Where I last left off, I'd just had an epidural put in & was waiting to dilate that last stubborn centimetre so that we could get things moving. They covered me up in a blanket and left to let the epidural do its thing, advising me to rest. Er, rest? I'm nearly ready to have a baby and you want me to REST? Yeah, not happening. What I DID do was come down with a massive case of the shakes/shivers. My whole body would literally not stop shaking. Jase videotaped bits and pieces of the labour {and the birth itself} and my teeth were chattering the whole time. I kept trying to move my legs, and freaking out when I could barely control my little toe.
I know, I know, that's the whole point of an epidural, but I was positive I was paralysed. It was a really frightening feeling, maybe because I hadn't expected to use one? Scary stuff. I spent the majority of this 'waiting' part staring at the contractions monitor and marvelling at the fact that I wasn't feeling any of them.
That being said, I was completely and utterly determined that I would have control of my pushing stage. No, I couldn't feel contractions, but I'll be damned if I was going to go this far and not push my daughter out myself. Jase surprised me by wanting to stay down at the business end, as I'd assumed he'd want to be out of the line of fire - he was such a good help. It was just me, him, our one midwife & the doctor - nice and calm and comfortable.
They guided me through - each contraction, I pushed, new breath, re-pushed, and so on and so forth. We weren't at it for very long before people started getting excited - I shouldn't have been surprised at this, as her head had been so low and engaged for the entire labour. Hubby began filming at this point {I'll spare you the video, don't you worry!} and I got to re-watch and experience it again, which helped refresh my memory. As her head began to crown, the doctor walked me through my breathing/pushing, and guided things along to help everything stretch. She progressed quite quickly, and the head was out quite fast. The OB congratulated me on my pushing, and said that if I coughed, she'd likely fly straight out - and I laughed. The video caught her inching out a wee bit more with every laugh, and he told us to test out the cough theory: so off I went, fake coughing, to see if it worked. {It did!}
As another contraction started, we got down to business, and one push later, she was born. The doctor gave her straight to Jason, and had him hand her up to me - and as he did so, her cord snapped! Weirdly, it snapped at the exact spot where it would normally have been clamped and cut. After a quick check to make sure her cord & my placenta were still okay, Jase gave me my baby. My baby! She had the typical 'cone head' look and was very quiet, just making tiny squawks. I couldn't believe how chubby she looked for being born at 36 weeks + 5 days.
I was able to hold her and hug her for just a minute, before Louise asked if she could take her and give her a rub down to 'rough her up a bit'. This was when things got scary, and a little disappointing. I stayed on the bed post-delivery and finished off the birthing experience, with Dr. C walking me through what was happening with both me AND baby. My placenta was delivered intact, the cord was just fine {despite the odd breakage after her birth} and I avoided any external tears. I did, however, have a small rip internally, which the doctor said he'd prefer to stitch to make it heal faster - but if I wanted, I could leave it be. The quicker I healed down below the better, so he put in a few stitches and that was that.
As for the baby, she was under the warming lights. She wasn't screaming like you'd expect newborns to do, but was making softer cries, a bit like a kitten. They suctioned her mouth and throat to help remove some mucous, but she was still very shell shocked. Her initial Apgar score was a 7, I'd find out later. Another midwife had appeared, and together they told me that they would be taking her to the Special Care Nursery for a little while, probably to give her some oxygen and calm her breathing down. Jase followed along with them, while I was left on my own.
At the time, I thought that the baby would get her oxygen and then be returned to me. I was anxious, hating that I couldn't be with her {my epidural was in the process of wearing off, but I needed to stay in bed} and glad that hubby was there. As I waited, I played with my legs, wiggling my toes and hoping they'd come back to me soon. After a while, Jase came back... sans baby. It was then that I realised I wouldn't be getting her back with me straight away - though a part of me was still waiting to get reunited with her in our room later that night. He had taken plenty of photos to show me, though, and I got to visit her in my wheelchair later that evening.
I'll write more about Georgia's stay in Special Care later, but suffice it to say, while the birth itself went quite smoothly {last minute epidural aside} the post-birth happenings were NOT what I would have ever expected. I never got to breastfeed my baby after the birth and that minute of holding her was the last I'd have for a full day after that. No skin to skin, no chance to see if she'd suckle at the breast, nothing. Georgia stayed in the nursery for the first week of her life. It certainly wasn't the ideal hospital experience, but that's how it went.
During our time in hospital, I went through some stressful days - the emotion of being away from my brand new baby, of having other people caring for her more than me, of worrying that she wouldn't know me or know Jason, of worrying about whether she was breathing properly, or eating enough... well, it was a lot to go through. I have the utmost respect for parents who go through NICU or Special Care stays - ours was 8 days long, and it felt like an eternity. I can't even imagine being there long term.
