Eve’s birth story

Our third baby was due to make her appearance on February 13th, 2012. We had lots of comments from people about ‘Valentine’s babies’ but with our last two having both been very overdue (Lilly 11 days over, Isla 12), we weren’t holding out much hope of that!

Sure enough, the due date came and went without any hint of baby wanting out – and this carried on as the days ticked past and despite a sweep at 8 days over.

With Isla, the 10 days after her due date were filled with plenty of false starts and promising contractions which started in the evenings and disappeared as soon as I went to bed. But this time, being overdue was most undramatic. There were no positive signs, no contractions, no particularly hopeful aches and pains. We were pretty resigned to the fact that it would end in induction and we were just keen to get on with things!

I was booked in for induction on Friday, 24th Feb, at 3.30pm, but I was told to ring in the morning to see if they could fit me in any earlier. The consultant who examined me at 8 days over confirmed that they would be able to skip out the pessary stage and go straight to breaking my waters, which I was pleased about.

On Thursday, we knew it was going to be our last day as a family of four, and we had a really lovely trip to the zoo in the glorious sunshine – it was so warm we were even sitting outside eating ice creams! It was one of those days when everything goes right and we put the girls to bed thinking what a brilliant day we’d had and how much we were looking forward to the next chapter in our lives.

The next morning we took the girls round to Tony’s mum and dad’s house. It felt so emotional leaving them, knowing how much their lives were going to change too by the next time we saw them – especially Isla who couldn’t really have any concept of what was going on.

We called the hospital to see if we could go in any earlier – they told us to call back again at 11am. I went back to bed to get some extra sleep and Tony relaxed playing football on the computer. We called at 11am and were told it was busy on labour ward and to call again at 1pm. We started to worry that things might not happen at all that day - with Isla we were in the hospital at 8am waiting to be induced and it was so busy that we didn’t get to go up to labour ward until 1am!

We went for our lunch at McDonalds and then called again at 1pm. Great news – they told us to come in at 2.3opm! We went back home and gathered all our stuff together – suddenly the adrenaline was going and we both felt that strange blend of excitement and anxiety.

We arrived at the hospital at 2.30pm and were shown straight into a delivery room on the labour ward. It felt so strange looking around that room and thinking about everything that was going to unfold in the next few hours. I was worried about how long we might be there for – with Isla, although I was induced, by the time they got around to breaking my waters I was contracting pretty regularly on my own, but this time I hadn’t had a single contraction yet!

We got ourselves comfy and the very nice midwife said she would break the waters then give me an hour to see if the contractions started themselves. But when she tried to do it, she found she couldn’t, and had to ask a consultant to come and try. A female consultant, who also seemed very nice, came and did the job at 4.50pm. She told the midwife to give me two hours to see if things started up on their own, which I was pleased about. Then I was hooked up to the monitor (because of previous c-section I needed continous monitoring) but I was allowed to sit on a birthing ball. (I was so chuffed about this – in both my previous pregnancies I had imagined labour would involve bouncing away on a ball, it seemed such an idyllic vision, and I had never managed to achieve it in either of the previous two labours!)

In a bid to help relax me and therefore make me more likely to go into labour on my own, the midwife mixed me up a blend of essential oils in a footbath for me to try. This too felt extremely strange – essential oils and footbaths certainly weren’t ever on the agenda the last two times!!

After two hours absolutely nothing had happened – except my feet felt nice I asked the midwife for one more hour to see if that might make a difference and she agreed. I sat and bounced on my ball watching TV (until the midwife had to break the news to me that the bouncing was making the monitor lose contact with the baby and then I was told I could stay on the ball as long as I stayed totally still – easier said than done!)

After an hour still nothing had happened, not so much as a twinge. I was a bit fed up by this and just wanted to get on with things, so I agreed to the dreaded drip being hooked up to help speed things along.

A nurse arrived to put in a canula – three painful attempts later, it was in… and at 7.45pm the drip began its evil work!

By about 9pm the contractions had begun. They were painfully sharp from the start – not like the last two times when they began on their own so built gradually in intensity before the drip was introduced to really ratchet things up. Although I was pleased that things were finally happening I started to feel negative about things and was telling Tony that I didn’t think I could do this. Because the contractions had only just started and they were already pretty painful, and because I knew I was only about 2cm dilated at this point, I felt like I had such a long way to go with the pain inevitably only getting worse. I was already on the gas and air, which I seemed to like a bit better this time, although I was still worried about it making me feel sick, as it had done on the last couple of occasions.

Soon afterwards I was examined, and yes, I was still only 2-3cm. The contractions were about every 3 minutes and pretty unpleasant. I started to get the shakes. The lovely midwife was swapped over for a much more business-like one who immediately came in and doubled the dosage in my drip!

At this point it became clear that the monitoring was an issue again. Firstly, the monitor on my belly kept slipping and losing contact with the baby. Also, it was starting to show those all too familar decelerations in heartrate whenever I had a contraction. The midwife tells me she is going to put a clip on the baby’s head so they can monitor her better. At this point Tony and I both start to feel this is heading down a slippery slope… I am thinking that I still have so far to go, the pain is already quite a lot, and we are now on borrowed time trying to deliver the baby before the distress gets worse.

By now I am starting to go into my own world a bit – I feel a bit out of it even though I am only having gas and air – and trying not to use that too much for fear of being sick. I can’t be bothered talking to the midwife where before we’d been making small talk. I just want silence!

The midwife asks me if I’m ok for pain relief. I say I am for now, but I will want an epidural later. She asks me why I want to wait, and I say because I don’t want to have it too early because it can make a c-section more likely. She tells me that it won’t make any difference to how I progress, because I’m on the drip anyway, and that if I want one, I better get one now because later on they might be busy and I might have to wait a long time. In that case, I say yes… although I am slightly feeling like it is a bit early on and maybe I am a total cop out for wanting to get rid of the pain already.

