Rewind a little... (part 6 - all is ok)

Phoebe recovered relatively quickly. Later that day they took her off oxygen in the evening so we could get her out for a cuddle. They then suggest I try feeding her as she was much stronger and should be able to manage it. She took to it straight away and it was amazing. They kept waking me through the night so that I could be taken to SCBU to feed her.

By the next morning, they were talking about letter her be in the ward with me, though still under their care. By the time hubby came in in the morning around 11am, they had not long wheeled her over to be with me. Finally we had our baby!!!! She still had a canular in her arm for twice daily antibiotics but was so much better than when we first saw her.

It was still a few days until she was given the all clear. She had some dodgy blood test results that had the doctors talking about a lumbar puncture but luckily they agreed to just grow her blood cultures another 24hours instead and they came back ok.

We were allowed home late on the Saturday after spending just over 4 days in hospital. After the slightly shaky start, she is now doing brilliantly.

Rewind a little...(part 5 - a baby born in silence)

But after putting our little girl on my tummy at 31 minutes past midnight (yes it was now my birthday), she was silent. She stayed silent as they transferred her over to the baby resuscitare. There was further silence as four of them worked on her. The clock ticked by. I lay there holding hubbys hand and there was an overwhelming silence in the room. We couldnt see much but knew that 15 minutes had already passed.

I was eerily calm as we both looked at the clock and then the people gathered round the resucitare and then the clock again. Then the panic set in. All my fears came back all at once that this was just another ordeal we were putting ourselves through that would end in failure and no baby. It all felt so surreal and I rembered sitting at home that monday morning crying for hours that this was all a surreal dream and now I really seemed to be in the middle of that dream which was actually a nightmare. The feeling was awful, and the tears started coming. Just writing about it still makes me cry.  The midwife kept saying she will be fine but no one else was actually telling us anything.

They started to wheel me out and I think at this point hubby got up to see what was going on as this non-communication between the doctors and us was killing us. Up until then, he hadnt left my side. The next thing I knew I saw him holding our baby all wrapped up and brought her over for a brief cuddle. Geesh, what mix of emotions. What a beautiful sight to see my husband holding our daughter after all these years of trying to get here,  but how unreal did it seem? How scared was I that this was all being taken away from us? I gave a her a quick kiss and they wheeled us both away to separate places: me back to the room on the labour ward and baby to the special care unit.

And there were were. Me, hubby, an otherwise empty room on the labour ward, and no baby. Not how I ever ever imagined it to happen.  The time went by, some midwives or doctors came in and out. We didnt really know what to say to each other. It was all very strange.

At 3am a nurse came in to tell us that the special care baby unit (SCBU) said we could finally go and see her. Finally we could go and spend some time withour baby.

And so here she is, Phoebe Louise, born on my birthday weighing 8lb 6oz. She kept us waiting until 41weeks and 6 days to arrive. She had inhaled thick merconium and was initially quite poorly needing oxygen and to be drip fed.  It was heart breaking to see her on all the monitors and not be able to hold her, cuddle her, comfort her or feed her. But she was here, and safe, and we fell in love.

Rewind a little... (part 4 - Going downhill)

The ambulance transfer was awful. It was so painful to lie on the bed so I got them to sit me up as much as possible and I held onto the handrail to lift me up as much as possible.

I then had a panic attack. Sitting in the ambulance, it all came back to me the last time I was in an ambulance about 5 years ago when I was quite ill and took an overdose.  That was a horible dark time and somewhere I didnt want to go back to. I couldnt breathe and just cried and cried. This was a miserable time and I just wanted my husband with me, but he was following in the car.

Once at hospital, it was just as I expected. Made to lie on my back with a monitor to check our heartbeats meant the contractionand s were awful. I quickly had an epidural but they didnt get the fact that I needed to time to sit up let my hips adjust due to the pelvic pain from pregnancy. I felt rushed to try and 'relax' so they could get the needle in when in reality I was so tense trying to let my bones adjust. The anaesthetist seemed to take forever and took three attemps to get the line in my back. Even after all that the epidural wasnt how I expected and I definitely needed gas and air for each contraction.

They broke my waters and there was merconium in them, which was not the best sign. It all became a bit of a blur after that. We kept looking at the clock and were being told you will definitely have a baby today rather than it slipping into my birthday. Not that I minded but as a child im sure you want your own special day. But the time ticked by, I was fully dilated but so tired. Baby was not lined up properly, most likely not helped by all the lying on my back, and any pushing was not successful. The heartbeat was getting really low, almost non existant when pushing, and we had to go to theatre. At this point I was almost wishing for a caesarean and was beyond caring about any hopes I had for a home water birth. All I do rememeber was crying. A lot. That, and asking if I could go home now. Not my finest hour.

