Birth Story - Jimmy, 2009

I'm putting these up here for posterity's sake, rather than to horrify you all while you're eating your lunch, so please skip unless you love gory, onomatopoeic descriptions of birth. 

IN BRIEF:
Gestation: 40w 4d
Site: Hospital
First Stage: 4 days of on and off annoyance, then 2.5ish hours active labour
Transition: ONE. HOUR. NEVER. AGAIN.
Second Stage: 55 minutes
Third Stage: Interminable, probably around 30 minutes
Tearing: Long, internal, second degree
Weight: 9lb 1oz

DETAILS:
On his due date, I had a haemorragic show. I trotted obediently up to the hospital, who found me to be 2cm dilated and likely to start soon. I went home, feeling quite proud of myself for managing to have a well behaved body.
The next morning, I went to see my midwife, who did a VE and sweep and found me in much the same position as before. I bled all damn day and after worrying about the amount of mucusy clots, went to CDS and they said I was fine and to go home and wait for stuff to start.
The next day, we went to my mums because I was in a furiously bad mood and sick of clock watching and being stuck in the house. We went to the pub for lunch and I was getting the odd twinge. Nothing major, enough to make me wince. Around 3pm, I started to get fairly regular, weak contractions. They got slowly stronger until they were coming every ten minutes. Around midnight, they suddenly got very painful and I started getting a lot of HIDEOUS back ache. I couldn't cope with the backache so we went to CDS. Again. Yes, again! A very nice midwife examined me and said I was 2-3cm and not ready yet. I cried. A lot. I really thought that was it. Anyway, we didn't get home til 4am and I still had quite bad backache. I went to sleep but could still feel the pain in my sleep.

The next day, a Thursday, I got up around 10am and had no pain. No pain at all. I was HEARTILY PISSED OFF. I made a decision to stop worrying about every pain and washed my filthy hair, had a nice bath and read a book. I kept falling asleep. We had a curry and watched TV and then decided to watch Bill Bailey as my mum kept telling me laughter would do me good.
Lo! Bill Bailey had been on but ten minutes and I felt a little gush - this was around 9:30pm. Then a bigger gush. I instantly got VERY EXCITED and went to the loo and it was not wee, and I was MOST PLEASED. I phoned CDS, they said to come in. All the way there, I kept losing a little fluid at a time.

The midwife examined me (yet again) and said I was 2cm dilated and my cervix was still in the wrong place. By this time, I was slightly irritated because my cervix appeared to be un-dilating itself. This was before I knew about the variation in finger size that is crucial in gauging dilation. She said my waters were leaking around the baby's head but still intact at the front. She said I could come back in the morning for an induction, or wait for it to happen on it's own. She said they would induce me on Sunday morning if I still hadn't started because of infection risk etc. I opted for Sunday and made an appointment for monitoring on Friday afternoon. The whole time I was in hospital, I was losing fluid. On leaving hospital, my backache started and I started getting small pains.

We got home at midnight and I knew that I'd started properly and it was just a matter of waiting til I couldn't take it anymore. I was still on a bit of a high because I KNEW it was finally happening. The pains suddenly got a lot worse around 1am and I went for a bath. The bath did JACK ALL for my contractions but helped with the shitting backache. I took one paracetamol around then. His dad decided to go to bed for a bit as we'd had so little sleep the night before and we figured we had a few hours before anything dramatic happened. I kept needing to sit on the toilet as I found it easiest to cope with the contractions on there, so he went to bed and I sat on the loo, trying to read a book...
I went and got in bed with him after a bit, somehow thinking that I could get some sleep myself. With hindsight, that was a laughable... I was having MAJOR contractions and trying so hard not to scream and to breathe through them instead and in between, I wasn't really there - I was very much in my head. I managed to let him sleep til around 2:15am and then woke him up screaming WE HAVE TO GO TO HOSPITAL NOW...FUCKING NOW.

I ran downstairs in my knickers, bra and shirt and tried to phone CDS to warn them I was coming. But instead I had a massive contraction and threw up everywhere and had a big loss of water. His dad came down, still half asleep and I was trying to phone CDS again but couldn't stop screaming with the pain so gave him the phone. They said they would get some pain relief ready. You must remember that at this point, I'd only been in labour for two hours and figured I had HOURS to go yet.
His dad had to get me dressed and put a towel down on the car seat so I didn't mess it up and found me a sick bucket. Somehow I was still functioning reasonably well between contractions and managed to wash the bowl I'd been sick in up and get my notes together.

He drove to hospital at 80mph while I was screaming all the bloody way and trying to remember to breathe and I remember thinking that I must be a proper fucking wimp to make such a fuss when I had so long to go. Apparently I told his dad off for driving too fast and what if the police stopped him. I was clearly not entirely with it. At this point, contractions were around 4 mins apart and lasting 40 seconds, with definite peaks and troughs of pain. Nothing like what I thought it would feel like anyway. By the time we got to hospital, it was 2 minutes apart and at the end of every one, I was losing loads of water.

I don't know how the fuck I got up to CDS. His dad had to carry me up the stairs. When we got to the stairs, I declared that I couldn't possibly get up them and I wanted to go home and not have the baby anymore. He just lugged me up the stairs anyway, lol.

