How to Give Birth!

So its Friday and you know what that means? Flashback Friday. For this week’s flashback I wanna share with you my birth story…

When I was pregnant with my little love bug I didn’t have the easiest pregnancy. I had to have an emergency scan very early on as I was bleeding and my GP predicted another miscarriage, I went up to the hospital for a scan and there was a dark area on the ultrasound, but there was also a very alive but very tiny little bean! I went for a specialist scan on the Monday morning and the ‘dark area’ was gone. The doctors thought it could have been a blood clot that had been absorbed. I had severe morning sickness throughout the entire pregnancy and ended up in hospital a couple of times, I was on medication throughout. My cheeky little bean was also leaning over to one side a lot and managed to block my right kidney causing cysts to form. I had two ruptured cysts, which were more painful than giving birth, one at 28 weeks and one at 34 weeks. Fast forward to 38 weeks and I had developed Pre-eclampsia so my midwife had to come and see me everyday to take a urine sample and check my blood pressure. Despite all of this I managed to make it to my due date and went into labour naturally on 40+1, the 6th February 2011.

My due date came and we still had to get some final things for the hospital bag, I always leave everything to the very last minute and this was no exception. So I dragged McD around town for hours that day, we must have walked around for about five hours. That evening was the same as every other, we had dinner, I took my final bump picture (not knowing this at the time) and went to bed. I woke up at 2am with severe pains and just knew it was time. I began timing my contractions using an app on my phone and they were about every 15 minutes so I woke McD up. He called the Maternity Assessment Unit (MAU) at our local hospital and they suggested two paracetamols (tylenol) and a hot bath, so this is what I did. I was no stranger to using my bath as pain relief, the last few weeks of pregnancy I pretty much lived in it as my back ached so much, but this time it wasn’t cutting it. I explained this to McD and he helped me out, I needed something to take my mind off the contractions so McD, in typical blokey fashion, suggested jumping on the Xbox and playing a bit of COD. I love COD so I was down with this idea, I somehow managed to achieve my highest score!

At 5am I told McD I had to go in, the contractions were every 5-7 minutes and the pain was getting worse now, I called my mum to let her know it was time and I will never forget her reply! It was “have I got time for a wash?” I’m sure I screamed something at her down the phone! We don’t have a car so I called my Aunty Kerry who very kindly drove us up to the hospital (and provided a towel for me to sit on, just in case).

I arrived at the maternity ward of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire and was greeted with the knowledge that there were no beds available on the consultant birthing suite (that’s where we were headed due to testing positive for Strep B) so therefore I would have to continue my birthing experience in the MAU. The MAU is basically where you call in to and where you go when you need to be monitored for a few hours. Its not the ideal location to be having contractions. I was leaning over the bed and each time a contraction came on I would moan in pain, there was only a curtain separating me from a room of other expectant mothers and their families, I didn’t really care but they did. I remember one woman breaking down into tears and explaining to her partner that there was no way that she could go through that. Oops! I also remember my mum rushing off to the loo and coming back with immaculate hair and a full face of make-up, and McD rustling his bloody cake wrappers. I so could have taken those cake wrappers and shoved them where the sun doesn’t shine.

A midwife came to see me and asked if she could examine me. As we were still in the MAU and it was not very private she took me into one of the private examination rooms with another midwife and inflicted upon me the most horrific pain in the world. When she examined me to see how dilated I was I could have literally died. It was so extremely painful and I would much rather give birth again than have a woman shove her surgically gloved hand up my hoo-hah to find my cervix. No thank you! I was 4cm dilated and off to the consultant birthing suite as a room had become available.

Now I am not a fan of pain and a huge fan of pain relief, except pethidine. I had that when I came in for one of my ruptured cysts and that’s just not for me. I straight away asked if I could have an epidural. My mum was a little bit horrified and tried to talk me out of it but once my mind has been made up there is no changing it. The anaesthetist came along and gave me my epidural, it was like heaven. I could have kissed him. I could still feel every contraction but there was no longer any pain, wonderful. This was it, it was just after lunch time and I was ready to push.

I pushed and I pushed and I pushed for two hours and I kept telling them that he wasn’t moving. I had my legs up in the stirrups and eventually I got to the point where everytime I pushed I would get a cramp in my calves, so I had a midwife on each leg rubbing my calf muscles and one down below checking on the progress. I have no clue as to what McD and my mum were doing at this point and I didn’t really give a damn. My blood pressure shot up and my little beans heartbeat shot down, the word caesarian was thrown about. I asked the consultant if we could try anything else first and he was happy to try the forceps. At this point my epidural had worn off as I remember feeling ALL of this. The consultant had to make two cuts to insert the forceps (which McD describes as huge salad forks). Within two pushes he was here. I was completely oblivious and still pushing away until McD announced “he’s here babes.”The consultant said he had a huge head and that’s probably why he wasn’t making much progress on his own.

WHO CARES? My baby had finally arrived. At 15.39 on Sunday 6th February 2011 my baby made his way into the world. I am crying as I type these words now, as I remember that feeling. There is no other feeling like it in the world, meeting your baby for the first time is a feeling of pure elation, the atmosphere in the room was electric, my mum had to go out and sob (and call my dad and probably every other member of my family), McD was all smiles and teary eyed. I will never forget the look on his face as he leaned over, kissed me and said “well done babes.” McD got to cut the cord and then he my precious bundle of joy was placed on my chest. That’s it, I was completely gone, completely in love and I knew from this moment on there would never be a moment that this little boy wouldn’t be on my mind and wouldn’t be my first thought in everything. I gazed into his tiny, scrunched up and bruised new born face and I knew that I would give my life for this boy, I knew that everything I was and everything I would ever work towards from this moment forward would be for this boy.

He was whisked away to be weighed and measured and it was time for me to be stitched up. Now this was the painful part. I had had an injection in my leg to deliver the placenta so I was done. My consultant asked if a trainee consultant could do my stitching and I honestly didn’t really give a damn who stitched me up, I was high on euphoria! So this little trainee consultant began stitching me up and it was obvious from the questions that she was asking that she had no clue what to do. I thought Simon was going to punch one of them. In the only time I have ever seen him get annoyed with another person he told the consultant that he must do the stitching and so it was all change!

By the time everything was finished I was given my bundle of joy back, and we were wheeled around to the ward. I think it was during this journey that we realised that the name we had chosen out for him throughout the whole pregnancy, Haydn William, was not his name. He sure as hell doesn’t look like a Haydn! We completely changed it to the name he has today.

This day, a day filled with pain and joy, will forever be the most amazing day of my life. I shall never ever be able to believe that McD and I managed to create such a perfect, happy boy and I shall never ever cease to be amazed by him. Each day has been a roller coaster of emotion, a learning curve and deeply satisfying.

I love you H-bomb more than you ever shall know.