Here I am!
Thanks for posting the updates Datura.
Little Rowan, DH and I are home! Well, DH has just popped out to buy lanolin cream and show baby photos off at his workplace, but that's okay.
Rowan is extremely milk-drunk and sleepy, and I very un-AP-ly popped her in her bassinet to sneak off to the computer!
*Warning: Long, off-putting goriness follows*
It's kind of hard to summarise the birth story--I think I'm still processing it. Basically: my midwife, Sallie, sent me in on Sunday for blood tests because my BP was just a little too high. DH and I waited around for 8 hours for the results--they actually had the results after 4 hours, but they needed to wait for a doctor not to be busy, and after getting me confused with Katie-who-was-here-for-a-C-section they left us severely alone for a bit! Eventually a nurse came and told us we'd have to induce today, as my BP was high, proteinuria count way up (to 400 or something ridiculous--anything over 30 is bad!) and I was 'nearly term anyway'.
After a bit of quiet falling apart at the thought of losing my beloved homebirth, I tried to get myself into 'get on with it' mode, and sent DH home to gather supplies. He was going to stay overnight with me, but due to the lousy facilities would have had to sleep in a Lazi-Boy, so we figured it would be better for him to be rested the next day. He disappeared, and at 11:00PM or so the midwife on duty came and did the prostoglandin gel thing. This involved being hooked up to a monitor before and after, and due to the oft-cited understaffing they forgot about me and left me hooked up until nearly 1AM!
I started feeling grotty during the night, and paced the corridors a bit. A nice nurse gave me a hot pack--actually it was some kind of saline drip thing wrapped up in a pillowcase, but it worked!--which I used to ease the cramps. By the time DH arrived in the morning the contractions were bad enough I'd only had maybe an hour's sleep, and I was glad to see him! Sallie showed up at 9:30, and once Delivery had gotten rid of a previous patient we were able to trundle along and get my waters broken. Incidentally, the delivery room was even more dingy and depressing than the Consult room in which I'd spent the night. Have I mentioned I hate hospitals?
Right, so, morning, waters broken, contractions started getting worse. I think it was at this point that I started to really hate labour! I was already exhausted, and nobody offered me anything to eat, which didn't help; and when I was examined and found to be 2-3 centimetres I couldn't help but think 'What? What am I going to be like at 8 centimetres??'. Labour is such a weird mental headspace--it requires you to want the pain to get worse, whereas like any sane woman I wanted it to stop! And we were sort of fighting the clock the whole way, because if my labour stalled they were going to start me on syntocinon--the NZ equivalent of Pitocin--which I really wanted to avoid.
Luckily, the women in my family have a certain useful talent for appearing in control when we aren't. We can be freaking out and falling apart, and just come across as distant or ice-queenish. Looking back, this served me well! I felt like I was suffering in a maudlin fashion and agonising overdramatically through every contraction, but according to DH and the midwife I looked extremely calm and self-possessed! It's just as well, because Sallie put off administering the syntocinon on the grounds that I 'was coping so well'--I shudder to think what would have happened if she'd known how I was
actually coping!
Anyway, in the midst of all this ghastliness we had a few bright spots. To my surprise Sallie said I could try labouring in the hospital tub for a while, which I'd given up as an option. Unfortunately she put rather a lot of lavender oil in it, which made me feel kinda nauseated, and by that point I was so utterly drained that I was nearly falling asleep between contractions, and she had to get me out again. Oh well--at least I got a taste of the experience! It wasn't the magical, blissful, suddenly-no-pain experience I'd hoped for, but it was a change.
At this point Sallie realised I was flagging and threatened the syntocinon again, so I climbed some stairs and then had another pelvic exam (not fun, BTW!). I was *just* borderline--6 or 7 centimetres, which was as undilated as I was allowed to be, so Sallie hemmed and hawed, and then suggested giving me 500mLs of fluids through a drip to see if it'd perk me up. Anything to avoid the syntocinon! So she hooked me up and I felt better immediately. Not, you know, springing from the rooftops, but well enough to actually keep going.
I was still having major problems with dealing with the pain. I tried convincing myself that it didn't hurt that much, and I wore poor DH out taking the hot packs to and from the microwave, massaging my legs etc. (Incidentally, he was amazing. I'm still in awe!). When I got to the stage of mentioning what I'd privately decided some time ago--namely, 'Aargh, I can't do this!', Sallie took a little convincing because according to her perspective, I was coping just fine! I didn't want pethadine or an epidural (although frankly, the latter was starting to sound darned compelling), so she suggested gas, and after considering that I couldn't think of any really decent philosophical or health-related reason
not to, I thought I'd give it a go.
It was weird, though. I had this whole snobbishness about a drug-free labour, which was really unrelated to the actual effects of the drugs (nitrous oxide doesn't cross the placental barrier, exists the body within 7 seconds, etc), and even I after I held the nozzle I refused to use it for a few more contractions out of sheer cussedness. Ironically, when I did start to use it it turned out I was doing it completely wrong! The whole point, of course, is to get kind high so you don't notice the pain. I knew this, but I was a little out of it and forgot, so I'd take half a drag at the nozzle and then start thinking 'Ooh, I feel a bit funny, I'd better not have any more'.
