The birth of Thomas

So, it’s probably time to tell the story of Thomas’s birth. It wasn’t quite what was expected that’s for sure! If you’re not a fan of ‘too much information’ then I don’t recommend reading on!

A little background info. The hospital dated him to be due on the 16th December, I had him down for the 18th/19th. On the 3rd (at 38 weeks and 1 day), my midwife told me his head was at the top of my pelvis ready to engage but I presumed from this it hadn’t at that point. My blood pressure was also reading higher so on the Saturday we had to take a trip into town to get it rechecked, where it was back to normal.

Saturday night / Sunday morning, I got up about 1.30am to nip to the loo. On almost leaving the bathroom I felt a slight ‘trickle’ and the first thing that crossed my mind was that I’d lost all control of my bladder (a common concern when pregnant!). I went back into the bedroom and felt it again, and told David that my waters may have broken. I laid down on a maternity mattress sheet for about 20-30 minutes. I felt slight tightening sensations in my lower back, and on getting up my pyjamas were drenched, so yep, my waters had broken!

I called the labour ward who told me to come in and see them just to be checked over. We put all the bags, car seat etc. into the boot of the car and drove the 5 minutes up the road to the hospital in a hail storm (with freezing temperatures – yay!). Got into the labour ward, where I was taken into their triage room and checked over. Blood pressure was back up (not surprised!) and as most of my waters had come out at home there wasn’t a sufficient amount for them to confirm they’d broken. As I was 11 days early and there for my first baby of course I think they were a bit wary of whether I knew if my waters had actually broken (which looking back, I was 100% sure, but it’s hard to convince some people!).

I was hooked up to a BP monitor and a constant foetal monitoring system for the next hour, lying down on a bed in triage. Around 5am I was examined and told that the baby’s head was only 2/5ths engaged and there was no dilation of my cervix yet. On examining internally they also ‘dislodged’ my ‘show’ (go look that up if you really want to know what it is!), which then made it’s way out (see, too much information!).

I can’t remember exactly when, but possibly when I got back upright again, on having a contraction it felt like my pelvis was literally going to break apart. I had suffered with SPD (pelvic girdle pain) towards the end of my pregnancy, and at first I thought it was down to this but the midwife told me that as the head wasn’t fully engaged, with every contraction the baby was getting pushed down my pelvis, and that it was would ease off once he was engaged. I was given 2 paracetamol (wohoo!) and told to return at 11.30am for another BP check, or earlier if the pain got worse. We also put the TENs machine on that a friend had lent me before leaving.

So we drove back home, and I tried to go back to bed, propped up by several pillows. But with every contraction the pain was horrific. I don’t know if the TENs machine helped, however I do know that it at least took my mind off things ever so slightly! By about 7am I decided to try a bath, as everyone had told me about the amazing way water relieved pain. I also called my parents to let them know what had happened, but after a couple of contractions and me asking my Mum if it was normal to feel this much pain before labour had actually started she told me no and to get back to hospital.

So back up, dressed and David called for a taxi this time as I didn’t think I should drive us. Around 8am, before leaving the house, I had a mild contraction, plus the pelvis pain, and suddenly the urge to push (a bizarre feeling!). This is when I started to get a little scared as I was still getting pelvis pain so surely the head wasn’t fully engaged, which I didn’t think was normal full stop, let alone for a first pregnancy.

The taxi never showed up and by 8.30am we gave up waiting and I just said I would drive. I’d worked out I was having contractions about every 3 minutes so I got into the drivers seat, started the car and waited for a contraction. I got through it (TENs machine still on), gave the TENs booster button to David to click when the next one came on, and drove. I got past the two roundabouts before getting onto the straight road up to the hospital, put the car in cruise control right before the next contraction hit. It had gone before I had to use the pedals again so pretty well timed (note, there was no one on the roads as it was early on a Sunday morning, and if I’d felt I was a danger to anyone then I would have pulled over as it was a wide enough road to do so!).

We got back into the labour ward and straight back into triage. The shift change had happened so there were new midwifes on. Again back on the monitors and back on my back (the worst position to be in), but this time in a major amount of pain with my pelvis. I had so many wires over me, relying solely on the TENs machine to try and help ease the pain I was in, and started to get scared about what was going on. The previous midwife had said to me before we left that she reckoned they could probably say my waters had broken, however she never wrote this in my notes, so the new midwife again tried to check from a maternity pad and decided that it was just ‘wet show’.

They checked to see where the baby’s head was and it was 4 to 5 fifths engaged, so still not fully, plus she said that he wasn’t completely back to front, slightly to the side which was another worry. I told her how I’d wanted to push and she told me not to (easier said than done!). I then laid there for what seemed like hours whilst they monitored me. At about 10am they took me off the monitors and asked me to give them a urine sample. On standing up, a contraction hit and gravity took over. The pain in my pelvis was immense and I had to do everything in my power not to push. By this point, in tears, I told them I had to push. They got me to lie back down and examined me internally. Seconds later I heard ‘I can see the baby’s head crowning’, ‘Sarah, you’re fully dilated! We’d best get you into a delivery room!’.

So, here I was thinking I was no where near the start of established labour as I’d been led to believe the baby’s head wasn’t engaged and my pelvic pain would stop once it was, to in fact I’d gone through the whole of the first phase with 2 paracetamol and a TENs unit, oh and gritted teeth!

