I'm going to put on my party shoes

It all started just after 4am. I'm pretty sure the labour pains have started. Having not gone into labour naturally the first time, I do have some small doubts. The pains continue, but aren't too close or long for the first few hours. I'm able to lay in bed for a while. I eventually get up and eat some cereal and go take a shower. It's 6am when I finish my shower. Rocket wakes at this point asking me where I'm going. Ha. I finally let Jer know that I'm in labour about 6:30. He thinks he's going back to sleep, but of course his brain switched on and couldn't.

I rang Elizabeth, the midwife, after 7. She's already at the hospital (turns out she ended up doing two births before mine since the night before). She recommends hanging at home longer as the contractions are close enough, but not long enough. Kristen is coming along to the birth as an extra support person, so I ring her not long after to give her the heads up that today is the day.

I wonder about the house until about 10:30. I'm pacing and doing the stairs. I'm talking to Kristen and Jeremy. Rocket knows that today baby is coming. He asked me earlier if I was waiting for baby to pop. Ha! I don't know where he heard that from, but it's hilarious.

After arriving at the hospital about 11, I go directly into my labouring room. As it's close to lunch, Kristen makes a Subway run to get us all food. By the time she comes back, I go into active labour. I'm hooked up to a wireless monitor. We're watching the contractions go up and down. Elizabeth finally turns it away from me as it's not really helping me watching it. :-)

I'm standing at the end of the bed with my stress balls in hand. I'm pushing the bed as hard as I can with the contractions. The visual in my head is that I'm pushing an elephant.

I'm burning up wishing for a fan. Where Kristen is sitting at the corner of the room has the best air flow, so I move over there. Pushing on the counter doesn't feel as good as pushing on the bed, as the bed had a little give, so felt like I was doing something.  It wasn't long before I was fully dilated. Eventually my water breaks. It turns out not to be all of it, just a bit. After that I decide I'd rather be on all fours. They put me on the bed, leaning forward against the raised back.

After a bit of being on the bed, my water fully broke. It was quite forceful and explosive. Elizabeth commented that she was glad her head wasn't there, as she'd just looked down there to see how things were progressing. I imagine it was something akin to a Tarantino movie! After this, my dialation goes back down to 8. Elizabeth suggests sitting on the toilet for a while. I'm quite unhappy with this though. I can't get comfortable. It was a nice relief for my legs and arms though to not be leaning on them for a short time.

I go back to the bed and Elizabeth checks my dialation again. She can tell I'm not progressing and the baby's head is leaned back. She tries to move it, but it doesn't go down. She brings in the on call OB. Luckily, it was the OB I'd seen about 10 weeks earlier when checking to make sure I'm good to try for a VBAC. He recommends I get an epidural so he can try to move it better. He then says I'll get 30 minutes before they make me do a c-section. We're all hoping and praying for the head to move during this time. This whole time they keep telling me to not push. Not pushing when you feel like you have to push is brutal. I'm not particularly successful at this. I tell them a lot that I can't.

The anaesthetist comes in and does the epidural. Let's just say we don't like him. He does a good job on the epidural, but his bedside manner is lacking. They strap my legs up. The OB says that they do this so I won't kick him in the head. To which I reply that "that's probably a good thing". Everyone laughs. I think they were happy to know I was still mentally present to some extent.  The OB still couldn't move the head.  I break down and cry at this point.  I really really don't want another c-section. Everyone stops and work on consoling me. The baby isn't having too many issues, so we're not in a rush to get him out. The Dr decides to put in my catheter for the surgery. He can't get it in.  The baby's head is blocking something, so the catheter won't go in correctly. He checks again, and I was fully dilated. The time I had crying gave my body time to do its thing. He says I can try for ventouse, which is where they vacuum out the baby while you push. The OB says he's go ing to go get his party shoes on (which turn out to be white wellies). So we did more pushing and by the time I hit their time limit they gave me to try, they'd hit the point of no return.  I was out of the running for a c-section. Yay!

