Dear Diary: Labour
My due date: Sunday 8th April 2018
Friday 6th April 2018
Dear Diary,
Wow. My daughter was born today! And what a whirlwind it was!...
I woke up at 1am with the normal period pains: tummy and back ache. I tried to just sleep through it but I was quite uncomfortable so took a paracetamol. I must've disturbed Dave as he woke up to me sitting on the end of the bed. I then went to the loo and had diarrhoea, at that point Dave and I thought 'okay...maybe this is the start of labour!'
I decided to get in the bath as this has always helped me with period pain. After maybe 10 minutes I could feel these waves coming over me that I felt I should be breathing through using the breathing techniques we'd learnt at NCT. Dave asked me to time them, but I couldn't breathe and count!!!
A short while later I got out the bath and we started using a contraction timer app. This was recommended as they say you shouldn't head to hospital until your contractions becoming more frequent and closer together,
I got myself comfy on the bed, put the TENS machine on to my back and put Lee Evans on YouTube to keep my mind off the waves, we carried on like this for some time. I'm not sure about timings for the rest of the morning! I was a bit busy concentrating on the waves of the contractions.
My contractions were all over the show! They had no pattern and no rhyme or reason! Dave phoned the Triage line to let them know labour had started and everything is a bit blurry from here for me. I know at one point I felt I needed to start pushing, so Dave phoned Triage again but no-one was available at the time to talk to so they said they'd phone back. After 30 minutes no-one had, so he phoned again. They told us to make our way to the hospital.
It was around 5am by now and the waves were coming quite thick and fast. During each wave, I just had to be on all fours on the floor and try to breathe through them...this made getting our stuff together and getting physically in the car a great challenge!! This led me to end up being on all fours on our driveway at 5 in the morning, trying not to scream too loudly for the sake of the neighbours!!!!!!! Dave has since told me he was just praying he wouldn't have to deliver our baby on the cold, dirty driveway!!
I managed to open the car door, but there was no way I was getting in and sitting on the seat like a normal person...so I ended up on all fours (again) across the back seats! I still felt I needed to push, so Dave phoned Triage again. They told us to get to the hospital if possible but if I really can't help but push, to pull over and phone 999. We were about 3/4 of the way there and I felt such a strong urge to push, we pulled over. Dave phoned 999 and an ambulance was on its way. Unfortunately, we'd pulled over outside a row of houses, and at 5AM, my screaming was the only sound around! Dave was told to look to see if he could see the head at this point, but luckily he couldn't. (Bless him, he had to time looking with when the waves came, to make sure the door was shut to contain my screaming!! I can only apologise to the home owners of that road!!!!)
At this point Dave noticed I'd had the show, which wasn't pleasant!
The ambulance arrived and reluctantly I was moved into the back of it - again, on all fours!! Dave followed behind in our car, and the paramedics explained they'd pull over if the baby was coming. Again, Dave got praying the baby didn't come at this point!Whilst in the ambulance I remember thinking this is too painful, I'm not having children again!
In the ambulance they gave me Gas and Air. Oh hello friend!!! Having not had alcohol during the pregnancy, the feeling the Gas and Air gave me was bliss! Obviously I could still feel the waves, but it felt much more manageable in between.
Good news - we made it to the hospital! They wheeled me into the delivery room and the midwife, Lesley, instantly told me to lie down on the bed. This went against everything we'd learnt in NCT and having been on all fours for the last few hours, this was really the last thing I wanted to do. Unfortunately Lesley said she needed to examine me so I had no choice really. I managed to lie down and carried on managing through the waves.
At this point, Dave had lost me - the paramedics had wheeled me through the hospital too quickly whilst Dave parked the car. He could hear me screaming through the corridors once he got closer to the unit and eventually found me.
