Pregnancy #2 – 41+3 weeks (The birth)

This morning (Sunday 14th June) at around 9am, as I was running myself a relaxing bath, I felt a trickling sensation in my knickers. There wasn’t much water there, but I knew it must be my waters beginning to break. I went through to tell Tom and my mum and straight away burst into tears – I guess the enormity of what was about to happen hit me in that instant. After composing myself, I called the hospital and was told to pop a pad in my knickers and call back in about an hour. I had a quick dip in the bath and got myself prepared for setting off. 

After calling the hospital back at about half ten, Tom and I jumped in a cab to the hospital. I half expected them to send us back home again as I wasn’t contracting, but when the midwife checked my pad she said that the baby had done a poo – there was a brownish discharge – and that we wouldn’t be going anywhere. 

I was straight away strapped to a monitor in triage, before very quickly being moved into a labour room. There I was given an internal examination, a sweep and had the rest of my waters broken. We then waited patiently for my contractions to start, which they did but very mildly and far apart. This continued for several hours, so the doctors and midwives decided I would need to go on a hormone drip to get things moving. Because there was merconium in my waters, they wanted baby out sooner rather than later. 

I was offered an epidural before I was put on the drip as I was told my contractions would most likely come on quickly and painfully. This delayed things by an hour or two as the aneathetist was tied up in theatre. I found having the epidural quite uncomfortable, especially when it caught my nerve endings, however the relief it gave me through the rest of my labour was totally worth it. I had to have the epidural re-done when it came to top up time, because the tube had become kinked inside where they couldn’t get to. Thankfully the first lot hadn’t worn off completely by the time the new one took effect. It made my body get the shakes which was quite a strange feeling. 

At around 11pm the midwife examined me and at that point I was still only 4cm dilated, so not too much progression, but definitely heading in the right direction. Soon after that though the midwifes – coincidently both called Susan – became concerned that baby was getting distressed so they stopped the drip to slow down contractions and got me to change positions which seemed to help a bit. Shortly after midnight I was examined again and told I was fully dilated! No one could believe how much things had progressed in just one hour. They still said they’d leave it another hour before I began pushing as the baby needed to move down a bit. However, after getting some immense pressure in my bottom during contractions, and also because baby was still distressed, I started pushing at quarter to one. Less than 15 minutes later, Polly Patrice entered the world. It was so quick and even though I had the epidural I could still feel her being born. She was totally tangled up in her cord – the reason for her distress – but this was very quickly sorted out and all was well. The whole labour process – albeit a bit longer than I’d hoped – was totally pain free, which was amazing and so different to my birth experience with Tabitha. I tore very slightly inside, so had to have some stitches.

Because of the merconium situation, we’d already been told that Polly would need to be monitored for 12 hours after birth. So we knew we’d be in the post natal ward until at least 1pm. As it happened we weren’t moved from the labour room until after 6am, so we got a little bit of rest there before being moved to another private room for the rest of our stay. We were discharged shortly before 1pm after Polly had had all of her observations and checks.

The birth

It’s been a whole week already since my life changed forever and our little girl Tabitha Peach came into the world. It’s all been a bit of a blur ever since to be honest but it started last Saturday afternoon when I had a pessary inserted to kick start labour. Nothing much happened that day really – we watched a couple of films on the hospital’s pay TV and popped over to Carluccio’s for a ‘last supper’. Later in the evening the hospital monitor registered some regular, fairly strong contractions, but I couldn’t feel anything. I remember thinking I must be one of the lucky ones who can tolerate them – how wrong was I! After a noisy, sleepless night on the pre-labour ward, my contractions started properly in the early hours. They got progressively stronger throughout the morning and by the time it got to around midday, I was demanding gas and air. At this point I tried my TENS machine, but didn’t get on with it at all. The midwife waited until a full 24 hours was up before removing the pessary (at around 1.30pm) and said that we’d wait to see if my waters broke naturally. However, after throwing up everything that was inside me as a result of the gas and air, I was taken through to the labour ward, had my waters broken and got a shot of pethidine. I then went from 3cm dilated to fully dilated very quickly and started pushing. The pethidine had worn off by then, so I was surviving on gas and air alone, which I found rather unbearably painful and exhausting. After over an hour of pushing, the midwife called the doctors in to assess the baby’s position and they realised the baby was back-to-back and in distress. They made the decision to take me through to theatre and give me a spinal so they could get the baby out quickly using forceps. I was so close to having an emergency C-section, but thankfully it wasn’t needed. Tabitha was dragged (literally) into the world at 19:46 on Sunday 14th April weighing a healthy 7 lb 14 oz. I had to have an episiotomy and get stitched up, but at that point I was just happy to be pain free, and for it all to be over. We spent the next couple of hours in the post-theatre ward where I breast fed Tabitha for the first time, and by 3pm the following day, we were discharged and on the way home to start family life as a three. She was so placid that first day and I truly thought we’d been blessed with a calm baby, however on hindsight I think the reality is that little Tabitha had a bit of a pethidine-induced lull and has now most definitely found her voice. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sleep deprivation, feeding, nappy changes, visits from family, visits from the midwife, and just generally getting to grips with having a tiny new person to care for. On Friday when the midwife came to visit, she checked the stitches from my episiotomy and realised that the wound was gaping and had become infected. So off to the hospital we all went, and after waiting around for hours, I was prescribed a course of antibiotics. It’s hard to move around quickly and is painful when I sit down and stand up, but with a newborn to care for, you just have to get on with it. And to think I was hoping to feel a bit more body-normal after finally giving birth! To say this week’s been easy would be a lie, but we’re slowly getting more used to it and have been rewarded with such a perfect package that it makes the bad moments more bearable. And when she is having a placid moment her cuteness just breaks my heart!