I walked (somehow, I really don’t know how now!) into a delivery room two doors down and finally got into the position I wanted on the bed, leaning over the back of the bed, and FINALLY got some gas and air (Entinox)! Plus I was now allowed to actually push which came with each contraction. I still had the pain in my pelvis and I still don’t know if it was from the SPD or not, but to be honest I didn’t care. At least I now realised that I had been in labour and wasn’t quite so scared anymore.

It took about an hour for the delivery. Unfortunately I’d forgotten everything I’d read about how to avoid tears etc. and after the midwife told me to ‘push through’ the burning sensation that you feel when the head comes out (and boy did it sting!), plus when the head started to come out with a contraction and then stopped midway, I didn’t come off the gas and air (which I should have), took too much in and blacked out briefly. On coming to it felt very surreal and all I could feel was the burning sensation and one thought came into my head, push through it, but I should have waited for the next contraction to do so and as I didn’t I had 3rd degree tears.

Thomas was born at about 11.20am (11.31am is recorded, but David said it was earlier) on the 5th December 2010. He weighed in at 6lb 12.5oz, and didn’t look battered and bruised considering he came down the birth canal. Due to my tears, I was then taken off to have surgery, plus I had to have a spinal anaesthetic (frustrating after going through the birth without painkillers besides those 2 paracetamol). It was quite hard to go through this. We’d just had a baby (a shock in itself despite the 9 months of waiting!), we’d had him 11 days early (a major shock, even though we knew it was a possibility, you still don’t think it’ll happen!), and suddenly I was taken away from both him and David for about an hour and left feeling quite alone, tired and completely shell shocked.

After the surgery I was taken into the recovery room. Thomas was brought in to me (taken away from David, and David now left all alone – not the best part of this day), but he was left in a cot next to me instead of given to me, which frustrated me a bit (especially as I couldn’t sit up and get him), especially when he started crying and the midwives in there just ignored him until I started too (hormones!) and one of them clocked what needed to be done!

Finally I was taken up to the maternity ward and into their observation section where David joined me again. I was kept there for about 6 hours until the spinal had wore off and I could walk again. Then around 9pm I was allowed to go to my own room and thankfully David was allowed to stay (they even gave him a recliner chair to sleep in!), and we stayed in hospital for 2 nights until they were happy that my aftermath was all okay and healing as expected.

So labour was fairly textbook, if you read the book quickly, it’s just a shame that no one believed I was in labour! At the time we were both quite unhappy about the lack of care and support provided by the midwives on the labour ward, but it’s easy to look back now and simply find the funny points (like having a contraction whilst driving to hospital!). Of course the outcome was worth all of this ten times over and yes, I’d go through it again for him

How does your garden grow?

This year, with having Thomas to look after, I realised I wasn’t going to have much time for growing my fruit and veg in the garden. I’d already got a few things planted before he came along but growing anything from seeds was just unlikely to be left forgotten about (with the exception of a bit of salad stuff going straight in the ground if we get good enough weather). However, thanks to my Dad for starting a few things off and getting everything planted out for me we now have quite a few things on the go.

Already in the garden are strawberry plants, raspberry canes and a gooseberry bush. I planted out garlic back in October/November time too. We now also have potatoes, peas, carrots, lettuce, rhubarb (already had some of this in Easter), fine beans and tomatoes. I just hope that we get some decent weather to get some good fruit, veg and salad this year, especially as by the time it all starts to ripen, Thomas will be onto solids and will be able to try the various foods straight out the garden

Tongue-tie Gone!

Been a manic few weeks since I last wrote, however the good news is that on Friday we headed on down to the Countess of Chester hospital and Thomas had a frenulotomy. It wasn’t a quick 5 minutes though. Thomas didn’t like being wrapped up for a start, and then having a stranger put her finger in his mouth to simply see how high he could lift his tongue and whether he could/would keep it still to allow her to cut the frenulum below, well he just hated that. It sounded like he was screaming in pain, but she hadn’t even done anything at that point. After about 5 minutes (although it felt like ages), she had managed to cut about 50% of it, and unwrapped him and brought him over to us to calm down and for me to feed him a little to try and help calm him down.

Eventually, after a feed, a lot of singing (he likes Nellie the Elephant!), and a cheapo 60′s style dummy from the hospital shop, he finally calmed down and fell asleep. We then took advantage of him in his quiet/drowsy state and had the remainder dealt with quickly (although he still woke up but he was a bit less wriggly!).

He calmed down quite quickly after that, slept in the car on the way home and then fed and napped at home. At that point it didn’t seem like much had changed, although he wasn’t fighting the feeds so much. However from Saturday morning, he started to feed for England! We’ve averaged about 12 feeds a day (usually every 2 hours, sometimes every hour to compensate for a bit of sleep!) and he’s not screamed or pushed me away since. He does have a bit of a gripe if he has wind or is tired, but otherwise it’s a lot calmer and easier, and I look forward to feeding (well I do in the day, I wouldn’t mind a bit of sleep still!). He even has a big grin on his face when he knows he’s about to be fed, which is amazing to see

He had a 100% tongue-tie and his frenulum was quite thick too. It still annoys me that no-one picked up on it sooner, and also that my own stubborness, perserverance and lack of realising meant that I just put all of his feeding problems down to wind. I feel like we’re having to start all over again now, get him used to feeding, get him used to taking more milk in and therefore reducing the number of feeds a day, and hopefully get him back to have a decent sleep. Yes, in part that’s selfish as I want some sleep, but also because he’s still agitated and unsettled during a lot of the day, as he’s just not getting his full requirement of sleep each day.

However, one step at a time. His feeding is doing fantastic, and that’s a major step