So after all that, I don't think it did me any good whatsoever! Maybe it did help though, just as a distraction.
The worst part came when I started to feel pushy, and Sallie said I had an anterior lip and couldn't push. She recommended using the gas and 'painting out' each contraction to prevent the pushing reflex, but wow--they aren't kidding, that urge is overwhelming! I held out as long as I could, and she eventually said 'Well, if you REALLY need to push it's probably okay, go with it'.
Cue an hour of pushing.
Oddly enough, hellish as it was this was better than the contractions. At least I was doing something productive. And the shaking of transition was kind of macabrely amusing, for some reason. I'd swear before a notary public that I was screaming my head off at this point, but DH and my midwife both deny it--DH said 'Don't be silly, you just sounded a bit like you were pushing', and the midwife said 'What? I don't think anyone heard you outside the room'. Weird.
I was on the hospital bed at this point. Sallie had raised the back, so I was sort of kneeling, with my head buried in the top (raised pillow end) of the bed. Halfway through trying to push the baby's head out I realised I just didn't have enough room this way, so I scrambled into a kind of squatting, crouching position. I was very much doing my own thing at this point, while Sallie fussed around DH preparing him to catch the baby.
Unfortunately my little darling decided to be born with her hand up by her face! To be honest though, I barely even noticed Sallie doing whatever she did--I think she pulled the baby's arm out--I was so busy pushing. The relief of feeling her finally slip out was tremendous, and although I was faintly surprised at her being a girl (we were both kinda thinking 'boy', for no good reason), I mostly remember thinking 'Hmm, she's pretty pink for a newborn, aren't they meant to be purple?'.
We whipped the hospital gown off me so the baby could skin-to-skin, and... hmm, it all gets a bit blurry there. I remember being surprised that the baby had dark hair, and we decided to name her Rowan, which for some reason I felt was a dark-haired name (despite, you know, meaning 'red-haired' according to half the baby name books...). Rowan Marie, Marie being the middle name of myself, Mum, Grandma and her aunt, and therefore Venerable.
Anyway, I'd hoped it was all over by then, but nope! After a while the midwife started wondering about the placenta, and we sort of sped up the breast crawl to get Rowan latched on. Half an hour's feeding and things still weren't happening, so she gave me a shot of oxytocin in the leg and said the placenta would be born within 6-10 minutes. Nope. She asked me to push, but I just didn't have any push left in me! We cut the cord and she injected some syntocinon into the cord (which was kinda cool, I'd never heard of that!) to encourage it along... nope. Eventually she found a doctor, who looked a bit grim and said she'd have to whisk me away to surgery, unless this little technique she knew worked. At this point various people held on to me and said in severe tones 'Use The Gas', so I did. This time I actually used it properly. It's good stuff.
They did something which I faintly remember as being excruciating, but I sort of didn't care... it involved two sets of forceps and being told once more to push. I think what happened was that the cervix had clamped down shut over the placenta as it was coming out, trapping half of it inside. Anyway. DH was holding Rowan all this time with his shirt off, so it was great they got that closeness while all the drama was going on! Poor guy, I think that last little emergency hit him worse than me! Should have offered him some gas...
The good news was, immediately after Rowan was out my blood pressure began to behave itself. And after a few hours, and me cleaning myself up (I looked like the entire set of extras from Dawn of the Dead), Sallie said I could transfer to the birthing centre! Being in a nice, calm, relaxing place after the hospital was just bliss, and it was ridiculous how much I appreciated the decor.
So... that was the birth! I'm still kind of dazed from it. In one sense I avoided a lot of the pitfalls, and it went pretty smoothly--I'm sure Sallie thought it was a 'good' birth, and it probably was. On the other hand, it was far more horrendous than I was expecting, and I keep vaguely expecting to wake up screaming in the night in a cold sweat.
Labour hurts... worse than you can imagine... I guess I hadn't thought enough about that in the excitement of preparations for my homebirth, and once the familiar expectations of my 'setting' disappeared, I was kinda thrown! Not that all the homemade bread and ginger beer in the world would have made labour 'nice'; it just meant I didn't have a whole lot to cling to. But to repeat, DH was incredible. He was on the spot all day massaging me, holding hot packs, wiping me down with iced water, getting me to drink, and he never dropped the ball once! To my vast relief he was impressed with me as well, and the whole thing was actually very intimate, and made us feel very close and proud of each other. For that, I'm grateful.
And he is the best daddy.
Rowan is adorable--I'll have to put some pics up--and he's been doing far more than his fair share of nappy-changing and baby-hushing, even while sleep-deprived! We eventually got 5 hours of consecutive sleep last night, which was a great relief, and now we're gearing up for tonight, which the midwife assures us will be the worst.
Fortunately she's cute enough to be lovable even when she's screaming her tiny head off, which I feel will serve her well.
Okay, that was a somewhat explosive ramble, so forgive the length and probable depressingness.
Luckily, according to cliche, the memories of the birth are beginning to fade in the delight of the baby, so I'll get over it.
But it wasn't what I expected...
Right, I'd better go check up on that tiny child!
:. I'll be looking for updates about the birth of your beautiful babe
: for an awesome birthing experience!
:
:
