We're home

Where the hell do I start...?

I guess a good jump off point would be to deeply thank every single person who posted here, emailed Mum, rang or texted with their kind wishes and encouraging thoughts. You're all very much appreciated, and there were times when things were not going happily for me this last week, and Mum ringing to read out cheerful messages made a hell of a lot of difference to my confidence and flagging spirits.

Mum downplayed it a lot - it all went to hell in a handcart. They say the best way to make God laugh is to tell Him your plans, well that goes triple for birth plans!!!!!!!

Let's see.. what did we order? Ah-hah. Natural birth, as little intervention as possible, no or as little as possible chemical intervention, and the medics making decisions that were in bubba's best interest first, and mine second. Lots of skin on skin afterwards, MumBabyDad bonding time, music, aromatherapy, holistic, you get the idea...

What did we get..?

A labour that suddenly hit the ground running and was fully established within an hour of the first contraction being felt, at five minutes. Within 20 minutes we were down to 3 minutes apart and holding, with pain through the roof and the TENS machine couldn't keep up with my rising adrenalin.

Ripped off the wires, jumped into the birthing bath, that helped for about half an hour then the acceleration climbed so bad and so fast that even that didn't help.

Robyn whisked me out of the bath so we could get up on the bed and have the monitors check my contractions and baby's heartbeat. On the way, we got a spectacular leakage on the floor, with quite a lot of blood in it.

A-hah, we thought.. Karl's water's have broken.

We were wrong. What it turned out (later) to be was my cervix tearing enough to later cause significant problems.

Check dilation - 3 cm. Okay, we're underway (gee..yathink?)

Try to manage pain.. not doing real good at this. Shit.. baby's heartrate starts fluctuating, contractions start getting further apart due to extreme adrenalin rush.

Pethidine offered, and gratefully accepted. Some relief felt almost immediately, ahh.. I can probably deal with this.. well.. maybe.. if it doesn't get too much worse.. ...? ....?

Pethidine found to be not in baby's best interest (further fluctuation in heart rate) so that one off was not repeated. By this point we'd found out the cervical lip was holding his head back in the wrong position, and he couldn't progress past it. The tear resulted in inflammation which put paid to further dilation.

Shit.. we're so not getting anywhere. Time to talk to the first Obstetrician on duty.

Another examination. Far more invasive than I thought necessary considering we're talking about my CERVIX here, noddy!! (Midwife utterly shocked when I told her later, wondered if it was a Continental thing? {ObGyn from Eastern European bloc}).

Do you want a caesarian? Hell, YES!
Well you can't have one. (Why did you offer, then?)
Better for baby if you deliver naturally. Better for you too. Let's wait and see if you dilate further. (Bastard.. don't walk in front of my car if I'm ever out driving...)

That little conversation was repeated pretty much every two hours until after midnight when a new ObGyn came on duty, and who was frankly surprised we were still mucking around waiting for a very upset cervix! But more on that later...

Anyhoo, they DID offer me an epidural and despite my previous horror of them, I found myself agreeing before they even finished forming the sentence. For the record, it's quite quite difficult to hold still for the procedure when you're less than two minutes apart and in more pain than you believed possible. But you do, and somehow you forget how badly you hate nasty needly things when by now you've got a double shunt in the back of one hand, a catheter in your bladder, a canula in your spine and you've had a few jabs of other stuff as well.

The epidural worked in about an hour - bliss! The contractions were very definitely still felt, but not as pain, more as pressure. Definitely can work with this, you beauty :-)

Start using positions to get further dilated.. get to 7cm.

Suddenly, SNAP!

(What was that, Wayne & midwife asked. Just my tailbone breaking again, sed Karl. We knew this would probably happen, sed midwife. Wayne: Oh.. does it hurt? Nah, the epidural's blocking it, we'll worry about it later.)

But when it broke, something else happened. Somehow, the epidural began to fail. Soon I was feeling discomfort in my spine, then that grew. Then that invited some friends over to play, and that became a street party, which escalated into a brawl..

Within half an hour I went from "da dee da rock rock rock spread-em how's that baby coming?" while I played Cribbage with Wayne between contractions to (grunt grunt gasp grunt) "ohgodmakeitstopshitshitshitshitunnnnnnhhhhhhhhhmakeitstop" as I huddled over the end of the bed, vomiting and suffering uncontrollable shakes.

Imagine flying along in an airplane, and then without warning being tipped out, falling through the air and landing in a pot of boiling oil. And being kept there for hours. A tiny wee shock to the system.

Imagine what that did to the adrenalin, and in turn what that did to the progression of the labour!

It took them about three hours from when the epi specactularly failed to when they finally gave me a spinal block to let the second epi take effect. A lot went on in that time (which seemed like three decades, strangely), including a complete change of labour ward staff & consultants, and three caesarians in the surgical suite next door (causing the Ob Surgeon, Registrar, Pediatrician & Anaesthetist to be unavoidably detained and unable to immediately race to my assistance.. drat it all to heck and back).

