And Then We Were Three...
Well my promise to post more often didn't quite work out! Basically I'll just ignore that vow and pretend like it never happened.
I'm now a mother!
On Sunday the 17th August, I went to bed around 1am after spending Saturday night talking to a friend of mine on facebook. My other half watched the first half of a soccer game and was just coming to bed when I rolled over and felt this weird sort of 'POP' in my abdomen. That was weird, I thought. It had sort of hurt, but not really. Not long after, I got a nasty cramp... which I attempted to blame on the tacos I'd eaten for dinner. Telling Rob that I'd be back in a minute, I hopped out of bed and toddled off to the other bathroom. I got as far as the kitchen before I felt the gush!!
My waters had broken... at about 1:15am. I called out to Rob, because apparently, when waters break, they BREAK!!! I had no idea it involved that much fluid! I was sitting on the toilet (yay for too much information) because there was no way to stem it! Rob was nearly asleep and only barely could I hear him call back.
Me: Rob.. don't go to sleep. You can't go to sleep!
Him (sleepily): Why...?
Me: My waters have broken!
Him: Shit (leaping out of bed). Are you serious?
Me: Yes I'm fucking serious, get me some new clothes!
After I re-dressed, I rang the hospital, told them my story and questioned if they thought I should come in. As it was my first baby, I was 2 weeks before my due date and we're all told that thing about not coming in until the contractions are regular and so many minutes apart. They said come in so they could assess my fluid, determine whether or not I was in labour and if so, how advanced it was. So I was momentarily in a flap, as I hadn't finished packing my bag for hospital yet. Slack, I know. But having had my 38wk appt not 2 days before and being told it would be a while yet, I wasn't in a hurry.
I hastily threw a few more things into my bag and then rang my mother on my way out the door to let her know that things may or may not be happening. It was about a 20m drive to the hospital and we got there about 2am... me leaking all the way. Seriously. The fluid. Oh so much of it! We buzzed to be let in and wandered the deathly quiet corridor until a midwife named Corrinne came to meet us at the desk.
She took us into a birthing suite, which was nice.. I hadn't had a tour of the hospital so I didn't really know what they'd look like. She followed me into the bathroom and pulled down my pants to look at my amniotic fluid. I was slightly bemused by this. I'm not really used to people being in the bathroom with me. In fact, I hate it. I lock the door when I brush my teeth, lol. Anyway, I got changed and she collected some samples and then toddled off. I had experience contractions starting in the car on the drive over and they were pretty regular... very regular actually. When she came back, she hooked me up to a machine which monitored the baby's heartbeat and also my contractions. The machine could feel them coming before I could and when the numbers started to climb, I knew to start breathing. It got to be a sort of game... when I wasn't having a contraction, the number would be about 9, or 10. When I was having a contraction it would skyrocket and we would try guess what number it might hit this time. It did go over 100 a few times! I had to be hooked up to that for about 20 or 25 minutes after which at about 2.30, they decided that yep, I was in labour. As my contractions were coming under 5m apart, I got to stay, rather than go home.
Mostly, all I could do was wait. No one nows how long the first stage goes for, and as it was my first baby, she was cautious to remind me not to expect too much too soon. It could take a long time to reach the second stage. They decided to wait until about 6am to do my internal, to see how things progressed. I spent a lot of time walking around, as I found that made it easier to breathe through the contractions, which were pretty much like every period pain I've ever experienced in my whole life rolled into one, accompanied by someone kicking me in the stomach and taking my breath away. Not so pleasant really.
Corrinne, who was lovely, very supportive and helpful without being annoying or in my face, tried to get me to go to sleep seeing as how I would need all my energy for the next stage, but I couldn't sleep as I was in too much pain. She gave me panadeine and a sleeping tablet but they were about as useless as tits on a bull. The contractions were too intense and too regular for it to be effective. I did try though, and lay down for a while but then it got too hard to be laying down. She asked if I wanted to try the shower as pain management so I gave that a go. It was nice... one of those hand held nozzle things, which I aimed at the focal point of the contraction. It helped, but there was only so long I could stand there, so I hopped out after a while. Went back to walking around.
Rob slept for a little while, maybe an hour, or an hour and a half but I couldn't. At about 6ish I think, I cracked and asked for some pain relief. She tried to talk me out of it, but I was insisent and I got a shot of pethidine. Which did fuck all. I noticed no difference in my level of pain after the shot than before it, lol. Still, I stuck that out until about 7, when she did the internal - oh holy hell did that hurt! I was trying to scoot up the bed away from her, lol. I told her that I was still in a lot of pain, so just before she went off shift, she hooked me up with the gas.