The anaesthetist arrives quite quickly. Unbelievably, it is the same guy as the last two labours. We have mixed feelings about this. My first epidural was a disaster. It didn’t properly work and, when the labour ended in an emergency section, the epidural couldn’t be topped up, which meant I ended up with a general anaesthetic. The second time, this same man did me a brilliant epidural, which totally took away the pain but left me with just the sensation to push, which was wonderful.

Unfortunately, the brilliant experience wasn’t to be repeated. He puts in the epidural but immediately starts asking me lots of questions about whether or not I am feeling it working, and if so, is it working in both sides or just one side? I like to be positive and think that I can feel it starting to work, but it soon becomes clear that if it is working, it is definitely only working on my left side and not my right. It is about 10pm.

Next thing, the midwife says the baby’s heartrate is still dipping with each contraction, and calls in a doctor to look at the trace. He looks at it, looks a bit concerned but tries to be very reassuring to us and says they will give it a bit longer and have another look. We both feel a c-section is on the cards and I am a bit worried because the epidural is not the best. I do not want another general anaesthetic!

After this point, everything starts happening at once. I am in so much more pain, especially on my right hand side where the epidural obviously isn’t working at all. The midwife tells me to lie on my right to try and see if that moves the epidural over to that side, and if it doesn’t, she will ask the anaesthetist to come and top me up. I lie on my side and it makes things SO much worse, the pain becomes unbearable and it is at this point I start to lose it a little.

The midwife calls the doctor back because the dip in the baby’s heartrate is getting worse. She also calls back the anaesthetist to sort out my epidural. They arrive at the same time.  The doctor examines me at 12.3oam and tells me I am 6cm dilated. At this point, the pain is unbelievable. I am lying on my side telling them over and over: “I don’t want to do this, it hurts so much, please help me!” The doctor and anaesthetist are still there and then it changes and I have this huge pressure in my bottom which is impossible not to push against. Now I am panicking because I’ve just been told I’m only 6cm dilated and I feel like the baby is coming! I am now shouting: “It’s in my bottom – I’m sorry! I can’t help it! It’s in my bottom!!”

At one point I hear Tony say something like “Do you want me to get somebody?” and I panic! What does he mean “get somebody?” I’d assumed they were already here! (I am totally in my own world – later on Tony told me that the doctor and anaesthetist were there, but the midwife had run out of the room (to get somebody, it turns out). The doctor and anaesthetist were basically just standing there looking at me not sure what to do!)

The midwife comes back and tells me “Ok, if you want to push, just go for it”, but I am still so scared because I’ve literally only just been told I’m only 6cm! I keep asking her: “What’s happening? Will it be ok?” but the urge to push is so strong there is no fighting it anyway. The next thing I know the baby’s head is coming. I can’t believe it!! The pain is enormous as I can feel something very hard trying to stretch it’s way out, I push and the head is out… the cord is wrapped round her neck tightly, twice (hence the heartrate decelerations). The midwife tells me to push a little then pant as she wrestles to untangle the cord. I do exactly what I’m told. A few pushes later, at 12.51am, I feel the rest of the baby scrabble out… the relief is enormous… She is put straight onto me, she looks fine but doesn’t cry, they take her and give her a rub and she starts up with a VERY loud piercing cry!! Oh-oh!

Daddy holds her while they deliver the placenta & check me over. I can’t believe it when I’m told there is no tear - I was terrified I was going to be ripped to shreds because of the sudden arrival – but no, it seems I had literally gone from 6cm to fully dilated in a matter of minutes. She is weighed (8lbs 2oz) - then given to me for skin to skin. She is hungry straight away but gets very upset and squeals when we don’t get the latch right (even though she is my third baby I am no breastfeeding expert, having only managed to feed the other two for a little while myself).

Eventually she sucks for over an hour but still wants more so Tony dresses her in her first outfit, which she doesn’t seem to mind, then she has a little formula from daddy. She is totally alert & awake, although she does close her eyes while drinking as if she’s tired but fighting it. Eventually we are taken down to a ward where a midwife swaddles her & she falls asleep in my arms.

The last couple of hours have been so dramatic that it is only really once we are on the ward, baby sleeping so peacefully, that I can really appreciate what has just happened! Eve Daisy has arrived, another totally perfect little being we have created to make our family totally complete.

Tony goes home, exhausted, but neither of us can actually sleep for hours, we’re both far too wired after the dramatic events of the last couple of hours. We send each other lots of text messages about our beautiful new daughter and I send him pictures of her.

I was discharged early the next afternoon, taking our beautiful third baby home to meet her sisters. Our lovely family complete.

 

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Say hello to Eve…

Eve, one hour old

Eve Daisy was born at 12.47am last Saturday, weighing 8lb 2oz after a successful induction which began on Friday afternoon. My second VBAC!

The birth was really quite quick, once the contractions kicked in, and the pushing stage particularly so… in fact I went from 6-10cm and she was born all within 10 minutes!

She is, of course, completely gorgeous, and gets more so every day. So far we think she looks a lot like Lilly did as a baby, she has the same shape face and nose, and she has the same slight smattering of hair that Lilly had (not the dark mop of hair that Isla was born with!)

Eve also has an extremely impressive pair of lungs and can not only already cry louder than her sisters but she also has a fabulous high pitched scream in her repertoire – so glad she is not my first baby or I would be paranoid that she was in real pain when she wails for food / has her nappy changed!

This time I was able to come out of hospital the same day, which was really brilliant. She was born just before 1am and we went down to the ward about 3am so I did spend half a night there. But we were discharged and home early that afternoon.

Once we got home, the VIP visitors arrived – big sisters Lilly and Isla, who had been staying with Tony’s mum and dad.

Lilly meets Eve for the first time

Lilly’s reaction when she saw her little sister was just incredible – I’m sure I’ll never forget it. The look on her face was just total amazement and genuinely full of love for her newest sister. She just could not stop telling her: “You’re so lovely! You’re so cute! I LOVE you Eve”, it was such a fabulous moment. And when we asked her what she thought of the name we’d given her, she said: “That is just exactly the name I wanted you to give her!”