Once I was examined and Dave was with me, things felt much calmer and I asked if I could get off the bed and walk around as I wanted to keep 'UFO' (Upright, Forward and Open, as we'd learnt.) Lesley said of course, and then said I could get in the pool if I wanted. I was so happy as this was exactly what we'd wanted for the birth! I had no idea how many cm dilated I was, I was just happy to be there finally, know I was in safe hands and had Dave by my side. Apparently Lesley told us my waters hadn't broken yet which was great - but I don't remember this conversation! As soon as she mentioned about getting in the pool, I whipped my clothes off and almost ran in!! I didn't realise, but Dave said he had to whip the TENS machine off me at this point as I was so eager! Oh it's so great having an amazing birthing partner to look after the common sense stuff when you can only concentrate on one thing!!!!
The birthing pool was amazing and I cannot recommend it enough! It helped with the pain and was so relaxing. At this point Dave ('The Oxytocin Guardian' as birthing partners were named in NCT) did an amazing job of getting the right atmosphere. The room was already lightly lit, Dave put my labour playlist on and gave me some snacks and drink as it'd been a while since I'd last eaten. He then held my hand through every wave and encouraged me.
Next thing I remember Lesley telling me that when I felt a wave, I needed to stop using my energy on screaming and instead push as if I was about the do the biggest poo of my life. This is the only way to describe it. This was hard and there were moments where it felt easier to just scream. This was really hard to do and there was one moment where I felt I just couldn't do it anymore. I cried out that I couldn't do it, but Dave and Lesley gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going.
I remember 2 mains things happening next. One was the feeling of the baby moving, something down below stretching but then the baby moving back up. (This is very normal and helps you stretch without tearing). The second, Lesley told me to have a feel down below, which I did. Something felt soft and squidgy - this was Bubba's head! Now I was determined! After what felt like only a couple of times, there was a slight release after one push and Lesley explained that the head was out! Now this felt incredibly strange and I was very unsure as I could feel the baby moving it's head around. Lesley told me that if I leaned back, I could deliver the baby myself. This I so wanted to do but just didn't feel I could do it at that angle, so she suggested I slightly stand up in the pool and do one last push with the next wave. This was the best moment of my life. I delivered my baby and Lesley put her on my chest. Dave came and hugged me from behind and we looked at our baby. Wow. I was elated, crying, excited, happy, proud and all the good feels! I immediately knew I would do this all again. Our baby was born at 6:54am.
We then looked to see if it was a boy or girl. I got confused when I saw the umbilical cord and thought it was a boy, but Dave helped me see it was actually a girl. We had a baby girl! She was just so little and perfect. I immediately felt a wave of love for her and how precious she was.
After a short while, we got out of the birthing pool and laid back on the bed for skin to skin cuddles and just to relax. This was the best thing in the world. I could've stayed like that for ever. Dave got to have skin to skin cuddles with her too and this was just so amazing to see. The look on his face was one of intense proud-ness. What a pleasure that look was to see!
Then came the part of the delivery of the placenta. I'd originally wanted this to be a natural thing and in my birth plan I'd written for it to be done without the injection, but after a couple of tries of pushing (which I hadn't really thought I'd need to be doing more pushing!!!!!) I said just gimme the injection and lets get it over and done with!
Lesley then had to check to see how I'd done down below (if I'd teared - which I didn't realise they check your vagina AND bum hole by pocking and prodding!!!! No-one prepared me for that - so you are welcome!). It actually wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound, she was very lovely and did it very quickly. I was just a bit grumpy that I'd already pushed my baby girl out my vagina and was now having someone down that end looking around!
We were then left to have some time as a new family to just chill out and take each other in. Best couple of hours of my life! Those are memories that I will never ever ever ever forget!
I was very keen to see the placenta - I love weird stuff like that. (Emergency A&E programmes are my favourite!) Unfortunately we'd left my glasses in the car and so Dave had to take pictures which I looked at later, don't worry - I won't post pictures!