I have heard good things about this gas. People have sung it's praises to me, so I was quite hoping it would be useful. Turns out, it was, but not in a getting-rid-of-the-pain sort of way. More like in a making-sure-you-breathe-deeply-and-evenly sort of way to help deal properly/more effectively with the contractions. Anyway, it gave me something to concentrate on, even if it didn't exactly help with the pain. My internal revealed that I was 4cm dialated, which was good progress. Corrinne wished me well and left. She was replaced by Sheridan, who was just as lovely, just as unobtrusive. I love the way both the midwives would sit beside me and place just the tips of their fingers on my abdomen. This seemed to tell them a lot about my contractions... how, I don't know, but it did. They would write things down, touch me again through the next one, write some more. By now they were pretty damn intense.. I found the best way was to lay on my side on the down times, with Rob rubbing the base of my spine, and breathe through each contraction on all fours. Sucking on the gas, and getting a more intense back rub, lol.
I forget what time it was, but after a while, maybe about quarter to, ten to eight, Sheridan said that if I hadn't been to the bathroom for a while, I should, so that I wouldn't have a full bladder when I got to Stage 2, which would just be inconveneient. She toddled off somewhere and I went to the bathroom.. I sat down and immediately felt like I needed to push. Horrified, I jumped up, remembering all the stories you hear of women who give birth on toilets... I went back into the birthing suite and told Rob that I felt like it was push time. I told Sheridan too when she came back, but she glanced at the clock and told me that I might need to breathe through it for a while, as I had only been 4cm less about an hour ago! So I tried.
I really tried... but it just wasn't happening. I told her again, and she said she would have a look. Have a look she did and then she looked at me, in amazement.
"Oh my God... he's just sitting there! I don't believe it. You are the quietest woman I've ever had in my labour room.. normally they are screaming by now".
Yep, he was crowning... They had me move position a bit, and got a few things ready and a nurse turned up to help. Sheridan explained how she wanted me to push (long and slow, apparently it helps avoid tearing) but my baby had other ideas. Three pushes, 15 minutes and he was born. They really do just... slide out. It's amazing. Once you get the shoulders out, there they are. I was half sitting up, so I got to see him, which was really amazing. They immediately put him on my chest and rubbed him with towels. I heard him make a noise and that was his starting breathing but he didn't cry. It was 8:45am, so my entire labour lasted about 7hrs. And nearly all of that was stage 1. He was born so quickly, amazingly quickly, that over the next few days when I was in hospital, everytime I met a new midwife who would come on shift, she would say "This is the one born in a big hurry!" when she saw him.
The thing is... I expected the pushing to hurt. I expected it to be a screaming, agonising sort of pain that made me wish I was dead. I had tormented myself with horror stories in the weeks leading up to going into labour, as lots of women do I supposed. What I didn't expect was to be so calm throughout the whole experience. I also didn't expect the 6 hours of contractions to be 500x worse than the pushing. The pushing was good, because you got a breather inbetween moreso than the contractions. But then again it's probably because he was born so damn fast. If I had to do that for an hour or two or three, it might've been a totally different story. But the way my labour went - give me the pushing over the contractions anyday!
Sheridan gave me the shot of oxycontin and we took care of stage 3 before they took him and weighed him. 3.685kg or 8lb 1oz in the old scale. So... not small! Despite being 2 weeks early, he was a good sized baby... A very good sized baby. I was grateful that he was early. 2 more weeks and he'd probably have been 9lb! We took some pictures, before Sheridan put him on for his first feed, which hurt like buggery. Then I was put into stirrups for a doctor to come and asses my tear.
Said doctor took 20mins to turn up! It really is true about losing any modesty you may possess when you have a baby. I possessed plenty and was very shy... yet couldn't care less about being in stirrups, naked from the waist down, waiting for this doctor. Eventually he turned up, poked around (hello, the gas came in handy for that point!), told me I had a 3rd degree tear and would need to go to theatre to be stitched up. That way I would not be able to move and he could do it precisely. So it was mere minutes later they took the baby off me, and I was heading to theatre.
Can't write much about that. I went to the prep room where they said "this is just going to make you wake up when it's all over" and... I did. I remember nothing from the time they injected me, to the ime I woke up, a gap of about 2hrs. I felt good though... like I'd had 8 hours sleep, although I was a bit groggy. I stayed in recovery for about 20 minutes, just looking around. I couldn't even be bothered talking and the nurses there just ignored me for a while. I guess they were giving me time to get my wits together, which did take a little bit. I thought I was still in the prep room for a bit, lol. After a while, I was taken up to a room and reunited with bub.
We named him Hunter Anthony. Hunter because it was the only name we could both agree on, and Anthony after Rob's brother.
That concludes my birth story, lol. When I get time, I'll update again with the first few days of his life, my time in hospital, etc! I'll try not to let it be five months before I do that though, lol.