Isla was less instantly impressed – she didn’t really take any attention of the new baby at all at first, she just carried on as normal. But in the days since then she has taken a lead from Lilly and has been stroking Eve’s head and saying “aaaaaahhh”. She also asks where the baby is quite a lot – she looks for her in her pram or in her car seat and if she isn’t there she says: “Baby!?”

To be fair, Isla hasn’t really ever seen a baby before, not one much younger than herself anyway. I think at first she really wondered what ‘it’ was – maybe another one of Lilly’s toys or something? Somebody held the baby up close to Isla on the first day and she looked a little bit scared! And at first she didn’t want to touch her or go too close. But because Lilly has been so brilliant and so loving with Eve, Isla has copied her which has been a great relief. So far we haven’t really noticed any particular change in Isla’s behaviour – we had expected she might play up more because she’d be a bit jealous – but she has actually been brilliant. It has made us feel so happy to think of the lovely close age gap the three girls will have and that the foundations are there for them all to have a really great relationship – certainly Lilly could not be a more doting big sister, on either Isla or Eve.

And in terms of how the first week has gone, I think we’ve all done pretty well. We have had a few ropey nights where Eve wouldn’t settle in her basket but prefered to sleep whilst being held. And at first she seemed to be struggling a bit with her feeding, but with a little help from a nice midwife we think we have things sorted now. But we are now on day 8 and for the last few nights we have been putting her down to bed at the same time as her sisters (7pm ish) after giving her a bath to tire her out a little, and it seems to have helped her relax and go to sleep without too much fuss. Last night she woke up 4 hourly through the night, so it was bed at 7pm then wakeups at 11pm, 3am and then 7am. I don’t think you can ask much more of a week old baby!

We have also ventured out a few times as a family of five - there are some more logistics to think about than there were when there were only four of us, but actually it really hasn’t been too horrendous. I think we are doing pretty well, so far!

There have been a few other major developments in the past week - our house move is now definitely back on, and it also looks like Tony may be going back to work for a while, but I will post a seperate entry about both of those - so all in all it feels like a LOT has happened in the last 8 days.

And yes, the family feels complete. Eve is just the perfect addition and she could not be more loved, by all of us. I am feeling very, very lucky and very much in love with my perfect family.

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Eight days later…

Today I am officially eight days overdue.

We had our appointment back at the hospital where they have done a sweep and confirmed that my cervix has softened and that, if it comes to induction, they should be able to reach the waters to break them without having to put in a pessary first. All good news!

As for the induction date – it has been set: This Friday, Feb 24, at 3.30pm. I have to ring at 8am in the morning and, if they aren’t busy, they may ask me to go in earlier.

Up until now I haven’t had any false alarms, any promising signs or any encouraging twinges, so I am fully expecting that this will go all the way to induction. But I am ok with that – I was technically induced with Isla (although things were starting off on their own that day anyway) and that experience was positive, so I know that being induced doesn’t have to mean something awful. It also has the major positive of being able to drop the girls off with their Nanna in a nice, planned and calm way, and no midnight dashes to the hospital.

Of course, there is still a chance the baby might put in an appearance on her own before then, but she only has two days in which to do so!

This week we have beeen a little bit up the wall as Isla came down with a really nasty stomach bug on Sunday morning. The girls had been having a practice sleepover at Nanna’s and in the morning when we came to collect her, she had been sick twice. More sick followed throughout the day, and then full blown diarrhea in the afternoon… disaster! We have been washing hands every five minutes and cleaning everything trying to prevent anybody else catching it, and are now desperately hoping we have done enough to avoid it ourselves. Isla has been much better since this morning (last sick being last night) and is now back to her cheeky toddler ways. So far neither me, Tony or Lilly has any symptoms, and we are just hoping it stays that way. I have been trying not to think about suffering norovirus and going into labour, nor too much about what would happen if hubby was ill when I went into labour and he couldn’t be with me. We have now decided to think positive and assume all will be ok… it is time to tell this baby to come out!

In terms of what movement I can feel – this baby is still exceptionally active and moves around a LOT, especially in the evening and at night. She has lots of hiccups too! I have plenty of achey feelings in the right area, but nothing that feels like a contraction, the way they gradually build and fade. These are much more like constant general aches, more like having overdone it than anything else.

Going to the hospital today and having time to think about what is going to happen – and that it is going to happen SOON – has made us both feel really excited about this new arrival and keen to get on with it asap! We will have a baby by the end of the weekend!

I will get off the computer and go and make another raspberry leaf tea, I think…

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Isla’s birth story

Well – here it is. Isla’s birth story. Get comfy, it’s quite long…  

Isla was due on Thursday, June 17. But, as we suspected, that date came and went with no appearance from our second baby. She was obviously planning to follow in the footsteps of her sister, Lilly, who was 11 days overdue when she was born two and a half years earlier.

A week after the due date, I had an appointment with the consultant, at the Antenatal Day Clinic in Warrington Hospital. The consultant performed a “sweep” in the hope of getting things going and said I was 1-2cm dilated, and that my waters were accessible if they had to break them in case of induction. My blood pressure seemed high – in the 90s where it had been consistently at 70/75 for the last few months of my pregnancy, but my consultant said she wasn’t worried. They also found traces of glucose in my urine, which they sent off for testing. We were sent home with a date for induction if nothing happened naturally – Monday June 28, at 8am.

Tony and I both felt sure that it wouldn’t come to that – I had been having on and off contractions every evening for the past two nights. They hadn’t been particularly strong, and not very close together, but there was definitely something going on, and we were both hopeful that the sweep would kick-start the whole thing.

That night, we expectantly waited for something to happen. Nothing did. Not even the irregular mild pains of the last few evenings. Very disappointing.