I was happy to be making progress, having reached 6cm with just gas and air to help me through. Our midwife, Louise, asked if I'd like to take a bath or a shower to help with the increasing contractions, and I was thrilled to get to do this - one of my biggest goals was to be able to labour in water for a little while.
I stayed in the bath for a while, with hubby keeping me company and splashing water over my giant belly. Louise had brought in a portable gas container, so I could use that if I wanted to. I tried to get through most of them with the hot water, but they were starting to take my breath away - so the gas was, once again, my friend. It was while I was stark nekkid in the tub that I met my 'new' OB for the first time, Dr C. He was a character, and I felt really comfortable with him - even in the nude. :) He had stopped by to say hello and see how things were, and the visit was short and sweet.. apparently the other lady in labour was getting close to the pushing stage.
It was about this time that things started getting really tough. The contractions were hard & fast, the gas & air combination wasn't taking effect quick enough to combat it and I was exhausted - it had been around 14 hours of labour at that point and I'd not slept for another 14 hours before that, the day before.
{Going into labour at night was not ideal. I wish I'd slept more.}
Our midwife, Louise, was getting concerned with how tired I was, so asked to do another check to see how things were progressing. After all those hours of labouring, I was only at 7cm. She spoke with the OB and they decided that if I didn't progress further in the next few hours, they would look at speeding things up with a syntocinon drip to get to the final stage.
I was determined to get things moving, so I stayed up and about, swaying over the baby warming table & trying to focus. Unfortunately, the contractions were coming harder and faster, and it was all I could do to stay upright, drink water & suck down on the gas. I also desperately needed to wee, but every time I would waddle back and forth to the bathroom, I'd try and go... but nothing happened. Turns out that baby's head was so far down, she was quite literally wreaking havoc on all of my pelvic floor muscles, and I couldn't pee! Not good, but I wasn't to know at the time. Two hours of clock-watching passed, and our midwife returned.
I was at 9cm if she stretched - and oy, did she stretch. The doctor appeared, and together they tried to keep me 'with it' long enough to explain what they'd like to do to help things along. It was 2pm. They wanted to get the drip going to help me fully dilate, but they were worried that I'd be too exhausted to cope with the contractions that it would bring on. Because of this, they strongly suggested that I have an epidural. I was almost delirious from the pain, but I was SO frustrated - I had planned all along to have no plan, but I really had wanted to get through without an epidural, if I could. To let me get all the way to 9cm, and then have an epidural? I felt as though my body had failed me, and in turn, I'd failed myself in some way.
I remember getting really emotional at this point, and crying to Jason about how I hadn't wanted an epidural - but at the same time, I was in absolute agony with the syntocinon drip. I also kept having ridiculous urges to push - and I was screaming through these contractions and pushing without any control what-so-ever. Knowing that it could still be hours before I got to 10cm, I agreed to have the epidural. This, my friends, terrified me more than the idea of a natural childbirth - I was absolutely petrified of being paralysed, having the epidural not work, or of consequently needing more invasive manoeuvres to get the baby out.{i.e. forceps, vacuum, c-section}
The anaesthetist arrived, and was trying to tell me the risks of the procedure - but I was too busy freaking out, crying, and pushing/screeching like a banshee to pay much attention. The gas & air nozzle was in my mouth constantly, no breaks in its use, and I was, er, a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. Jase says that this was the point where he was a little frightened on my behalf. Transition... it's no joke. Anyway, anaesthetist man was wearing a red flannel shirt & I felt the need to compliment him on it constantly. I could hear myself talking about it and felt like a moron, but I couldn't control my word vomit. And, thanks to my good friend Nitrous-Oxide, I felt like I kept repeating myself over and over again, and then giggling about it, and then crying, because OMG THINGS HURT.
I'm fairly sure that my mind has blanked out a lot of my experiences of the the transitional part of labour, probably to preserve what little dignity I had left. Somehow I ended up hunched over Jason and preparing for the epidural, just like you see in the movies. I remember the local anaesthetic hurt like a bitch, but I don't remember much after that. Once it was in, they laid me back down & put in a catheter for my poor blader {sweet relief} - I'm not kidding you, I filled that bag up in about five seconds flat. Ahhhhh. Labour: so glamorous, eh?
After we were buzzed in to the birth suites, I was absolutely petrified. I felt like I shouldn't be there; it was probably a false alarm; it was the middle of the night; I'd be wasting the nurses' time... and it was too early. The midwife who I had spoken to on the phone was assigned to me, which was nice. She got me comfortable & told me that after doing a trace on the baby, they'd do an internal exam and see how things were going. I'll admit, this made me nervous too - I'd never had a cervical check before, so I wasn't sure what to expect.