I'm now a mother!
On Sunday the 17th August, I went to bed around 1am after spending Saturday night talking to a friend of mine on facebook. My other half watched the first half of a soccer game and was just coming to bed when I rolled over and felt this weird sort of 'POP' in my abdomen. That was weird, I thought. It had sort of hurt, but not really. Not long after, I got a nasty cramp... which I attempted to blame on the tacos I'd eaten for dinner. Telling Rob that I'd be back in a minute, I hopped out of bed and toddled off to the other bathroom. I got as far as the kitchen before I felt the gush!!
My waters had broken... at about 1:15am. I called out to Rob, because apparently, when waters break, they BREAK!!! I had no idea it involved that much fluid! I was sitting on the toilet (yay for too much information) because there was no way to stem it! Rob was nearly asleep and only barely could I hear him call back.
Me: Rob.. don't go to sleep. You can't go to sleep!
Him (sleepily): Why...?
Me: My waters have broken!
Him: Shit (leaping out of bed). Are you serious?
Me: Yes I'm fucking serious, get me some new clothes!
After I re-dressed, I rang the hospital, told them my story and questioned if they thought I should come in. As it was my first baby, I was 2 weeks before my due date and we're all told that thing about not coming in until the contractions are regular and so many minutes apart. They said come in so they could assess my fluid, determine whether or not I was in labour and if so, how advanced it was. So I was momentarily in a flap, as I hadn't finished packing my bag for hospital yet. Slack, I know. But having had my 38wk appt not 2 days before and being told it would be a while yet, I wasn't in a hurry.
I hastily threw a few more things into my bag and then rang my mother on my way out the door to let her know that things may or may not be happening. It was about a 20m drive to the hospital and we got there about 2am... me leaking all the way. Seriously. The fluid. Oh so much of it! We buzzed to be let in and wandered the deathly quiet corridor until a midwife named Corrinne came to meet us at the desk.
She took us into a birthing suite, which was nice.. I hadn't had a tour of the hospital so I didn't really know what they'd look like. She followed me into the bathroom and pulled down my pants to look at my amniotic fluid. I was slightly bemused by this. I'm not really used to people being in the bathroom with me. In fact, I hate it. I lock the door when I brush my teeth, lol. Anyway, I got changed and she collected some samples and then toddled off. I had experience contractions starting in the car on the drive over and they were pretty regular... very regular actually. When she came back, she hooked me up to a machine which monitored the baby's heartbeat and also my contractions. The machine could feel them coming before I could and when the numbers started to climb, I knew to start breathing. It got to be a sort of game... when I wasn't having a contraction, the number would be about 9, or 10. When I was having a contraction it would skyrocket and we would try guess what number it might hit this time. It did go over 100 a few times! I had to be hooked up to that for about 20 or 25 minutes after which at about 2.30, they decided that yep, I was in labour. As my contractions were coming under 5m apart, I got to stay, rather than go home.
Mostly, all I could do was wait. No one nows how long the first stage goes for, and as it was my first baby, she was cautious to remind me not to expect too much too soon. It could take a long time to reach the second stage. They decided to wait until about 6am to do my internal, to see how things progressed. I spent a lot of time walking around, as I found that made it easier to breathe through the contractions, which were pretty much like every period pain I've ever experienced in my whole life rolled into one, accompanied by someone kicking me in the stomach and taking my breath away. Not so pleasant really.
Corrinne, who was lovely, very supportive and helpful without being annoying or in my face, tried to get me to go to sleep seeing as how I would need all my energy for the next stage, but I couldn't sleep as I was in too much pain. She gave me panadeine and a sleeping tablet but they were about as useless as tits on a bull. The contractions were too intense and too regular for it to be effective. I did try though, and lay down for a while but then it got too hard to be laying down. She asked if I wanted to try the shower as pain management so I gave that a go. It was nice... one of those hand held nozzle things, which I aimed at the focal point of the contraction. It helped, but there was only so long I could stand there, so I hopped out after a while. Went back to walking around.
Rob slept for a little while, maybe an hour, or an hour and a half but I couldn't. At about 6ish I think, I cracked and asked for some pain relief. She tried to talk me out of it, but I was insisent and I got a shot of pethidine. Which did fuck all. I noticed no difference in my level of pain after the shot than before it, lol. Still, I stuck that out until about 7, when she did the internal - oh holy hell did that hurt! I was trying to scoot up the bed away from her, lol. I told her that I was still in a lot of pain, so just before she went off shift, she hooked me up with the gas.
