my birth story - nathan william

Today marks a week from when I gave birth to my beautiful son, Nathan William. Here is my birth story (it's a long one)...

I was booked to be induced on Monday, 23rd July and had pretty much given up on the idea of going into labour naturally, but on the night of Thursday, 19th July I was reading my book at 11pm and I started to get intense cramps in my tummy. I started timing them and decided I was pretty sure they were contractions as they were every 6 minutes. I tried to sleep but couldn't so went in the bath for a while, walked around the house, and tried to cope with each pain one at a time. 

I phoned the hospital around 2am on Friday morning and was advised to continue taking baths, sleeping if I could and keeping an eye on the contractions. For the next 3 hours some of my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and some 15 minutes apart. Although they were irregular, I was struggling with the pain so we called the hospital again and asked if we could come in to be examined. 

The midwife examined me at 5.30am Friday morning and I was 1cm. She gave me a sweep and sent me home at 6am. I was to come back if my contractions became regular and 4 minutes apart or less or if my waters broke. I was feeling very upset about this because 6 hours had passed and I was only 1 cm. I was scared about how long this was going to go on for. 

Once I got home I did everything I could to just get through each contraction. I used the TENS machine, which was strange and didn't seem to help much. I took about 100 baths, tried to rest and listen to my yoga music, rocked on my birth ball.  The contractions were increasing in intensity but still weren't regular. By 6.30pm on Friday evening I noticed that the baby's movements had slowed down a bit, I was also exhausted and wanted more pain relief so called the hospital and begged to come in. I had been labouring for over 18 hours and needed a break. 

The midwife examined me around 8pm Friday. She said my membranes were bulging and that I was 4-5cm! I was thrilled because this meant they could admit me onto the ward, that things were progressing and I could get more pain relief! The midwife showed me to my room which was huge and had a bed for me and a sofa for Nick to rest on. I was given a birth ball and the midwife made me some toast - she thought I needed to eat and drink lots of water as I really hadn't eaten or drank anything for the last day and I needed energy to get me through this birth. 

I started on the gas and air and it felt amazing but also made me a little nauseous. After about 30 minutes using the gas and air I vomited, a LOT! I have never been so sick in my life and this is where things went down hill and get a bit fuzzy in my memory; my energy levels plummeted and I needed to lie down. I didn't feel like I could get off the bed because I felt so weak with each contraction. I continued to use the gas and air though because it helped with the pain really well. 

At midnight Friday night my waters broke.  I rang the buzzer and the midwife came in and checked my waters were clear, which they were. I was examined around 12.30am and I was only 1-2cm! I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I was going backwards!! She said the bulging water bag must have been temporarily dilating my cervix and that when it broke the cervix bounced back to nearly closed. This freaked me out completely and I immediately requested an epidural, but they said I needed to get to 4cm before they would give me one. I agreed to a dose of Pethidine (opiate) instead and just struggled along with this and the gas and air, hoping things would progress but at 3.30am I was examined again, I was still 1-2cm. 

Hours passed. Friday night turned into Saturday morning. The midwives changed shifts and I asked the new midwife for an epidural again, but I was still 1-2cm. My contractions were very irregular and the new midwife thought my uterus was shutting down because I was so dehydrated. She wanted me to get fluids through an IV and to be more closely monitored, so I was transferred to the consultant ward around 9am. 

On the consultant ward, I was given an IV, strapped to the fetal monitors, given Syntocinon (induction hormone) and closely watched by my new midwife.  I had now been in labour for over 34 hours and she wanted to make sure the baby wasn't getting distressed.  I was examined again at 10am and I was 3-4cm so I was finally booked in for the epidural, but the anesthetist was in surgery so I had to wait until around 12.30pm when I finally got it put in. It was such a relief!  By this point my waters started to get darker and the baby's heart rate was dipping with each contraction and not recovering quickly enough. I was given more Syntocinon to try and get me to dilate quicker, but this only made the baby more stressed with each intense contraction. The consultant came in at 1.30pm to examine me and decided I needed an emergency C-Section due to the distress on baby. I was rolled to the operating room and little Nathan was born at 2.10pm weighing 6 pounds 12 ounces. 