The following evening (Friday), those pains were back, but yet again, as soon as I went to bed they disappeared.

On Saturday I had a show and once again became hopeful that something would happen. But Saturday (9 days over) felt a bit like The Last Chance Saloon – if nothing happened that evening, it looked very unlikely that I would go into labour by myself and would have to be induced – something I didn’t really want.

The plan was to begin by breaking my waters. Not something I was looking forward to, as with Lilly’s birth having the waters broken had been a distressing experience – I wasn’t told it was going to happen and as I was under the influence of gas and air at the time I was confused, upset and scared by it. Not how I wanted to start my second labour.

Besides, this time I was determined to get a natural birth after my first ended in an emergency c-section under general anaesthetic when Lilly became distressed, I failed to progress past 4cm and the epidural wouldn’t top up for the operation. I had read a lot about how to maximise my chances of getting a VBAC – Vaginal Birth After Caesarean – and it mainly boiled down to staying upright and active during the birth, not having my waters broken too early, and no epidural until at least 5cm dilated (if at all – I was worried that if it came to a section again the same might happen with the epidural – I wanted to opt for a spinal block instead in that case),

However, by 11 days overdue I was fed up. I felt huge, uncomfortable, and everything was a huge physical effort. I had no energy to play with Lilly and wanted to feel normal again. I wanted the baby out – so I was in no mood to argue against being induced, even though I worried that being induced would mean another c-section might be inevitable.

On the Sunday, Tony and I were resigned to the idea of the induction, and started to feel excited and nervous knowing that we would soon be meeting our new daughter, and starting a new chapter in our lives as a family of four. And the induction did have one big advantage – we were able to explain to Lilly that we were going into the hospital tomorrow to get the baby and that she would be staying with Nanna while we went. We got all her stuff organised and there was no rush or panic, and, for Lilly, no waking up in the night to find we had gone.

On Monday morning, we arrived at Warrington at 8am as arranged, and were shown to a ward with only one other couple on it, having also come in for induction. Blood pressure, urine samples etc were checked by a lovely trainee midwife, and, as before, my blood pressure was still high – in the 90s. The midwife decided to take my BP every 10 minutes for a while to see if it would come down – which it slowly did, to the mid 80s, and they were satisfied with that. Once again there was glucose in my urine and more was sent off to be tested. I asked the student midwife what it might mean as all my other urine samples had been fine throughout the pregnancy. She said it was possible to develop gestational diabetes right at the end of pregnancy, but I wasn’t worried because I knew I was going to have the baby that day or the next anyway.

After that I was put on the foetal heart rate monitor for half an hour. At this point, I was aware of some of those mild contractions / tightenings that I had been feeling over the last week, and the midwife asked me to press a button whenever I felt one, which would help them interpret the trace.

With Lilly’s birth, the first indication we had of her distress was when we first came into hospital and the monitor showed that with every contraction, her heart rate was dipping, then recovering afterwards. This got more and more pronounced the longer the labour went on until the emergency c-section was needed. So our biggest concern for this labour was that the same thing would happen again. Tony and I had agreed that, if the heart rate trace was showing the same situation was likely to repeat itself, that we would not allow things to get worse and worse before the inevitable emergency section – we would ask to have that decision taken earlier before the distress became potentially serious, and we had agreed as much with our consultant.

So, left alone with the foetal monitor doing its thing, we couldn’t resist the temptation to look at those spiky lines and try and interpret it in our own very ill-informed way. And it seemed to Tony that that same dip was occurring in this baby’s heart rate when I had a mild contraction. It wasn’t a good sign, and we started to wonder if this was all heading the same way as last time.

The midwife in charge of the ward came in to tell us that Delivery was very busy this morning, and we weren’t likely to be called up in the next hour or two. So we took the opportunity to walk down to the café and have a cuppa and a cake, buy a newspaper and a few lunch items for Tony.

Back on the ward, there was no news from Delivery. We had a view from our bed out of the window onto the ambulance bay for the maternity unit, and we watched about three ambulances turning up with lights flashing. Queue jumpers!

By early evening we were a little bored, and it was all a bit of an anti climax. The midwife was apologetic and said that if they hadn’t called us by 10pm then they would be unlikely to do the induction until tomorrow morning. We were really disappointed, and getting quite tired, because we’d been up since 6am.

At about 9.30pm I was put back on a foetal heart monitor. The mild tightenings I’d been feeling all day were a little more pronounced. And yet again, the monitor showed that with each one, the baby’s heart rate was dipping – ever so slightly, but still dipping. On top of this, my blood pressure kept rising to the mid nineties again. We explained our concerns to the midwife and she said she would ask a doctor to come down and have a look at the trace. At this point I decided to get into my pyjamas for the night, and Tony decided to stay until the doctor came. At some point I asked for some pain relief as they were quite uncomfortable, I was given some co codamol, which did seem to take the edge off.

We waited quite a while for the doctor, because Delivery was still very busy. By this time, the contractions / tightenings were getting even more pronounced. If I’d been at home experiencing the same, I’d have known I was in labour.

Finally, somewhere between 11pm and midnight, the doctor – Sammy – arrived. He had a look at the trace and agreed that there was a dip in baby’s heart rate and said there was a possibility that breaking the waters would help, by relieving the pressure. He said he would let us know when there was a room free upstairs and I asked him how long that might be – I wanted to know if Tony should go home (he had already technically outstayed his welcome as partners were supposed to leave after 10pm). He said he would go and plead my case and reappeared 10 minutes later telling us there was a room and we could go up now… Yay!

We went upstairs and got settled. A nurse came in to put in a canula in my hand just in case it was needed. She made a complete hash job of it – two painful attempts and couldn’t get a vain – in the end the doctor had to do it, and even he took two attempts!)