Baby was doing just fine & the CTG showed that I was experiencing contractions - things looked like they might have been happening! The midwife performed the internal {which didn't hurt} and proclaimed that my cervix was already effaced & that I was 2-3cm dilated. Turns out I wasn't exaggerating those cramps - I was in labour!
The day I went into labour started out like any other day when you're in your last few weeks of pregnancy. I was tired, huge, peeing constantly & analysing every twinge my body made, wondering if this was a 'sign' of labour impending over the next few weeks. It was the 29th of March: Good Friday. I was 36 weeks + 4 days.
In the morning, I started getting some cramping - nothing consistent, but what just felt like period aches - enough to make me clutch my stomach and complain for a bit, but then forget about them when they would subside. I stayed home in the morning in my pyjamas, until we went to visit my Nanna in hospital at lunchtime. Even then, the cramping was bothering me; it prompted my gran to make another comment about hoping to meet baby girl sooner rather than later. We left fairly soon after that, as I still felt rubbish. Later that afternoon, our next door neighbour {who is also conveniently our hairdresser} came over to cut our hair & have a coffee, and I remember chatting to her about how I was tired and crampy and ready for the baby in the next few weeks. She has three kids, so we talked about her birth stories for a while, before I went upstairs to lay down.
As the evening progressed, the cramps got worse. I was on my side, clutched around myself, feeling awful. I remember Jase checking in on me every now and again, and at some point I decided I would start timing them {just for fun} on one of my iPhone apps. Things started out fairly mild, but as time progressed, they began to form a pattern. I coped with the 'cramps' by feeling the beginning build-up, breathing through the tight, painful middle part, then relaxing as they subsided. After several episodes using that coping mechanism, I stopped calling them cramps & began calling them contractions. Actual contractions!
At around 11pm, I went to the loo & continued cramping - and lost a HUGE chunk of bloody mucus, my full 'show'. I stood there with the toilet paper in my hand, not quite sure whether I should keep it and show someone {who? who would I show? I have no idea} and decided I'd take a picture instead. Don't worry... I won't share that here on the blog. Since the contractions were continuing fairly regularly & the show had appeared, I had Jase ring the hospital to ask what we should do. The midwife implied that it could well just be a false labour, and to take some panadol and have a warm bath. If the contractions got more intense or closer together, she asked us to ring back.
Sitting in the bath was lovely, but I continued timing the contractions and they didn't slow down - they ended up speeding up and being 5-6 minutes apart. After a while, I headed back to bed, and spent a few hours moaning through each contraction. It was around 2am that I made Jase ring the hospital again. Again, the midwife {a different one this time} told me that things might be taking off - anyone else they would encourage to stay home a little longer, but since I was pre-term at 36+4, she asked me to come in - just to be safe.
Luckily I'd had my hospital bags packed and ready to go for several weeks prior, so we threw them all into the car and got ourselves ready. I hurriedly grabbed a towel to throw onto the car seat; I didn't want my waters to break during the drive. I remember worrying constantly about heading to the hospital too early; I didn't want to be sent home if this was false labour, but I didn't want to stay home in case it was the real deal.
That 2.30am drive to the hospital {which usually takes around 20 minutes} was done in 10 minutes. We arrived at the deserted hospital, where I sealed the deal by having a contraction in the front carpark while Jase buzzed us in on the intercom. It was time to get checked out, and man, was I nervous.
Thank you all for the sweet words of welcome for our wee baby girl. It's been a crazy roller-coaster ride, but suffice it to say that we are ridiculously proud parents and completely in love with this tiny little human. I feel I should write out the story of her birth sooner rather than later, but am so exhausted that I don't think I could do it justice yet.
For now, know that we are busy loving all over our Georgia & enjoying every challenging second of new parenthood.
So... about those cramps...
Our little lady decided to surprise us by arriving a few weeks early at 36 weeks + 5 days. She wanted to be a March baby & not an April one, it seems!
She is super chunky for a premmie bub (3.5kg at birth!) and is healthy and happy, after being on oxygen and monitoring after birth.
Unfortunately she has been in the Special Care Nursery since she was born, as she is having feeding issues (doesn't know how to suck or self feed) so I've been lonely here in hospital with no baby by my side. She's trying. So am I. Although, she's also now showing signs of jaundice, so might be a while for her to sort those issues out before we can come home.
Either way, we are totally smitten. All I want to do is eat those chubby cheeks!!
Meet Georgia. :)
The third trimester {I almost wrote turd-trimester, hahaha} is definitely newborn-preparation time. I think I'm probably 75% on my way to zombie-mama status and baby girl isn't even here yet. Exhausted doesn't cover it.
