Preggers Goes Pop
This post is for me, I needed to write it to stop thinking about the birth. It's not pretty and it competes in length with Rachel from friends post break up letter to Ross (although doesn't quite make 'thirty pages front and back').Going to Porters wine bar, watching jazz and ending up in labour after an evening of Freddie dancing in my belly seems a perfectly reasonable thing to happen once but twice, now that's just a tad weird.
Weds 26th July, I get home to mum's around 11pm, we chat for half an hour, I go to bed, go out like a light and wake half an hour later knowing I need to get up.
I do so, my waters wash over my feet, within fifteen minutes the contractions are coming every two minutes, I'm suprised by how strong they are and how quickly they came on so powerfully.
Ring the hospital they say 'come in'. Ring Clare, arrange to meet her there. Get dressed, mum drives us there, faster than she usually drives.
I tell the midwives as I walk in 'I don't think this will take long'.
Duh. Didn't touch wood or anything.
We get settled, the midwives take an age to join us in our room, I'm convinced the baby will turn up before they do. Bloody hell it hurts.
I'm wearing a tens machine. This is the ultimate hippy birthing mum accesssory. A small battery operated machine that apparently sends electrodes to your nerve endings and ensures the body releases it's natural pain relievers, endorphines.
Or, for the more cynical amongst us, works basically as a distraction by giving the woman a few buttons to press and a series of increasingly complicated instructions to follow as the labour progresses.
And, if you get really lucky, as I did, gives you a series of major electric shocks catapulting you in all your naked glory accross the room shouting 'get it off, get it off now', the memory of which will provide those in the room at the time with a visually amusing image for years to come.
'God, is it suppoosed to hurt like this in your back?'
Quite common, yes, apparently.
Marvellous.
The midwives come, announce the contractions aren't long enough yet to justify me staying in hospital, we should go home.
I don't want to go home.
Mum and Clare do lots of glorious back rubbing, I do lots of breathing. Little sis says push out the pain with your breath, like this 'whoo' 'whoo' 'whoo'.
I raise an eyebrow in her direction. She says 'I know, tempting to say 'fuck off' isn't it? But just try it'.
I try it.
I'm not convinced.
We set up the music.
I get in the bath. Mum comes with me. The contractions are longer and stronger now, surely it's coming?
Clare comes, says they want us to go home, I lie low in the bathtub. The water helps. Mum helps. Sometimes I need to jump out, stand against the wall whilst mum rubs my back.
I can see how nakedness doesn't get to be an issue.
I don't care about anything, bar the pain.
'whoo' 'whoo' 'whoo'.
Clare sleeps whilst mum and I hide in the bathroom.
Mum tries her hardest to distract me with conversation. 'Do you want to take up horseriding again?' she asks, inviting the inevitable 'not right now, no' 'did you know that the ears grow throughout your life? there's another body part that also does, the nose I think'.
She rubs my back.
I think that this childbirth thing is pretty rubbish, but a lot less so because I have mum and little sis there, still, I can't resist taking the piss on the ear thing.
6am, out of the bath. Clare's talked the midwives into letting us stay, they say, 'you do know that this could go for days don't you?' I think how they don't understand, the baby is coming. 'whoo whoo whoo' says little sis, I echo her. I'm visualising lying on my belly at the edge of my cliff, pushing the clouds , which come in the full range of colours found in a packet of refreshers, over the ocean. 'whoo' 'whoo' 'whoo', I can't believe it actually helps but it does.
The contractions start to slow.
3pm, Amy joins us so mum can get a bit of kip. I've put on my face, knowing she won't be worried about me as long as my eyeliner is nicely shaded. It works, 'you've got your face on' she says with an audible sigh of 'ahh, this is ok' as she enters the room. It's very calm. Little sis is again encouraging me onto the big ball thing.
Now, I have to say, on the tour of the labour ward, the temptation to shout 'you are having a laugh aren't you?' was almost unsupressible when I saw the big blue balls . They look like the last thing worth having at your birth, only they're not. They allow mum and little sis to promise, though not deliver, a spacehopper race (minus the ears /handles), and, they're suprising comfortable to bounce on, and serve as an extra seat when the room gets busy. Only they make the contractions come on hard. Little sister thinks this is a good thing. But then she's not the one having them. They're hard enough as it is thank you very much.
Only they're not says the senior nurse, they're soft as, go home, the fact this isn't the worst pain I'll feel sends a shiver down my very sore spine. 'Or' says Annie, my glorious midwife, 'you can have another internal examination and if you're dilated enough you can stay, but chances are you won't be'.
I'm agreeing to go home faster than you can say 'let me outta here'.
We wait for them to do the release paperwork. We laugh a lot. I dance round the room to Voodoo child, which feels pretty apt.
They keep telling me to eat, to keep up my energy levels, I can't believe I'm being implored to take in high sugar foods, mum, always a weight watcher is suddenly shoving an array of cakes at me and bugger, I can't think of a time when food was ever so unappetising a suggestion.