Labour was the hardest thing I'd ever done. And there were moments I doubted myself, but Dave helped me and encouraged me so much and the excitement of meeting my baby was more than enough to get me through it. I will definitely be doing it again - just maybe not for a while! Getting to know our daughter, recovering and becoming a family unit is my next priority and I cannot wait!!
Isabella Grace, we love you so much. Thank you for coming to into our world and being just amazing!
My review of being pregnant
First thing I'm going to say, is that this is my experience. The biggest thing I have learnt during the pregnancy journey, is that everyone's experience and opinion is completely different. Your parents will have different advice to your partner's parents. Your pregnant friends will have different advice to your other pregnant friends. Even the midwives will all have different opinions and advice. So this blog is not to give pregnant people advice. This blog is to give those might be pregnant one day or are currently pregnant a view into my world. How its been for me for the last 9 months.
I decided to write this blog, as I heard all the normal things from the media, older friends or relatives, but there was still so much I didn't know! I'm not going to share all the gory details (although there may be some embarrassing ones - so brace yourself!), but I just want to give more of an idea of what pregnancy can be like!
First Trimester - Weeks 1 - 12
This trimester is a strange one, as you don't look pregnant, but you feel like crap and you don't really tell anyone your pregnant!
We'd be trying to get pregnant for a few months, and took that ultimate pregnancy test around the 3 weeks mark that told us we were! We immediately made a doctors appointment - as who else do you tell first?! I assumed they were the people to go to. So we had the doctors appointment, but to my surprise - there was no pregnancy test involved! The Doctor just gave me a phone number for the unit at the hospital to self-refer myself! So I phoned the number and left a message. This left me feeling very underwhelmed, but I got on with my day as I'm sure they're busy people!
I received a phone call back from a lady, who took all my information down, and said they would send me a date in the post for our first scan. They calculated the due date from the start of the last period, but due to my periods being irregular originally, when they did the workings (see - embarrassing) they dated the baby as being due around 11th March 2018 and that I would be about 7 weeks pregnant. I knew that they were wrong with my due date - but I let them carry on, as we actually got an early scan!! Our first scan - which was VERY exciting - showed we were actually only 9 weeks pregnant, not the normal 12. So they re-booked us in for a 12 week scan. Bonus! Until you've had your 12 week scan and then start your midwife appointments, all there is to do is sit around feeling nauseous! Due to feeling so nauseous and working in the food industry, we decided to tell me work at 9 weeks. I did have some actual sickness, so it was a good move. We desperately wanted to tell our family before my work about the pregnancy, so made this a priority. Everyone's reaction was brilliant, but my favourite was my work colleagues. I decided to slide it into a morning meeting I was holding with them all. So I gave the normal notices about which staff members were off for the week, what orders were being dispatched that day, and then nonchalantly added I was pregnant. I wished I'd filmed it as there was cheering, a massive group hug - and even some tears!!! It felt amazing to be so supported and have so much excitement!
A few other things I found in my first trimester were:
1. Feeling gross. I couldn't wear any tight clothes as I just felt bloated. So made sure I got myself some comfy harem trousers and instantly bought maternity leggings. Yes I didn't have any kind of bump, but it was so good to be in those comfy trousers, I don't regret it one bit!
2. Food was a nightmare. My husband was so lovely and patient with me, but I was a nightmare with food. I had no idea what I'd want to eat for dinner the next day, so we'd end up walking around the local supermarket each evening trying to figure out what wouldn't make me nauseous! This often took up a lot of our evenings and then a lot of our food budget! Woops!
3. We had the 12 week scan - everything was good and they updated our due date to 8th April 2018...3 weeks later than originally dated.
Second Trimester - Weeks 13 - 26This was such a nice trimester! We'd started telling all people now we'd reached the 12 week mark and had the scan. Talking of the scan - Eek. The Sonogram lady told us there was a baby in there - and we saw it move on the screen, but the print outs she'd given us - I really couldn't see where the baby was! My husband had to point it out a couple of times until I'd finally registered it! Woops.
