a horror film-that's why he had his back to me when I saw him, and why our midwife tried to usher him out to wait in our room. He cried quite a bit on and off for that first 2 days.
My midwife said that most women would have been in bits after that sort of experience and she was surprised that I was handling it so well and bonding with H...I don't know that I handled it well as such...more that after everything we went through to get H, I was determined not to let that experience ruin any more of my time with my baby.

So, that's the birth story....I don't mean for it to sound so dramatic as I know that at the end of the day I had a healthy baby, and I came out of it okay- many people have much worse outcomes.
But it really did affect me quite a bit for the 2 weeks or so after she was born- I was smitten with her, but just felt like we had missed out on something huge by not having those first precious hours together. And with the trauma that my body had experienced it took longer than usual to produce any colostrum and then milk...I also had huge troubles trying to latch her on, so to add to everything our first week was a blur of formula,cup feeding,syringe feeding colostrum, and pumping madly, but we finally got there in the end and I'm fully breastfeeding with the help of nipple shields.

I know that is probably the longest most tedious post I have ever written, but I wanted to put as much detail in that I could remember for my own record of events...so I don't blame anyone for skipping through most of it....I'll probably end up adding more to it too!

Apart from the haemorrhage- the actual labour and birth was amazing- above and beyond anything I had ever expected. It still astounds me what my body was able to do that day, and just the fact that we have this darling little person that we actually made....and then I remember just how she was made, and feel even more amazed!From an 8 cell embryo to this wonderful little character- it blows us away each and every day.