I have heard good things about this gas. People have sung it's praises to me, so I was quite hoping it would be useful. Turns out, it was, but not in a getting-rid-of-the-pain sort of way. More like in a making-sure-you-breathe-deeply-and-evenly sort of way to help deal properly/more effectively with the contractions. Anyway, it gave me something to concentrate on, even if it didn't exactly help with the pain. My internal revealed that I was 4cm dialated, which was good progress. Corrinne wished me well and left. She was replaced by Sheridan, who was just as lovely, just as unobtrusive. I love the way both the midwives would sit beside me and place just the tips of their fingers on my abdomen. This seemed to tell them a lot about my contractions... how, I don't know, but it did. They would write things down, touch me again through the next one, write some more. By now they were pretty damn intense.. I found the best way was to lay on my side on the down times, with Rob rubbing the base of my spine, and breathe through each contraction on all fours. Sucking on the gas, and getting a more intense back rub, lol.
I forget what time it was, but after a while, maybe about quarter to, ten to eight, Sheridan said that if I hadn't been to the bathroom for a while, I should, so that I wouldn't have a full bladder when I got to Stage 2, which would just be inconveneient. She toddled off somewhere and I went to the bathroom.. I sat down and immediately felt like I needed to push. Horrified, I jumped up, remembering all the stories you hear of women who give birth on toilets... I went back into the birthing suite and told Rob that I felt like it was push time. I told Sheridan too when she came back, but she glanced at the clock and told me that I might need to breathe through it for a while, as I had only been 4cm less about an hour ago! So I tried.
I really tried... but it just wasn't happening. I told her again, and she said she would have a look. Have a look she did and then she looked at me, in amazement.
"Oh my God... he's just sitting there! I don't believe it. You are the quietest woman I've ever had in my labour room.. normally they are screaming by now".
Yep, he was crowning... They had me move position a bit, and got a few things ready and a nurse turned up to help. Sheridan explained how she wanted me to push (long and slow, apparently it helps avoid tearing) but my baby had other ideas. Three pushes, 15 minutes and he was born. They really do just... slide out. It's amazing. Once you get the shoulders out, there they are. I was half sitting up, so I got to see him, which was really amazing. They immediately put him on my chest and rubbed him with towels. I heard him make a noise and that was his starting breathing but he didn't cry. It was 8:45am, so my entire labour lasted about 7hrs. And nearly all of that was stage 1. He was born so quickly, amazingly quickly, that over the next few days when I was in hospital, everytime I met a new midwife who would come on shift, she would say "This is the one born in a big hurry!" when she saw him.
The thing is... I expected the pushing to hurt. I expected it to be a screaming, agonising sort of pain that made me wish I was dead. I had tormented myself with horror stories in the weeks leading up to going into labour, as lots of women do I supposed. What I didn't expect was to be so calm throughout the whole experience. I also didn't expect the 6 hours of contractions to be 500x worse than the pushing. The pushing was good, because you got a breather inbetween moreso than the contractions. But then again it's probably because he was born so damn fast. If I had to do that for an hour or two or three, it might've been a totally different story. But the way my labour went - give me the pushing over the contractions anyday!
Sheridan gave me the shot of oxycontin and we took care of stage 3 before they took him and weighed him. 3.685kg or 8lb 1oz in the old scale. So... not small! Despite being 2 weeks early, he was a good sized baby... A very good sized baby. I was grateful that he was early. 2 more weeks and he'd probably have been 9lb! We took some pictures, before Sheridan put him on for his first feed, which hurt like buggery. Then I was put into stirrups for a doctor to come and asses my tear.
Said doctor took 20mins to turn up! It really is true about losing any modesty you may possess when you have a baby. I possessed plenty and was very shy... yet couldn't care less about being in stirrups, naked from the waist down, waiting for this doctor. Eventually he turned up, poked around (hello, the gas came in handy for that point!), told me I had a 3rd degree tear and would need to go to theatre to be stitched up. That way I would not be able to move and he could do it precisely. So it was mere minutes later they took the baby off me, and I was heading to theatre.
Can't write much about that. I went to the prep room where they said "this is just going to make you wake up when it's all over" and... I did. I remember nothing from the time they injected me, to the ime I woke up, a gap of about 2hrs. I felt good though... like I'd had 8 hours sleep, although I was a bit groggy. I stayed in recovery for about 20 minutes, just looking around. I couldn't even be bothered talking and the nurses there just ignored me for a while. I guess they were giving me time to get my wits together, which did take a little bit. I thought I was still in the prep room for a bit, lol. After a while, I was taken up to a room and reunited with bub.
We named him Hunter Anthony. Hunter because it was the only name we could both agree on, and Anthony after Rob's brother.
That concludes my birth story, lol. When I get time, I'll update again with the first few days of his life, my time in hospital, etc! I'll try not to let it be five months before I do that though, lol.