CDS were VERY busy and they took ten minutes to find me a room. I don't know how I managed to stand up for that long. It was the birthing pool room, which is kept at a nice 28 bloody degrees. Because it was so hot, they left the door open and put a screen across it. I then deafened the entire hospital
I spent the next twenty minutes in the toilet screaming and asking why I needed to push and I couldn't push because I'd break my cervix and why the fuck did I need to push and where the FUCK were the DRUGS?? Annoyingly, there were two canisters of entonox in the room with no way of using it. I felt they were taunting me. In between contractions, I was just talking complete gibberish about wanting to get in the giant bath. His dad kept trying to touch my back or bump to calm me down and I was yelling at him to get off me. It was the most frenetic moment of my life those last few minutes before the midwife came in.
The midwife (Stevie) came in, took some history and my obs and then asked me to lie on my back for an examination (I was all over the place until then, mainly on my side). I told her I wanted to push. I laid back and she did it and just as she finished, I had another contraction. She told me to be quiet and listen (in a nice way) and told me I was fully dilated and if I wanted to push, that was fine. Oh and did I want any pain relief? I asked how long it would be, she said an hour max and I said no, I would be fine! She said she was going to get another midwife to assist and wouldn't be very long. She came back with a student to help.

I remember saying over and over that I'd done it by myself and I couldn't believe it. His dad was absolutely shell shocked. I didn't have time to change position or my t shirt or anything. I hadn't even brought the labour bag, with the camera in, up.

In between pushes, Stevie was asking me about my birth preferences, which is hilarious looking back. I remember being amazed that it didn't hurt once I knew the baby was coming. It was a huge HIGH just to know that I'd done it without any help. God did I make some noise though, I was like something out of the Exorcist. The midwives were absolutely brilliant and kept telling me how well I was doing and to breathe slowly in between and try and relax when I could and how to position myself to take better advantage of the pushing. His dad just held my hands really tight, and kept stroking my head with some wet tissue paper (no time for flannels) and it kept falling in my eyes and making me laugh. Everytime I opened my eyes, I remember being amazed that I was in hospital having a baby.
The baby's head crowned and I remember yelling "Shit that stings", even though it actually didn't, and they told me that they would ask me to push, then pant, then push again. His head came out and then his body and that felt WEIRD and then they plonked him straight on me, this giant red and blue and purple baby that somehow used to fit inside me. With a giant blue umbilical cord that weighed a ton.

I was sort of in shock for a second at this little person. The student cut the cord because his dad didn't fancy it. They gave me the syntometrine which I consented to in labour because I was absolutely PETRIFIED of haemorrhaging. And then he was all ours and on top of me and I was still wearing my bra and t shirt, lol. His dad said something about him being a boy and then we all sort of calmed down a bit. The placenta came out around 20 minutes later, although it felt like five minutes and felt very odd when it came out, like having another baby. They said it was a very large placenta and would barely fit in the bowl! I didn't look.

Stevie cleaned me up and I asked her if I'd torn and she said yes and she was going to have a look if I needed stitches. They put a towel over the baby and I was in a strange half-sitting position and couldn't get my bloody bra off. I managed to eventually, and then fed him. He seemed to know exactly what to do although he didn't suck for long. Stevie said I needed some stitches and went off to prep. They put me in stirrups, but it wasn't uncomfortable at all. I wasn't really aware of anything except having this baby all of a sudden.

His dad held the baby for ages while I was being put back together and was very nervous of him. I have to admit, I was a bit scared. He was really wriggly and slippery. He pinked up nice and quickly though. I know I fed him again, but I don't remember when. His dad went and phoned parents to inform them that I'd finally dropped and it'd all been rather quick. I went and had a bath, which was a shock. No bump and outrageous bleeding. I knew the bleeding would be bad, but it's still a shock when you've been period free for so long! I went back, had some food which made me feel horrible and then walked over to the postnatal ward.

And I sat upon the fucking PN ward until 9:30pm. I'd requested a 6hr discharge and they said they would aim for lunchtime as I was fine. The physio came round and I had a blood test to check my iron stores. My womb went down brilliantly. A midwife came round and taught us how to give him a bath. He failed his hearing test, twice, because he had such a wet delivery .There was a midwife handover at 3pm and that was the last time I saw anyone until 8pm, which is pretty shitty by any standards.

The paediatrician came round and frightened us by telling us he should be feeding every 3 hours when he hadn't been fed since I'd gone on the ward at 9am. He's also got an undescended testicle, which is very common. His dad got in a panic about the feeding and we tried to feed him but he wasn't interested. I wasn't worried, as he'd fed three times since delivery and had latched on etc very well. A fucking horrible old cow of an auxillary came and said they wouldn't discharge me unless he fed. 8pm is kick out time for dads, and she tried to make him leave so I burst into tears and he went and complained to the nearest midwife. Who happened to be the head of CDS. She came round to talk to me and I said that if he hadn't fed again by 4am, I would come back and admit myself and I really didn't want to stay in hospital and would self discharge otherwise. She said she would get my midwife to come round and have a chat.
My midwife, Hayley, came and apologised profusely for not seeing me before as they were mighty short staffed and had two emergencies. She had a look at me and him and said she was happy for me to go home and it was entirely usual for newborns not to feed for a long time after birth and as he'd had three shitty nappies and sicked up a lot of crap, he was probably fine. She was nice, I wish she'd been around earlier than I might have got home earlier.
We got packed up and off we went, me hiding the fact I was feeling incredibly faint and dizzy. I hadn't managed to sleep at all all day, constantly expecting to be discharged home. We got back to ours and the grandparents all popped in for a look, which I didn't mind. Sure enough, he wanted feeding as soon as we got in the door and then every 2 hours after that. My mum cooked me some food as I hadn't eaten for over 24 hours, and then we were left alone with our tiny boy.