Brush teeth, go to the loo, inspect for bodily fluids on toilet paper. {I KNOW.}
Stand up, Braxton Hicks contraction, waddle back to bed.
Lie down, back hurts. Roll over, bladder hurts.
Hour later - back to bathroom.
Go to the loo, inspect for bodily fluids on toilet paper.
Stand up, Braxton Hicks contraction, waddle back to bed.
Lie down, back hurts again. Nod off to sleep, bladder wakes me up.
Go to the loo, inspect for bodily...... yeah, you get the idea.
Stand up, Braxton Hicks contraction, waddle back to bed.
Rinse and repeat for the rest of the night. {yawn}
Oh, what a crazy few days we've had here recently.
After my brother's wedding, I had hoped things would quieten down. Instead, my Nanna took a turn for the worse. Since having her second breast cancer surgery, her health has been rapidly declining, and she has gotten steadily weaker. Her birthday was on Sunday, and by Monday, she was looking terrible. Tuesday morning, she collapsed in the bathroom & was unresponsive and taken to the emergency room.
Since then, she's been admitted into the palliative care unit, which is scary, but also the best place for her until she gets some strength back. She could be there a few days, a few weeks, or for good - but the doctors think that with rest and fluids, they might be able to get her back home. I've been sneaking out of my rest most days to visit for a few hours, because I know she appreciates the company... and getting to have a good belly rub!
It's heartbreaking seeing her so tired and so sick - I hate cancer. :( She is the sweetest lady, would do anything for anybody, and I hope to grow up just like her one day. All she keeps telling the doctors and nurses is that she wants to meet her great-grand-daughter, and I really, really hope she gets that chance. It'll break my heart for my daughter to miss out on knowing her amazing Great-Nanna, even though if things don't go as planned, I know she'll stay with her. In the meantime, this was taken on her birthday twelve months ago: is she not the cutest granny ever?
All is fairly quiet on the baby front {other than my belly continuing to grow to the size of a small house} - I don't have an OB visit this week, because of the Easter holidays.
*TMI WARNING*
Over the last few days, I've started getting strands of snotty-looking bits down-below, mostly clear but once tinged with brown. I'm watching with curiosity, but have no idea whether it's the start of my plug coming away, or just an increase in gross, pregnancy discharge. Who knew I'd be watching the loo paper like crazy towards the end?
Nearly everyone who sees me thinks I'll have this baby before the 22nd, which kind of frightens me: not that I'll have her early {please, yes!} but that I'll be getting my hopes up for that, and then end up still pregnant at 41 weeks or something. I'm just going to trust that she'll know when she's baked enough... and keep fingers crossed.
How Far Along: 36 weeks & into the final month of pregnancy - we hope.
Size of baby: Baby is the size of a honeydew melon, although she feels a LOT heavier than that at this point.
Your baby is working hard to accumulate all the fat she can at this point, and that layer of fat has now rounded out her face. This build-up of fat -- about 15 percent of her total weight--will help her maintain her body temperature and give her a store of energy. Her sucking muscles, which are quite powerful, have also finished developing now, and are ready for their first real feeding -- your baby's going to be hungry soon after she arrives.
Symptoms: I'm just getting worn out, I think. The baby is heavy, the pressure and pain in my pelvis is really unnerving, my back is burning with soreness. The weeping hasn't stopped, though. I cry ALL THE TIME now.
Cravings: You know, nothing really jumps out at me this week.
Gender: Still a girl. :)
Movement: Baby girl is still booting away at the bottom of my ribs. At my little brother's wedding a few days ago, she shoved me so hard that I literally flew back in my seat. Good, strong movement: I love it!
Maternity Clothes: Anything with a zipper is officially off limits. I like stretchy fabrics.
Milestones: We're in month 9! That's got to be a good milestone. Every week that passes now brings us into that home stretch... I cannot wait to see this little girl's face for the first time.
The belly: This one was taken two days shy of 36 weeks, since I had an excuse to get made up and out of the house for the wedding!! So many people commented on the bump this week - and lots guessed girl without even knowing the answer. Apparently I 'carry like a girl'... which essentially just means I'm SUPER round. And huge.
Which meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeans....
My due date is exactly ONE month away.
{Not that we wouldn't mind baby arriving before her due date, but let's just focus on the coolness that is one month for a little while, shall we?}
I could be having a baby in a month! Amazeballs.
A quick update on the OB front: baby girl is doing great! My blood pressure & proteins are back to average, she's measuring at 40 weeks (I'm almost 36) so no massive growth. Dr. P couldn't feel much of her head, and is sticking to the 2/5 engaged-3/5 palpable pelvic measurement. She's head down and bum up and I'm as happy as a clam.
ONE MONTH.
:)
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