So, with the help of the Dr, a vacuum, an episiodimy, and a secondary tear, the baby comes out. All the while being told to push and not push, push and not push. Aggravating and exhausting, it is.  The baby is taken over to a table to be checked after he's on me for all of a minute max. The SCBU nurse had to do some things to get him breathing correctly. It wasn't major. All the while, I get to stay exposed while the Dr stitches me up. I asked how long it would be, after 5 minutes. He said about 10 more minutes.  Kristen reckons it was more like 30, which confirmed what I was thinking. I know he had to give me some local anaesthetic as he couldn't wait for more epidural meds as I was bleeding too much.

I get to stay in the hospital for 4 days. I am pleased. I can't sit down as my tailbone is pretty damaged. (It still is 7 weeks later). My right hand fingers are actually worse off for numbness. It went from intermittent numbness and pain to constant numbness. I'm seeing an Osteopath for it and my tailbone.

So, there it is as I can remember things.  I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, but the basics are here.

Monday

I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK!!!

Anyone wanna buy us a house or pay off our student loans or something so I don't have to go back to work?

Totally Emotional

Rocket is now 6 weeks old. It has taken me 6 weeks to come around to being happy about being a parent. I've had two really bad days where I had to work through things. The first was about mid-way where I had to work through the fact that I didn't want Jeremy to touch me. I think it was b/c I'm holding Rocket so much for feeding and when he's fussy. I'm not a touchy person, so that much touching was doing me in. The second was earlier this week. I didn't want to be a parent. I started out the morning completely understanding why people run away from their family. I knew that wasn't an option for me, nor did I really want to deep down. After many hours crying, I am now a happy mommy. I'm glad to hold my baby. His smiles keep me going.

I'm sure that I am still not completely over all the emotional stuff, like the birth, but I know I'll get there.

Plunket

Plunket is a charity organization here in NZ that does the regular health checks on baby and parenting help.  Our local Plunket nurse came for her first visit today. Rocket is already over 11 pounds at 5 weeks. Everyone is always surprised by his weight gain when they know how he started. :-)

Unfortunately that last post did not foreshadow the coming days. I still can't sleep on my side for more than 2 hours. It just hurts. So, I don't feed baby that way. His sleeping has also not gotten any better, but worse. The nurse has given us some tips on helping start get him into a routine and longer sleep periods.

I am hopeful.

Sleep has cometh!!

So, I actually was able to sleep more last night! I was able to sleep on my side. Rocket then was able to feed from that position for all but two feeds, so I slept through the feeds once he was latched.  Also, I don't think he had any shorter sleep cycles than 2 hours. That's a first ever!

I even woke up happy. If asked how I was doing today, I could honestly say, "Good". :-)

Nights

I have come to dread the nights.


1. Rocket wakes every 1-2 hours to feed.
2. Getting up from my lying position is painful.
3. I know I'll be getting up earlier to start my day that I want to.

Knowing that I won't really be sleeping much is disheartening. Why not just stay up? Well, I'll tell you why. You go nuts! My first night home (or was it the second?), I was absolutely terrified to sleep. I was sure I would die if I went to sleep. I wasn't so keen on that idea as I had just had a baby needed to care for it. Jeremy calmly talked me out of my crazy state and put me in bed.

I am not always awake when I seem awake. I once texted Jeremy to come downstairs to help me (that's normal), but when he got there, Rocket and I were both sound asleep. He woke me asking what was going on. I then realized that when I did it, I was awake but not coherent. It was something from my dream that made me text him.  I also tend to fall asleep when feeding James, or I just can't get comfortable and fidget around.

Where as I am keen to be able to sleep on my side again sometime in the future, I'm so exhausted that I can quickly and peacefully sleep on my back (which I never could before). So, that's at least a plus to get out of this situation.

There and back again: a labour story

It's Tuesday morning. We get up early to shower and prepare to meet the midwife at the hospital at 8am. There's a bit of traffic on the way due to construction. We go up to level two to the maternity ward. They point us to a room where there are four beds, two occupied and curtained off. They have their lights low. 

