Thursday, April 12, 2018

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!

3 Comments:

At April 12, 2018 6:46 am , Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is beautifully written Harriett! Thank you for sharing your story xxx

 
At April 12, 2018 6:50 am , Anonymous Emily Ansell said...

The above comment is mel, BTW! Didn't realise it didn't publish my name :-)

 
At April 12, 2018 4:24 pm , Blogger MissHarwood said...

Thank you Emily! Xx

 

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