7pm Thursday, we're home. I head back to the bath. Needless to say the contractions started strenthening practically the minute we walk in the door. By midnight we're heading back to hospital. I lean against the car for a particularly painful contraction before we set off and wonder if I can bear that much pain sitting down in a car. I can. Just, but inside I'm crying.
Externally I discovered I am not a screamer in times of incredible pain, which brought me some comfort. As did the knowledge that I'd gone 24 hours without drugs and had found resources inside myself to cope with pain I'd never have believed possible to cope with without chemical relief. I felt strong, proud of myself that I was still laughing, managing to get through it.
The screams of other women were one of the worse things about the hospital, my first thought was always, selfishly, 'horray, I've that bit to look forward to'.
Back at the hospital and the inevital examination is no longer delayable. It was a tribute to Annie's charm that I not only let her do it but agreed to be examined by Vanessa, the first year midwifery student she was coaching so supportively, but then as little sis whispered to me 'should be ok, she's got small hands'. It was.
The results were almost worth the procedure. I needed to get to 10cm dilated, I was at eight, shouldn't be long now.
Clare had a short snooze.
Annie broke the news that after over 24 hours without so much as a sniff of gas and air, a water birth was actually untenable as it had been too long since my waters had broken and the baby was at risk of infection. They needed to strap me to a bed and constantly monitor me. I'd stayed drug free in hope of using the birthing pool but with the news that I couldn't move around or do that, the desire to just get rid of the pain, which by this point was incredible despite any amount of tens magic or whoo whooing, led to a request for an epidural.
The procedure itself was terrifying, there is nothing like having a needle in your spine and the surgeon explain the possible extent of nerve damage if you flinch mid contraction, to see me rigid with fear I discovered. I told my body sternly that under no circumstances was it to contract at the point the needle went in, and amazingly, it obeyed. My contractions by now were every two minutes for 90 seconds, bar the three minute gap whilst the epidural was administered.
By 5am I was at 9 and a half centimetres.
'hurry up girl' said Annie 'I want to deliver this baby and I'm off shift at 7'.
Clare came back, mum popped out for a snooze.
The epidural was mindblowing. The relief instantaneous. My body finally had a break and I wanted to cry at the joy of it.
We turned our minds to a whole load of decisions I'd never known needed to be made. Did I want one of my birthing partners to cut the cord? Clare's face was exactly as mine would have been under the circumstances, a huge sign saying 'fuck off if you think I'd enjoy that'. We decided we should tell mum I wanted her to do it. It was meant to be a joke, only I forgot to tell her until three days later at which point she said she'd have liked to. Not that she got the chance. I was happy to let the afterbirth come out naturally, unless it took hours and hours in which case I may ask for the injection.
We turned our attention to the music, to idle chat, I was in fine form as were little sis, Annie and Vanessa. the mood was merry in our little room.
Annie couldn't find the contractions on the monitor, but the bloody thing had been playing up for a while so none of us took it seriously. She changed machine.
Still no sign.
I was definately having them I joked, like she hadn't spotted me doubled over in pain begging Clare to rub my back harder.
Then the pain hit, it was worse than any of the contractions, searing down my right side, I curled up. Annie was telling Vanessa to get someone. The anethestist I think, then the consultant, suddenly the room was filling with people, I couldn't focus on what was going on, I could only focus on the pain. I couldn't believe anything could feel this bad, and through an epidural. I looked over at the monitor. Where the baby's heartbeat had been, there was nothing.
I felt as if my own stopped. I remember fighting the panic, telling myself the only thing I could offer myself or the baby was to keep calm, that I wasn't going to change anything and panic would only make it worse. I was sure he was dead and remember thinking I could be heading that way too. I could see the panic in faces all around me. Who were all these people? Clare was telling me I needed an emergency cesarean, I nodded. Should she get mum now? I noodded again.
I asked. 'Is he dead?'. The monitor exploded to life. An audible sigh of relief all round. 'No', said the senior consultant. Who then explained I could continue with a natural birth if I wanted now that the baby was back, but he was facing the wrong way, crashing into my spine, and if he went down again they'd have to operate anyway. I explained the pain, said something was very wrong, they needed to just get him out.
Clare had gone to change, she came back looking like an extra from ER, testament to her own beauty that I remember thinking how good she looked with a blue hair net hat thing on.
She was magnificent in the operating theatre, she told me afterwards about the tray of huge metal instruments that went past her, but she never even flinched at the time, she just held my hand, and when it turned our my own hands were to weak, held my baby for me. He came out after ten minutes, 7.35am friday morning. He was the perfect distraction from the team of people washing up in my stomach. I didn't have the 'oh he's beautiful' emotion. It was replaced by 'are they normally that purple?' (nope) and relief that he was moving. Clare did the tear filled eyes bit for both of us, I was too tired. The waves of love came later, for now, I just needed to lie still.
Annie turned up in the recovery room.
'You're supposed to knock off at 7, it's 8, what you doing here?' I said 'oh I just had a bit of paperwork to finish' she replied, we both knew she was lying, I loved her for seeing us through.
posted by The Gypsy @ 1:14 am
2 comments