Rae, my midwife, gets me set up in my bed. We do the initial monitoring of my and the baby's vitals. Rae checks my cervix to see if I've dilated any more than the previous day. It did a little, but as I was only one cm then. The gel is applied and I have to lie still for an hour. It's so quite in the room. We are the loud ones because we're not afraid to talk at a normal level. Rae is the loudest of us all. :-) She comes and goes for various reasons. Rae leaves for the day. The hospital will call her back when she's needed for the birth. 

There's a cacophony of heartbeats in the silence as we're all still hooked up to monitors. Another woman comes in and is settled in. She sounds as though she has a cold. Occasionally, you'll hear a ring tone of someone's phone or a little noise from an ipad or other device of someone watching a show. We spend our time talking, eating, checking Facebook. I rest, get monitored, rest, get monitored. My monitor is half broken. It keeps losing the connection, if you don't hold it just so. At some point, we went down to get Jeremy some coffee. It was nice to walk for minute.  Lunch eventually comes around noon.  Mild contractions start when lunch arrives.  Sometime later, it sounds like Tarzan's wife, Jane, is giving birth down the hall. lol 

At about 3:30, the hospital midwife comes in to check on my progress. She lets us know that we have two male visitors outside waiting. She asks them to wait a few minutes. It's Paul and Justin with some food for us. She sees I'm dilated 4-5cm by this point and goes ahead and breaks my water. Not a nice feeling, the gushing. Justin and Paul come in after I'm covered decently. They were completely enamored by the monitor. At least one of their wives didn't have one on for long, so it was cool to them. :-) It was rather awkward with them there because I was still leaking heaps of water and was afraid it'd go off the bed. The contractions started getting stronger immediately after the midwife broke my waters, so it was getting hard to talk good naturedly due to the pain. They didn't stay long. Jeremy was glad for the food. It was all he had all day. He was getting shaky. 

After a bit, they made me get up and walk around for at least an hour and a half. That was difficult. We walked the stairs some. I could go to the next landing before the next contraction hit. The hospital staff used the stair way a lot, and we got asked if I was ok a couple of times. After what felt like an eternity of walking around, my birthing suite was ready. We moved in and I laid there for a while in labour. Jeremy started my music on his iPad. It was piano music. We got lots of compliments on it all night. It was near 5 or 6 pm by this point. The hospital soon called Rae in.

Once she arrived, we started talking about what to do next. I started using nitrous. Jer says I went loopy pretty much immediately. Rae had the hospital midwife start my birthing pool. Once it was ready, we moved across the hall to the pool room. I felt better getting in the water almost immediately.  I think the nitrous made it hard for me to stay afloat as the water was a little high, after taking out the seat that was placed in. Jer pretty much held me up the whole time. The urge to push started while I was in the pool. I don't know how long I was in there, but I really recall being in heaps of pain and thinking I couldn't do this. I completely understand those that say a woman becomes demonic when in labour. The grunting I had when the pushing urge was there was much lower and reminded even me of something demonic. If I wasn't in so much pain, I probably would have laughed. 

After some time, I was only getting to 9cm. I'm not sure why, but it was decided that I needed to move back to the birthing suite. Walking back across the hall was tortuous. I was trying not to push as I made my way. They wanted me to lay on my side on the bed, but I couldn't because it hurt too bad. I heard Rae talking about an anterior lip preventing the babe from coming down. I really have no concept of time or reality after that, even though I could clearly see the clock and kept watching it. I know several doctors came in and another midwife asking to examine me. The nitrous was taken away from me sometime in here. I distinctly remember a tall sweaty man in yellow coming in. Apparently, he was out running when he was paged to come in for a consult. 

When pushing, the baby would come down, then go back up. He never came far enough to use forceps or the vacuum thingy.

I know the regular monitor wasn't working well enough for the staff. They opted to put one directly on the baby's head. It started showing that the baby was in distress, so they wanted to do some blood tests by scraping his head. It was the hardest thing to stop pushing when I felt the urge while they did that. The test came out fine. They had me to continue pushing. This went on two more times. The third test did show the baby was in distress. Jer says this all happened for about an hour and a half.