The midwife asked me if I wanted to use gas and air when they broke my waters. I wasn’t really keen as last time the gas and air had made the procedure more traumatic, as it had must made me feel sick and confused. I told the midwife I’d have a little “test run” on the gas and air, which I did, but decided to manage without it for now.

The midwife did an examination – I was 1-2cm – but couldn’t break my waters as she said her fingers weren’t long enough and the cervix was still a little high. This news didn’t make me feel very positive as it felt like proper labour was still a while away.

The doctor came back and broke my waters. It wasn’t exactly pleasant but it was nowhere near as upsetting as last time. In fact, he had real difficulty in doing it – he said the waters were very tight around the baby’s head and when he finally managed to do it there was no gushing of water – in fact at first he couldn’t be sure if it had worked! (When Isla was born she had two huge scratch marks on her head from this procedure poor thing!)

Then the doctor told the midwife to hook my up to the dreaded Syntocinon drip to get things going. Yikes!

The drip was started on a low setting and gradually turned up. At first it wasn’t too bad although the contractions were definitely more pronounced by now – I’d say they had reached the stage where pain wise I would have been wanting to come into hospital if I had gone into labour at home. I didn’t bother with the gas & air and managed for two hours with nothing other than the co codamol from earlier.

I started to feel a bit nauseous. I didn’t want gas and air or anything else for that matter, because I feared it would make me feel worse. After a little while, sure enough, I was sick. But afterwards I felt much better and started to think about more pain relief.  

Hospital policy after your waters breaking is to be examined every two hours and no more often. So, two hours later, I was examined. 3cm. I was a bit disappointed as I had hoped the pain would have helped me progress more than 1cm.

I decided to try some diamorphine after the midwife told me it was available.

The midwife gave me the diamorphine as an injection in my leg. It made me feel really sleepy and (at first) significantly took the edge off the pain. In fact, it made me pretty sleepy and I lay back on the bed and dozed on and off for an hour or so. It felt lovely…

During this time, the midwives kept coming in and out, checking the monitor for a while, then leaving. We asked the midwife to help us interpret the trace on the foetal heart rate monitor, and she reassured us that the baby’s heart rate was no longer dipping with the contractions, and that all was as it should be. Such a relief! Maybe this time would be different after all… The midwife was also turning up the syntocinon drip every half an hour to keep the contractions coming and to increase their intensity. We were left alone with the relaxing sound of the baby’s heart rate only interrupted by the occasional inflating of the blood pressure monitor. My blood pressure remained pretty high – mid nineties again. At some point – I can’t quite remember when – I was given a tablet to try to bring down the rate when it got to 100. But when they checked it again it had only gone down to 99!

After a little while though, the pain began to get stronger and stronger, and I knew that the diamorphine alone was not going to be enough to see me through. I endured half an hour or so of pretty agonising intense contractions as it was nearly examination time. I hoped I had reached five cms… which would have been a huge psychological boost as I never got past 4 last time. But when I was examined, disaster. Only 4cm. I’d only progressed 1cm in the last two hours, despite some significant pain. I was really disheartened and worried that maybe this was it; I’d be stuck at 4cm again.

It was at this point I asked for an epidural. And the midwife said she would go and sort this out with the anaesthetist, as a new one was just due to come on shift. However, it took almost two hours to get him to come to me. During this time the drip was getting turned up every half an hour and the contractions became unbearably strong. I was gripping Tony’s hand during each one and breathing but soon the pain just became too much. I started begging the midwives to turn the drip down PLEEEEASSE… and even sent Tony out into the corridor to beg them to do this for me, or to give me my epidural NOW!

Incidentally, the diamorphine was still working, even though it was not strong enough to dull the pain – I was really woozy and kept falling asleep and snoring (loudly) in between every contraction!

Eventually the anaesthetist came in – halleluiah! But wait, it was the same guy from last time – the one who had given me my ill fated epidural that gave me the shakes, made me sick, wore off, wouldn’t be topped up and ultimately lead to my c-section having to be carried out under general anaesthetic. Oh god, no!

I was still really woozy and out of it on the diamorphine. I wanted to ask the anaesthetist to NOT MESS IT UP AGAIN PLEASE, but wanted to ask him in the politest possible way, bearing in mind he was about to approach me again with a needle and I didn’t want to upset him. However, speaking coherently when you’re out of it on diamorphine isn’t easy so I ended up slurring something at him about “last time it didn’t work… please, I don’t want another general anaesthetic!”

Luckily, Mr Anaesthetist was in a much better mood than the same time two and a half years ago – I suspect he may actually have had a personality transplant in that time. He seemed jollier and actually cracked a joke… very much not like the last time we met!

Like last time, I kept totally still while he put the epidural in. Like last time, he seemed to carry on through a contraction, but I did not move a muscle! As soon as it was in, there was instant relief! That awful pain was gone… and, replacing it was a different sensation – a need to push?!

It was time to be examined again anyway. When the midwife announced I was 9cm dilated with just a tiny bit of lip left, I thought she was joking. I had gone from 4cm to 9cm in two hours – whooooooooo hooooooooo!!!! I was over the moon! But the midwife said I wasn’t “allowed” to push for another two hours, as they weren’t “allowed” to examine me again until then.

Well, for an hour, I tried not to push. Bloody hell, that was hard! The urge was so strong and I had to breathe through it when it came trying not to give in. It was amazing as I felt no pain from the contractions, just this sensation – Mr Anaesthetist had done an amazing job this time!

After an hour, the midwife took pity on me and said: “If you want to push, push.” So I did. She put my feet in stirrup type things to give me a bit more leverage and when I had the urge, I pushed with all my might. Tony was fabulous and kept reminding me to put my chin down, which I kept forgetting to do but which made the whole thing so much more successful.

After 45 minutes the midwife said those magic words: “With the next contraction, the baby’s head will be out”. “Nah,” I thought “There’s no way!” But I pushed as hard as I could and next thing I felt a scrabbling of tiny limbs as Isla shot out completely, arms and legs flying!