Finally it was decided that I wasn't faking it, that there was something significantly ouchiee going on with me, and maybe we'd better have some serious intervention. Enter one spinal block, and a deeply grateful Karl who thought seriously for a moment changing the baby's name from Braeden to Michael (guess what the spinal block guy's name was.. go on, you'll never guess).

Anyhoo, by this time it's 2am and I'm okay, but baby's not. They've broken my waters and discovered meconium in it, and there are lots of indicators that the baby is stressed, if not in trouble.

Oxytocin administered to my saline drip to make my contractions more regular, midwife & mother both asked AGAIN for caesarian to be seriously considered, but by this time we're 9.5cm dilated and the Ob Surgn decided to give us ten more minutes to dilate, otherwise we'd get our wish.

Guess what.. we did. Somehow baby got his head past the split lip and we could PUSH!

(I have no idea why they didn't just cut the cervix further at some point. I mean.. gee!)

I had a seriously dead left leg by this point, but otherwise I was able to assist in my labour to my best efforts, even when I ended up in the dreaded flat-on-your-back-legs-in-stirrups position. Wayne tells me I kicked my midwife repeatedly in the boobs throughout the pushes, to whit I feel very sorry but that leg was no longer on speaking terms with the rest of my body so I can't take any responsibility for its actions.

The news was broken to me (but not to Wayne, as I later discovered!) that there would be a large medical team in the room with me at the delivery, including the Pediatrician who would whisk bubby away from me immediately because he would need medical intervention to survive.

Whaaaaaaaaat?

It means you won't get skin-to-skin time, and

No. I mean "survive"? When did SURVIVE become a fucking issue??????

(Excuse my french, but you can imagine my reaction at that point)

Quick explanations made, and they were instructed AGAIN to do whatever, whenever, however to me to get this baby out safely, and WHY THE HELL DID WE NOT HAVE A CAESARIAN TO SAVE HIM FROM THIS???

(never mind.. here's another contraction.. get on with it)

It all went very quickly from there. I pushed him down to just before crowning, when the Ob took over and discovered that the umbilical cord was wrapped around baby's neck. Shit.. another complication. They had planned to partially deliver baby then suction out as much meconium as poss before he took a breath, but the little blighter took a breath as soon as he got his face free, so there wasn't time to do anything except several people act at once to:
- clamp the cord
- cut the cord
- suction the nose & mouth
- pull baby free from me.

As a result, I tore. According to my midwife, I'm ripped right up "round the corner, both sides, and multiple small tears and abrasions everywhere".

Hmm.. I seem to recall something about episiotomies in the birth plan too, and how I'd have one to save tearing.. LOL.. you have to laugh, really.

The most wonderful moment of my life became my most agonising when I saw my baby lifted up from me, grey, floppy and lifeless. Not a single sound from him, but a flurry of frantic whispers from all the medical people who raced him over to the resuscitation table and worked frantically to get his problems fixed.

Utterly horrid to be lying there, unable to move, unable to hear much, and everyone's making soothing noises with their mouths while their eyes tell you the truth about the seriousness of the situation.

After a minute or two I heard a weak little cry, the first noise he made. A pathetic sound, but at least it means he's alive. Twenty five minutes later they've got him stabilised enough to whisk him off to ICU in a humicrib, and I'm allowed to reach out and touch him briefly through the glass. Oh gods..

Wayne was told in no uncertain terms to go with the baby, don't let him out of your sight for a moment, and don't come back while he needs you. Go. Go now.

Wayne kisses me, white beneath his beard, and hustles after the rapidly departing cart.

The surgeon meanwhile has been blythely working with needle & thread to sew me back together. Such is the extent of the damage that he spends nearly twice as long at his needlecraft than they worked on the baby. Doesn't seem fair somehow.

While he worked, he chatted to me to keep my spirits up, and probably to keep me on the bed and not hoffling down the hallway after the cart.

"Now don't you worry about the baby," he soothed in his wonderful Irish brogue. "They're a great team and they've got him under control. It's all just precautions, we have to make sure he doesn't GET sick. He's fine, his Apgar's have risen from 3 to 7, he's a lovely boy. What's his name, now?"

"Braeden."

"Braeden! A fine name, Celtic is it? What does it mean?"

"Well funny you should ask, we only found out one interpretation yesterday, and considering what you're doing at the moment..."

"Yes..?"

"Apparently it means "From The Wide Valley".

(Surgeon stops sewing, looks at me over the top of my belly, and breaks into a huge grin.)

"Well now, not that I would have said anything so personal, like, given the circumstances, but now.. that's funny that is."

A damn good laugh was had by all. We needed that!

Anyhoo, this seems like a good time for a break in this saga because I need to stand in a very hot shower for the third time today, and see if I can get some relief from the many aches which (joy of joys) now includes something horribly resembling mastitis in my left boob. Mum's on the couch with a snoring baby, Wayne's fluffing about good naturedly, and a neighbour just popped in to offer good wishes and lots of advice. (Thanks for the cake and booties, but please don't mind if I ignore the rest)

Aren't you glad you already know this has a happy ending! I'll continue this later :-)