Unfortunately the story didn't quite end there. Nathan was wedged into my pelvis and the surgeons had to yank him out very aggressively. In doing so they tore an artery and I lost a large amount of blood. The epidural was wearing out at this point and it was going to take a while to repair the tear, so they put me under a general anesthetic in order to focus on the surgical procedure. I had to have 2 litre blood transfusion.  Needless to say I struggled to come back around after the procedure and Nathan was getting sick, not feeding and they suspected he had sepsis so they took him away to the Special Care Baby Unit for monitoring! He was in there for 4 days before getting the all clear to come home Wednesday 25th July.

We have been back home now for a few days and it hasn't been easy to adjust but we are getting there slowly. He is a very loved little boy and has been through a lot already in his life.

thirty-six weeks pregnant

Pregnancy day 252...28 days to go!

Baby is now 18.75 inches long and weighs about 5.75 pounds. 

Oh my gosh - look how huge I am! I can really feel every little movement from baby now that he is so big (nearly 6 pounds - gulp!) and wow does he like to kick and nudge me in my sides.  At least he seems content in there. 


There is not much new to report this week: I had no medical appointments and my work-week was super short thanks to the Jubilee bank holiday. I must admit my feelings about work ending this Friday keep changing. One minute I'm so excited to be finishing, and the next minute I'm completely terrified! Someone at work today bought me some adorable little newborn bodysuits and it made me feel really bittersweet about leaving everyone for a year...I mean a whole year....that's a LONG time. I'm sure I will get used to it though.


In terms of how I'm feeling generally, I have actually been feeling pretty good, surprisingly. I have moments where I get stuck on the sofa and Mr M has to literally hoist me out of my seat. And I have moments where I'm emotional and close to tears for no apparent reason. But I can't really complain because overall I am functioning well and have no serious medical issues. Every once in a while I get a sharp pain down below and I freak out a little about my impending labour, but then the pain goes away and I forget about it. 


I am taking tomorrow as holiday as I have my 36-week midwife appointment and an NCT meet-up. Hopefully the appointment will go well. And I am looking forward to seeing the ladies from my NCT class again and am hopeful that we can continue to meet up regularly once our babies arrive. 

midwife & NCT update

It was a busy day yesterday: I had my 31 week midwife appointment and my NCT class on the same day. I thought I would write a quick blog post to say how they went otherwise knowing me and my baby brain I will completely forget the details by the weekend.

The midwife appointment was in the morning before work and it went well. Everything was "normal" according to the midwife. From the scribbles she put in my maternity notes I can make out that my blood pressure was 100/60; fundus height was 31 cm; position was "ceph"; and fetal heart-rate was 148 bpm.

I think ceph stands for cephalic, which means head-down. She also wrote that baby was "free" which I think means he is not engaged yet...so overall everything seems fine for being 31 weeks. My next appointment is at 34 weeks and is scheduled for 30th May. 

NCT class last night was all about pain relief. It was good to go through all the different types of pain relief available, but it was scary too! We discussed all the options available from natural things like hot baths and massage all the way up to the hard core options of epidurals and opiates.  For each type of pain relief we went through the pros & cons.

I found out that the medical options for pain relief at my hospital will be Gas & Air (aka Entonox), Pethidine (aka Demerol); or an Epidural. I wasn't aware about all the negative side effects that some of these drugs can have and it scared me a little. For instance, Pethidine crosses over the placenta, effecting your baby and potentially making him "drugged" for a day or two after birth. 

We also talked about something called a TENS machines, which I didn't know much about. I'm thinking about getting one because it's a natural way to deal with early stages of labour and can be used in combination with Gas & Air. If anyone has used a TENS machine in labour I would love to hear about your experiences.

I decided after the class that my favourite options at the moment are hot water, TENS machine and Gas & Air. But I'm not going to rule out any of the more hard-core options completely because who knows how I will feel once the contractions start.