She was cleaned up a little and cried for a short while, a lovely, quiet, newborn baby cry. I was just in shock! I had given birth!! I didn’t even need forceps or anything! I had done it by myself!! It just didn’t feel real.

Next thing I had to do some gentle pushes to get out the placenta. I had a little cuddle with Isla – a gorgeous little thing with so much black hair, and weighing in at 8lbs exactly. The midwives were discussing the state of my down-belows… they couldn’t decide if I had a 2^nd or 3^rd degree tear (it was only a 2^nd in the end) and decided I needed to be stitched up in theatre. So, off I went.

That ride on the trolley down the corridor to theatre brought back some memories! This time was different though as it wasn’t for an emergency c-section. I arrived in theatre and there was a very happy and jolly atmosphere – I’m sure some of those doctors were the same ones from two and half years earlier who delivered Lilly – but maybe that was just my romantic vision of the situation. My diamorphine was still doing its thing and I was STILL falling asleep and snoring!! However, when it came to the actual stitches the epidural did not mask the pain and I had a local anaesthetic injection. I mainly snored through the whole procedure. A doctor woke me up to ask me if he could put in a pessary. “What for?” I asked. “It gives you pain relief for 48 hours” was the reply. “Well, yes, of COURSE you can then!”

Afterwards I was wheeled back into the delivery room. There was Tony standing holding our new little baby. And that’s when it really hit me – so much love for our little girl, so much emotion and just so much happiness. I could not get hold of her fast enough and was sobbing looking at her perfect little face. I gave her her first feed and pretty soon afterwards we were whisked down to the ward – rooms up in delivery were still very much in demand!

So, that was it. I managed my VBAC, despite being induced and despite being put on that evil drip! Also despite not having the “active birth” I had been fighting for – when it came to the crunch I was so tired I never even considered getting out of my bed!!

Isla is completely gorgeous; I am so totally in love with my second little girl, just as I was with my first. I am so lucky.

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Isla is here!

I am very very pleased to say that baby Isla Rose was born on Tuesday morning, weighing 8lbs exactly and bringing with her lots of love and happiness!

And I managed to achieve my natural birth!!

I will write up my birth story in full very soon, but in a nutshell my induction was a success, despite beginning with the breaking of my waters and use of the drip to speed up my contractions.

At one point, it seemed that things may be heading the same way as they did with my last labour, because during the early contractions her heartrate seemed to be dipping. But luckily, once the waters were broken the baby became a lot happier, and remained so right until she came flying out at 11.35am the next day!

For pain relief I went for diamorphine which actually was all I had until 9cm dilated, although I didn’t realise it! By that time I was begging for an epidural, which worked wonders, leaving me with no pain but still with the very strong sensation to push – almost as soon as the epidural was in! I’d gone from 4cm – 9cm in 2 hours and only pushed for 45 minutes before Isla made her entrance!

I was shocked, happy, surprised, overwhelmed… and very very tired by the time she arrived. I had a 2nd degree tear which was the least of my worries and was stitched up in theatre. After that I had my first skin to skin with Isla and totally fell in love with my little baby – with her very dark blue eyes and mop of black hair!

We were home the next day and even after being wheeled out of theatre after the stitches I felt brilliant – obviously a bit delicate and sore in places but I am continually thankful not to be recovering from a section with my two little girlies to look after!

Since her birth Isla has been a ridiculously easy baby to care for – nothing like the milk monster her sister was – in fact, my main concern has been getting her to feed regularly – she likes to sleep, sleep, sleep all day. My milk has come in now and so far she is being breastfed – it hasn’t been too much of a problem to keep up with her demands so it’s been a totally different experience.

I had so many messages of support, encouragement and congratulations both here and on twitter, so thank you thank you thank you everybody, you were so kind and so helpful.

Right, best get off here and wake Isla up to see if she’ll have some milk!!

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Ok – I need your best tips for coping with labour!

Well, if labour is imminent for me (which, if you see my last post, I’m hoping it is!), I am issuing a last minute plea for your tips on how to cope when the pain starts coming for real!

I want to cope for as long as I can with as little pain relief as possible. I’m not being unrealistic about this, I had everything going last time, and I have an open mind to everything this time. But I want to cope at home for as long as I can, and if I do have an epidural, I want to be progressing nicely before I do in order to make it more likely I can achieve my VBAC.

So, just a quick post from me – what helped you cope with labour? Was it a particular thought, or breathing technique, or massage or encouraging words?

Hopefully I haven’t got long – so any suggestions welcome!!

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37 weeks pregnant and VBAC plans move on

Well, i’ve been meaning to give an update on my VBAC situation for a week or so now, but unfortunately have been pretty busy with Lilly and her chicken pox - which is on the way out now, thank goodness.

Well, first off, we went to see the Supervisor of Midwives at the hospital last week. All in all it was a really helpful experience. She had had a read through my notes from the last labour and shed a bit more light on what happened and why. (My birth story – although it is an epic – is here in case you’re interested).

The main new pieces of information she gave me were as follows. Basically, re the failure to progress, I was stuck at 4cm for the best part of at least 6 hours. We went into hospital at around midnight, I was 3cm dilated. By the time I had my c-section, which was 11am the next day, I was still only 4cm. I can’t help but think the lack of mobility (because of the monitoring and the epidural) won’t have helped that, but to be fair, they can’t be the only reason.

When we went into hospital, at 3cm dilated, the monitor was showing the baby was already a little distressed – her heartrate was dipping with each contraction, but then recovering again. This could have been due to many reasons – even something as daft as her squeezing the cord with each contraction. Because they did not know why, they let me continue in the hope that I would progress quickly before the distress got any more pronounced. Unfortunately, the opposite happened, and the distress worsened at a much quicker pace than the dilation progressed. Therefore, a section was inevitable. And I suppose when the registrar was overenthusiastically breaking my waters very early on without warning me what he was going to go, and when they were hooking me up the drip to speed up my contractions, they were trying to get me to deliver before the distress got worse. Again, this is something I have never had explained to me, and makes me feel a little happier about what happened when and why.