The nausea was definitely gone at this point and my body was concentrating on growing that little Bubba! I still felt podgey, but was going to start enjoying the excuse of eating what I wanted now that I could!
This trimester is also fun as I started buying maternity clothes. I'm not great at high street shopping, I just can't stand the prices - so it was amazing to find all the different maternity clothes swap groups on Facebook and find maternity bundles for sales on Gumtree. There was one particular time I managed to get a whole cardboard box of maternity clothes absolutely free. The lady just told me to take out what I wanted and then put it back on Gumtree for someone else to come and grab. What an amazing idea! I can't stand the thought of spending £20 on a tshirt, so this ticked so many boxes for me!
At the very start of this trimester, I wanted to find out as much information as I could about the impending labour. A friend lent me her copy of The Positive Birthing Book. I cannot recommend this book enough, so
here is the link to it on Amazon. Seriously. Go and buy it. I learnt so much. I could just do a whole blog post on the contents on this book - but I won't. (Oh, and I don't particularly plan on restarting blogging again, I just wanted to share my pregnancy journey.) This book lays out all your options as a pregnant lady, from pain relief to babies first injections. And it's doesn't scare you! It's all about having a positive birth. It doesn't have to be like it is on Casualty! You can be in control, in the zone and not need all the drugs. This book was just great. I learnt so much and am so grateful to my friend for lending it to me.
The midwife recommended some NHS free courses we book on to, so we did. Everyone loves free stuff! The first course gave us a great overview of labour, pain relief and how the birthing partner can help. The second one gave me a great understanding for breastfeeding and the benefits of that. We also paid to do the NCT course, which went into more depth of both those topics. We also have an AMAZING network around us of support from young families in our church. There are about 13 other ladies around my age who have had babies from 2 years ago up until 2 months ago, so it's been such a blessing having their advice and help when we've needed it. A number of these ladies also strongly recommended we attended a Hypnobirthing course - sadly it cost the same price as the NCT course and we didn't feel we could afford it, but the ladies lent me their Hypnobirthing books and I've been watching lots of YouTube videos about it. It's so interesting and I don't feel it gets enough attention. These techniques can make labour a more enjoyable, memorable experience - why wouldn't you want to try something that can make it that!
During this trimester, they give you blood tests to check your rhesus status. Most people are rhesus positive, but if you're rhesus negative - like me! - there is a risk of my blood attacking the babies' blood if it gets into my blood stream. Now this sounds scary, but they can actually look after it by some (not so nice) injections. I've had a couple of these nasties, but as long as the baby is okay then it's all good!
*Embarrassing part alert* A rather crappy symptom of this trimester is you start to leak more down there...if you know what I mean. I've just learnt to only wear good pairs of pants, and always have spare panty liners with me! (A little tip for you there!)
At 15 weeks, we heard the heartbeat for the first time. It sounded like a weird whoosing sound, but the midwife very kindly pointed out exactly which bit was the heartbeat. Our baby had a heartbeat - yes! Everything was going well!
Also in this trimester is the 20 week scan. WHAT A SCAN!!!!!!! (Its also the last scan they give you, so long as everything is going smoothly. We didn't find this out until after we had the scan. It was just crazy to us that the last scan would be halfway through the pregnancy - but it makes sense as the baby is just too big!) Anyway, back to the scan. The baby had grown 8 weeks worth by this time and it showed! The sonogram lady could show us every limb and organ! It was amazing. We saw the different chambers of the heart, the little toes, lungs. Oh so precious. We'd decided before the scan to not find out the sex of the baby - so at one point she told us to turn away so she could check everything was okay with that side of things. We left the room on a high to have been able to experience so much of our baby already, but with a somewhat not great scan picture (again!) as the baby was too comfy and laid back in my pelvis. A strange thing was to think that one stranger knew whether we were having a boy or girl, but no-one else does! It's the best kept secret EVER...and I LOVE secrets!!!