It's roughly 10pm at this point. After that bad test, I was quickly told I would be having a c-section. (I have to admit, a little part of me was relieved to be done with the whole pain and pushing/not pushing thing.) Rae had already put the lure in my hand just in case earlier when they stared doing the blood tests. The operating theatre was a level down. They ran me to the elevator, which apparently didn't want to open on our side. We sat there for a minute waiting for it. Once it was decided to go to the public side, the doors opened. Once on the new floor, we were met by heaps of other people. I was whisked down the halls of that floor. Jer was with us until we got to that point where he had to stay behind. I didn't see him during it, but I know he was there. I was asked heaps of questions regarding allergies and previous operations. I was given something to drink, which I had a hard time chugging as they ran me down the hall in my bed. I was sure it was going to spill everywhere. Once in the theatre and I was moved to the operating table, everyone wanted to talk to me. Three questions at once is a bit overwhelming while be strapped down and trying my hardest not to push, which felt fruitless. It wasn't long before I was out.

Next, thing I knew I was in the recovery room. A nurse or someone was there and asked me how I felt. I saw someone peep at me from behind a curtain, where I guess another patient was. They didn't tell me about my baby, thus I was afraid to ask. After a bit of medicine when I'd calmed down (I had started shaking pretty bad), they did tell me that everyone thought he was gorgeous and was with Jeremy.  After an orderly and someone else was found that could take me out, I was taken to my room where I'd spend the next 4 days. Jeremy, the baby, and Rae were in there waiting on me. After getting in there, the baby was put directly on my breast. He latched perfectly, they said. That was good, as I was in no state to comprehend what to do if he wasn't. I was checked on hourly after that, thus I didn't sleep much. The baby slept for hours and hours without wanting to feed. I was concerned about it, but the midwife told me it was normal after what we went through. 

They never did figure out why he was in distress. Rae has told me that one of the reasons he wouldn't drop is due to his head position. She tried moving it several times, but without any luck.

I had terrible flashbacks and what seemed like phantom pains of the labour for a day after that. I was sure I had PTSD. I don't know if I did or didn't, but it wasn't pleasant. 

Jeremy was able to stay with me most of the time we were in there. He was a great help, changing nappies and bringing me the baby to feed and pretty much anything else I wanted. The hardest part was nights when he had to go home. I could call in a midwife to come help me, but I tried not to do that much. I think I was usually able to keep it down to once or twice a night.

After a day of having a catheter and sitting in my own filth, I was thrilled to be able to get rid of it. The pain was still pretty great. Morphine was stopped after a day or two. It took several days, but I eventually started to feel human again. 

On Saturday, we were cleared to go home. Rocket's jaundice wasn't bad enough to require treatment and was already starting to go away pretty quickly. I was thrilled to be home for my own bed and couches. My back was killing me from the hospital bed. I wasn't able to lay flat for about two weeks. Pure torture that was. Sure it made waking up easier for feedings, as I didn't have to move much, but I ached to lay down. 

Here it is, almost 3 weeks later. I can lay down, but laying on my side for any length of time is still out of the question. The pain still is pretty great when standing/walking sometimes. I can walk a little ways around the mall, but not far without wearing out. Luckily, one of the grocery stores is in the mall, so we can do a little shopping for food while we're there. 

My friends here have been great to us. Supreme gratitude to Melanie for setting up a calendar for people to sign up to bring us food. We get dinner brought to us every other day for the first month. Many of those meals have had enough to make two meals, so we haven't had to do much cooking. 

I find it a bit tortuous to not be able to do much, like drive, lift things, bend, clean, and my fingers are still numb. I pray it all ends soon.  Rocket is doing well. Eating and gaining weigh like a star. He might have a touch of colic, but I imagine it could be worse. Jeremy wears himself out taking care of the two of us. Jer has done it all from nappy changes, shopping for pads, and talking me out of a delusional state. I don't know how anyone does all this without such a supportive partner. 

Feb 19, 2013

7lbs and 20.5 in