The Supervisor of Midwives put forward a theory – which I’m not quite sure I accept to be honest – that perhaps my pelvis was too small and therefore the baby was never gonna come out naturally. She said there was swelling on the baby’s head, so she had obviously been pressing down on my cervix very hard, but it wasn’t opening enough to let her through. This again was news to us, as we were told at the time that the blood tests taken from the baby’s head at the time had come back “fine”. The first registrar I saw in this pregnancy – who had also read my notes – had suggested that this failture to progress might have been because Lilly’s head was turned slightly in the wrong direction, therefore she wasn’t pressing directly on my cervix and therefore it wasn’t dilating as it should have been. In my totally uneducated opinion, this sounds a more plausable option. I don’t think my pelvis should be particularly small – in fact, I’ll feel very ripped off if I have some kind of unnaturally small pelvis – if I did I’d expect to be a size 6 or something, but I can assure you I am anything but! Also, I kind of think that surely you’d only know if your pelvis was too small if you had dilated to 10cms but then the baby got stuck?!

I asked about how much mobility I can have with the continuous monitoring. She said I can sit on a ball, on a chair, on a stool etc, or sit upright in bed. I don’t have to be lying down. But she said I will have to make some kind of agreement as to how much, and how often, I am monitored with my consultant, who I’m yet to see.

Apparently my consultant – she is a woman (which I am pleased about) and she herself has just returned from maternity leave (which I am also pleased about – she has had a baby herself!) which is why I haven’t seen her in person yet. The Supervisor of Midwives said she is “pro-vbac” so we’ll wait to see what she says. I have another appointment on the 8th of June, and the midwife said she’d make sure I see my actual consultant, and that she’ll also try to come to the appointment as well, now that she knows my case.

The Supervisor of Midwives was positive, but she was also cautious. She really was telling me that my last c-section did happen for a reason, it was unavoidable. Yes, there were things that they could have done better, like communication with us to help us understand what was happening and why. But the outcome was probably pretty inevitable. In a way though, that helps me to come to terms with it and understand it. For a long time after Lilly was born I just couldn’t accept what had happened and why. I felt like it was all unneccessary and needn’t have happened that way. Now, after speaking to people about what actually happened, and why, and weirdly enough, watching One Born Every Minute (a scarily real-life documentary about life on a normal labour ward) I’ve come to realise that these things happen, they’re unavoidable and they happen for a reason. I feel a lot less strongly about the way Lilly was born. I’ve accepted it. I hope this one will be different, but if it isn’t, it isn’t.

One thing which came out of it was this. If I walk into the hospital in labour this time, and i’m put on that monitor, and it shows the same problem trace with the heart rate dipping with each contraction, the wisest option is to ask for a section there and then.

But I still believe that no two labours are the same, and I live in hope that this one might be a bit more straightforward and that maybe I can still achieve the vbac I really want. If I can’t do it this time, I’ll never do it.

Oh, and in other news – baby has turned! I saw the midwife at 36 weeks and she confirmed it. Great relief!

I am now stepping up the raspberry leaf tea and hoping that baby is gearing up for a successful entrance into the world!

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35+1 – Last day at work

Well, I finished work today to start my maternity leave!

I’ve had a really lovely day, with lots of kind things said and lots of lovely presents, not only for me and the baby but also some presents for Lilly too!

It feels really great to finish. Work itself hasn’t really been so bad, it’s the getting up in the morning and getting ready, driving to and from work and then coming in after a full day, exhausted and having to look after Lilly for a few hours before bed. I must also say that I am feeling VERY “pregnant”. I can remember last time feeling like everything was loosening up and I was starting to feel a bit like my hips and everything were slightly wibbly. I think that was only in the last few weeks, but i’ve already been feeling like that for a couple of weeks this time. I’m also getting lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing that resembles “real” contractions. I feel much bigger and more cumbersome than I ever remember feeling with Lilly – I really feel like I’m dragging myself around a bit!

I’ve done some bouncing on my ball, and now I’m just hoping baby has turned and is no longer breech. If she has, I’m not aware of it, and I don’t know how I would tell. I couldn’t get to sleep straight away last night, and baby was moving lots, and I was trying to feel whether I could make out a hand or a head at the bottom of the bump… it was inconclusive! I really hope she has moved!

I have an appointment with the supervisor of midwives now – on Tuesday. I’ve written up my new VBAC birth plan (as I want it to be) and I’m going to take that along. Continous monitoring and mobility being the main issues. So I’ll see what we can agree on.

As far as Lilly goes, we have come to a sad conclusion this week: it is the end of the nap. Her sleeping has been up the wall for a few months now, and only in the last week have we enjoyed a few nights of continous sleeping. And only when she hadn’t had a daytime nap. Yesterday, she had an hour’s nap in nursery and hardly slept a wink last night. That sealed the deal! No sleep today, so lets see how well we do tonight… fingers crossed.

It’s a shame becuase I was really hoping she’d still be napping while I was on mat leave. But it wasn’t to be. RIP daytime naps, you will be missed!

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34 weeks pregnant

Well, 34 weeks pregnant today and only a week until I finish work.

I had my midwife appointment today and all was fine – baby is still breech though so I need to get bouncing on my birthing ball, or, as midwife suggests: “going on all fours with your bum in the air”!! I go back at 36 weeks, and if little Madame is still breech I’ll be referred for a scan at Warrington. Hopefully she can “turn it around” before then, anyway.

I’m also thinking about starting on the raspberry leaf tea. Last time I didn’t start drinking it until about a week overdue – then I decided to guzzle it by the gallon load. Don’t know if it helped or not, but labour did start two days later. I’ve read a study which says that if you have one cup a day from 32 weeks it makes the second stage of labour shorter, which can surely be no bad thing. I wasn’t brave enough to try it as early as that, but now I’m 34 weeks I think I might give it a go.