It was around 25 weeks we felt the baby first move. It's such a strange feeling. There is something inside my tummy. It's not something I'd ever felt before...and I just couldn't describe it, apart from that it just feels like someone kicking you from the inside! Sorry I can't make it more exciting than that for your imagination, but it was ruddy exciting for us! I began to tell my husband every time it would kick so he could try and feel it and start bonding with it.
My Granny gave me great advice to walk lots during the pregnancy. She used to walk miles each day when she was pregnant and it kept her in great shape and helped with the labour. This always stuck in my mind, so I purposely tried to walk everywhere I could from the word go.
Third Trimester - weeks 27 - 40
I have also loved this trimester. I'd heard a lot about ladies feeling very big, heavy, achey, back pain, swollen feet etc. But I decided I'd just take one thing at a time and see what I experienced.
My worse symptoms for this trimester have been tiredness, gas (sorry hubby!!), struggling to sit in a car, slightly swollen feet and hands, needing the toilet every hour and most recently not being able to eat much at meal times.
Here's how I've handled each one:
Tiredness - naps! I finished working quite late - I finished at 37 weeks + 2 days. (I'd originally planned to work right up until 38 weeks, but during a course we learnt that babies are classed as 'full term' and can come any time from 37 weeks! So we decided it was best I brought my maternity leave forward - plus the commute was horrific for me!) Each day at work after lunch, I'd be desperate for a nap, but would somehow power through. I'd then get home, have dinner and pretty much go to bed straight away. Now that I'm on Maternity Leave, having a nap each day is just doing wonders! During the night I'm waking up every 2 hours for the loo - so as you can imagine, I'm feeling incredibly tired still when waking up. Anyway, another tip: Naps are great!
Gas - at times this was painful. Real painful. I'd been told Peppermint Tea was great for gas, so made sure I had some of that in. It was mostly after meals the gas was worse. Gaviscon was also great - just drinking that from the bottle helped so much! Night time was definitely where the gas was most prominent. But once I had my trusty Gaviscon friend to hand, I'd become a pro at sorting it out straight away. My husband was amazing at this point and when I accidentally lost control of myself and farted when getting up of the sofa (Yes...EMBARRASSING!) he just chuckled to himself whilst still loving me. It's great being married!
Car Journeys - In our NCT course they explained how our sofas and cars are designed really badly for our pelvis' nowadays, and can cause the baby to stay in a sideways position for a long time. This can cause the baby not to 'engage' (get in the head down position') ready for birth. I immediately bought an exercise ball for my desk at work and one for at home to use rather than the sofa. But the car was tricky. A lady recommended I use a pillow to support my back more - which helped at first, but now I'm so close to the end of the pregnancy, it's just painful being in the car let alone driving. So car journeys now are only made when a necessity and I don't do the driving! Again, my incredible husband is really looking after me by doing all the driving...what a keeper!
Swollen hands and feet - This was possibly the saddest symptom so far, as it meant I had to resign to the fact that I couldn't wear my wedding rings anymore! I wasn't going to risk keeping them on and then the doctors having to cut them off! My (did I mention he's lovely?!) lovely husband suggested we buy a chain so I could wear them around my neck for the last couple of months. I loved this idea, and whilst I appreciate the fact he was more than happy to pay £50 for a gold chain, I couldn't bring myself to spending this much for a couple of months! So we went to the local supermarket and bought a necklace for £6 and took the pendant off. I felt much better about this - although now it is starting to discolour, but hey...theres only a few weeks left of being pregnant!! As for my feet, the midwife just suggested elevating my feet up every so often, which seemed to help. Although this definitely brought some conflict whilst trying to keep the pelvis straight!
Toilet breaks - There's nothing I can do about this. I just have to go every hour!!! Luckily at night it's every 2 hours!
