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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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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Had my first consultant appointment today

It went quite well. A lot better than it did in my dream last night, in which I went for my appointment, ended up running away from the consultant in tears and begging for a midwife lead delivery!

The doctor I saw (didn’t catch his name, think he is a registrar) seemed really nice. I hope he’s there on the day, he seemed quite jovial and reasonable.

He started off by saying he had reviewed my notes, and said there was no reason why I couldn’t go for a VBAC this time. He said he thought it sounded like with Lilly’s birth, she maybe had her head turned slightly to one side, so was not pressing as hard as she could have been on my cervix, which explains the failure to progress more quickly. He said there was no reason why this should happen a second time. I must admit, this is the first time i’ve heard this explanation, so i’ve no idea how he’s come to it, or whether its right, but I suppose it explains things. Perhaps this would also have given the impression of a distressed baby? I’m not sure, i’ll have to research that one…

I asked about fetal monitoring – this is really my main concern, as I think it was at the heart of lots of the things which went wrong last time. I asked whether I could have intermittent monitoring to allow me to be more mobile during labour. He said that, because of the risk of uterine scar rupture I will have to have continuous monitoring. However, he said that the hopsital are hoping to get wireless monitors, possibly by June, which would just stick onto my tummy and allow me to move around and stay active… that would be brilliant! I told him I really, really don’t want a monitor on the baby’s head unless it’s neccessary – last time the registrar tried FOUR times to put a monitor on her head, only to discover each time that the probe thingie didn’t work…. grrrrrrrrrrr. He was noncommittal about this, but i’d like to see them come near me on the day with that suggestion! Anyway, he then conceeded that perhaps I could be allowed to get to 5-6cm with intermittent monitoring before being hooked up (although hopefully wirelessly) for continuous monitoring in the later stages. That seems like a fair compromise, I’m going to hang on to that one for future reference I think!

I also asked about induction. Lilly was 10 days overdue and we seem to have history of overdue babies in our family, so it’s something I’m bracing myself for again. He said they would prefer me to go into labour naturally (me too!) and said they’d let me go “15 to 20 days” overdue… I was a bit shocked to hear that, as I thought they’d say 14 days then book in for an elective section. I can’t really believe that’s right, but anyway, it was good that there was no talk of elective sections at this stage.

He then tried to listen to the baby’s heartbeat – made a bit of a pig’s ear of it and couldn’t find it for ages. I wasn’t worried though, as I could feel the baby moving, and i’ve felt lots of movements over the past few days so I know he or she is in there, alive and kicking! He said he’d do an ultrasound instead – brilliant news, chance to see bubba again - but they had to send for it from the labour ward, and in the time it took to get it, he had found the heartbeat anyway. But never mind, the heartbeat sounded nice and strong, and he said all was fine.

The final thing I said to him is that I didn’t want lots of interventions this time, as last time they had been painful and contributed to an overall pretty horrible experience. He said: “We want to give you a much nicer time this time”, which has given me a bit of reassurance – just hope he’s right.

So, all went quite well. At least, until I got in the car to drive home and the stupid thing died on me in the middle lane of a busy three-lane carriageway. No hazard lights, no nothing. Got out and called the police, roadside assitance, father in law etc etc to rescue me, then tried really hard not to cry (not easy with all these hormones). It was amazing to see the amount of people (all men) who felt the need to shout obscenities at me from the comfort of their cars. Helpful comments including: “Put your hazards on, stupid b***” (yes, if I could do that, don’t you think I would?!) and, brilliantly “You’re a s*** driver” – I’m not actually trying to drive at the moment, mate, i’m standing on the side of the road freezing to death! And, for the record, I did not break down on purpose!!

Anyway, a nice policeman came and rescued me (as soon as he arrived i burst into tears!) and rolled the car out of the road. Then, a little while later father in law came and rescued me, got the car going again and we drove home.

But oh! How it restores your faith in human kind……. season of goodwill anyone?!?!?

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