I’ve also made the call to the hospital about seeing a Supervisor of Midwives re my VBAC plans. I spoke to somebody on the labour ward just now, and get the impression that, unless I’m a bit pushy, I might get fobbed off a bit. Being pushy isn’t really in my nature so I need to pull it out of myself a bit, I think.

In order to arm myself with everything I want to know, everything I want so say and what I want them to help me with, I’ve just been looking over my VBAC research, my draft birth plan and also re-reading Lilly’s birth story to work out what it is I do and don’t want this time.

(In a nutshell – last time there was an awful lot of intervention – waters broken without warning, blood taken from baby’s head, numerous attempts to put monitors on baby’s head, continuous monitoring and not much mobility because of suspected fetal distress, failure to progress, need to have c-section, failed epidural, general anaesthetic. Phew)

So, in order to get my head straight for when and if I finally get to talk to somebody who will help me agree a birth plan that I’m comfortable with, one which might actually lead me to have as good a chance as any to achieve a VBAC, here are the outpourings of my mind…

Things I did not like about last time:

•  Continous monitoring meaning I wasn’t very mobile, leading to failure to progress (which is what they are helpfully proposing for this time too)
• Waters being broken early, and with no warning that they were going to be broken (scary, unpleasant, no need)
• Gas & air not helping – perhaps I wasn’t doing it right? (Please god let it help this time!)
• Monitor being put on baby’s head – three failed attempts!! (painful, awful)
• All the checks for fetal distress (water’s clear, blood test from baby) came back clear, yet fetal distress was still assumed from the off. Why?
• Having an epidural put in – didn’t like the big needle – grumpy anaesthetist didn’t help – and he carried on even though I was having a contraction – which made me cry – and might have been one of the reasons why the epidural eventually failed
• Side effects of epidural – shivering, being sick. Will this happen again? What is the alternative, pain relief wise? Pethedine?
• Epidural not being able to be topped up when it came to c-section – leading to general anaesthetic instead. What are the alternatives? Spinal block?
• Being told that, once bloods have been taken from the baby’s head to check for distress, this has to be done every half an hour? (felt like a threat to make me agree to a section)

As a result of all the above, my birth plan so far reads as follows:

Birth plan for Baby No.2

•  My last labour resulted in an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic – something I am very keen to avoid this time.

 

•  I want to be kept informed of what is happening at every stage, and why it is happening

 

• I understand that labour is unpredictable but I would like as little intervention as possible in order to allow my labour to progress naturally. My aim is to achieve a VBAC and to avoid an emergency caesarean.

 

• If possible, I would like to wait until at least 7cm dilated before my waters are broken. If it is thought necessary for my waters to be broken, I want to be told about this IN ADVANCE and be told the reasons for it.

 

• I am open minded about having an epidural, if possible I want to wait until after 5cms dilation so as not to increase the risk of an emergency c-section

 

• I understand that fetal monitoring will need to be carried out, but I wish to remain as mobile as possible throughout labour, so would like this monitoring to be done intermittently, not continuously. I would like to avoid having a monitor attached to the baby’s head unless this is deemed a necessity for medial reasons.

 

I feel a bit like this birth plan is all negatives – basically DON’T ANYBODY TOUCH ME!!! LEAVE ME ALONE AND I’LL HAVE THIS BABY IF YOU DON’T MIND!!! But that’s the way I feel, a little bit.

My last birth plan reads like a fantasists list to Santa. The only things on there that happened was my request for Lilly to be given vitamin K by mouth (which was hospital policy anyway) and for Tony to be given the baby in the event of my needing a section under general anaesthetic. Whoop de Whoop.

Anyway, all this could be scuppered if Little Miss stays breech. And I know Tony is secretly hoping she does, because he thinks a planned section would be easier and less stressful. He does support me but I know he can’t really understand why I want to put myself through childbirth when I don’t really “have” to.

It feels good to write it all down. I just hope I can be as clear about what I want when this Supervisor of Midwives person calls me back. I don’t really want to be fighting these battles on the day I’m in labour.

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30 weeks pregnant – lovely midwife appointment

Well, went for my midwife appointment today at the doctor’s surgery – I’m 30 weeks today.

All was fine with the routine stuff – midwife did say that I am measuring 32cms (it should be 30) but I’m not worried about that – how scientific can a tape measure on the bump be, anyway?

I also asked her for her opinion on my VBAC plans and the consultant saying constant monitoring meant I couldn’t be mobile. (The midwives I see at the doctor’s aren’t actually from Warrington Hospital, where I am having this baby, they’re from Wigan, so they can’t tell me what Warrington’s policies etc are, but I just wanted a second opinion on what I do next.)

She was really helpful. She said, as I suspected, that I don’t neccessarily need constant monitoring. She said, with regular monitoring with a dopler I should be able to roam around freely, perhaps laying / sitting on the bed for 20 minutes every two hours to do a trace. She said that anyway, even if I had constant monitoring and was hooked up to the monitor, I would still be able to be fairly mobile – sit on a birth ball or chair, stand up or even walk around a little. She said she totally agreed that being mobile was my best chance of avoiding another failure to progress situation and achieving my VBAC.

Having had some great advice online to contact the Supervisor of Midwives at the hospital to ask to discuss their VBAC policy and get their help and agreement writing a birth plan, I asked this midwife if she thought that was my best course of action – she said it was. So I feel much better about everything, and will definitely do that… am going to get my thoughts down on a rough birth plan then take those ideas to the midwife to discuss them.

Now I am feeling more confident and perhaps even strong enough to insist on intermittent monitoring, as this midwife suggests. That’s what I originally wanted, but then I felt a bit worn down to accept constant monitoring as long as I could be relatively mobile.

The appointment today has given me just the lift I needed and I feel like I’m back on the right track again… hooray!

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