Small meals - Oh this was a hard one to learn, and I actually don't think I've still fully learnt it - I just love food too much!!! I'd noticed a few times my tummy feeling fuller quicker than normal, but the time it really hit home was when hubby and me went for our last date night out for dinner before the baby comes. We went to Zizzis and had a voucher. The voucher meant we could really splash out and have 3 full courses! We had a yummy starter (cheese fondue! mmmmm) and ordered a pizza each for main. Normally I only eat about half the pizza consciously, so that I have some leftovers for the next day - but this time, I just kept eating without realising! I was about 3/4 of the way through my pizza when I realised, but thought there was no point stopping there. So I ate the rest...and then proceeded to order a hot chocolate fudge cake with ice cream for pudding. I ate it all. It was all so yummy, and I didn't regret it one bit. Until an hour later lying in bed and it was like my stomach was shoving it all back up telling me I'd eaten too much!!! Luckily I wasn't actually sick, but it was a horrible feeling nonetheless. So now I'm trying to be more sensible with my portions. (It was still a yummy meal out though...I'd probably do it again!!!)
I've also experienced some intense heart beating during this trimester. That's the only way to describe it. I had a previous 'thing' with my heart where I had to have a minor operation so that my heart basically wouldn't beat too fast. Being in my third trimester I've started to experience some intense heart beating randomly which sometimes leaves me a bit breathless. Your heart is already working twice as hard being pregnant and the midwives haven't been too worried about it (plus I couldn't actually get a doctors appointment until AFTER the baby would be born anyway), so I've just been keeping an eye on myself whenever this happens. It seems to be okay and not affecting the baby, but it'll be nice to let my heart go back to normal once the baby is born!
Another strange one is a burnt tongue sensation. I definitely haven't burnt my tongue, but have woken up a few times after naps and nights sleeps with the feeling of a burnt tongue. Very strange, but again...some women experience this!
One thing I've experienced during this trimester the most is weight gain. To date I have put on about 3 stone - and I'm not ashamed of this. I'm growing a human!!!!!! Yes, the child doesn't itself weigh 3 stone. It actually only weighs roughly 7 and a half pounds. But there is so much other stuff the weight gain is from. Here is a breakdown of an average:
Placenta: 1 and a half pounds
Maternal stores of fats, proteins and other nutrients: 7 pounds
Breast tissue: 2 pounds
Increased fluid: 4 pounds
Increased blood: 4 pounds
The Uterus: 2 pounds
Amniotic Fluid: 2 pounds
The baby: 7 and a half pounds
This is a total of 30 pounds! - over 2 stone. And this is an average! I'm above average and I'm okay with it. I've had an amazing pregnancy. I can't really complain, there hasn't really been any complications. I've enjoyed feeling my baby move everyday, I've enjoyed eating what I've wanted whilst keeping active. The sad thing is, some people feel the need to point out my weight gain. Luckily, I haven't been an emotional pregnant lady. I've had my moments (like crying in the local supermarket when not knowing what I wanted to eat!!!), but I know I've been relatively level headed. This has made dealing with these unwanted, unnecessary comments very easy. They've been like water off a ducks back for me. Obviously I can see my face has got chubbier, and my jeans are stretching more around my thighs, and I'm now in a size 14 top rather than 8. But hey...I'M GROWING A HUMAN! Whats your excuse for the weight gain!!!!!!
And lastly, the best part of this trimester - is the smiles you get from everyone when they see your bump. It's made me so proud to be growing a baby! And I do it flipping well! I will definitely be doing it again!
Thank you to my husband for supporting me in so many ways. Bringing me all the Milky Bar Chocolate I could eat, holding my hair whilst being sick, being okay with me having the light on at night when I can't sleep, getting excited over little baby outfits, redesigning the cupboard in the baby room, carrying all the heavy stuff, driving everywhere and so much more. You've been amazing and I really couldn't do this without you. I know me and the baby will be okay as long as we have you and I can't wait to see how you develop into an amazing Dad! We love you!