So in theatre, they topped up the epidural for pain relief and finally it worked how I always thought it should. I was told it was 5 times stronger that I had been given already but that they were preparing in case we did have to switch to an emergency caesarean. Luckily they didnt have to in then end. I had continued to push while they were getting ready for theatre and on the journey there. I think I was actually more successful at this without all the shouted instructions and just being left to get on with it. I then had what the midwife described as one of the most straight forward forceps deliveries she had seen, and that my extra pushing had really moved things forward. At least I could do one thing right.

Rewind a little...(part 3 - labouring at home)

Getting in the pool was sooo nice. I felt so relaxed, leant over the side resting between contractions, then moving my hips through the pain and getting hubby or the midwife to press on my lower back. I was feeling a bit sick but the midwife said I was breathing too quickly with each contraction and to do a nice long slow outbreath. The only way I could do that was to make a long humming noise as I breathed out and so thats what I did.

At 11am I was 4cm, though getting out the pool and having to lie on the sofa to be check was not fun. Contractions lying on my back and having to lie still were agony and so much worse than being on all fours and moving. I didnt care that I only got as far as the hall before stopping for a contraction, despite only wearing a bra. This was much to my husbands horror as he first tried to move me to the lounge and out of sight from the front door before giving up and just covering me with a towel as today of all days the window cleaners were here to clean the windows.

I started using gas and air and was managing quite well being in the pool, on all fours, moving my hips and humming through the contractions whilst someone pressed down on my lower back. I was checked again a few hours later and was 7cm but my heart rate was up and so was baby's. They monitored us for a while but it wasnt changing and after calling the hospital for advice it was agreed that we had to transfer to hospital.

I knew that that would mean all my coping mechanisms being taken away such as being mobile, on all fours rather than my back and being in the pool so I knew I would have to have loads more pain relief as those few contractions lying on my back whilst being examined were not fun. At 5pm an ambulance came, I got an injection of meptid for pain relief and off we went.

Rewind a little...(part 2 - Labour starts!)

Beginning of labour
So I tried to go back to sleep after having the first contraction but could hear a strange noise downstairs. Then I heard it again. It sounded like our hamster had something caught in the wheel and was making a strange noise. I couldnt sleep so went downstairs to see what was going on. However the noise was coming from the kitchen and not the lounge where the hammie was. Then I remembered the mouse...

On Sunday, two days previously, I saw a little mouse run into the lounge and go behind the sofa. They had just harvested the fields next to the house and it probably came from there. We had pulled out the sofa and then the cushions and saw it run across the sofa and down behind the seat cushions. There was no getting it out of there so we put some traps down. This mouse was now running around the kitchen with a trap just caught on its side. I shouted for hubby, who jumped out of bed so quickly thinking I was having contractions (which I was but that wasnt why I was shouting for him) that his legs buckled and he bashed his knee on the side of the bed. He ran down stairs wearing just his pants to see what was going on. I showed him the mouse still running round the kitchen and he seemed a little disappointed until I had to stop talking and breathe through another contraction....that confused him somewhat!  I left him to chase the mouse round the kitchn and stood in the lounge getting through a few more contractions which were already happening every 15-20 minutes.

We then went upstairs to bed again around 4am but I couldnt sleep through these and so we called the delivery suite at the hospital to let them know what was happening. They said to ring again when they got to 10 minutes apart. I always thought things would start really slow but by 5am I had to call them again and couldnt talk on the phone during a contraction. They were to let the community midwife on call know, as we were planning a home birth, and I was to call again when they were 5-7 minutes apart. However it wasnt long before I was calling them again about 6am and they said the on call community midwife would ring me. In the meantime they suggested some paracetamol, which would have been pretty useless seeing as I had been on string co-codamol for the past few months for pelvic pain so I just took some of those instead.

I got it into my head that I needed to wash my hair and so we decided to run a bath as that might also help with the pain. However, it was too painful to sit and so knelt in the bath, getting on all fours during each contraction whilst hubby poured water over my lower back as that was where all the pain was. We somehow washed my hair and also had a brief conversation with the midwife when she called back. She was on her way and would be with us around 7am.

I was quite surprised at how the contractions came so quickly, not how I imagined at all, though perhaps I overstimulated things with the accupuncture and accupressure? Who knows???

The midwife arrived and told hubby to get the pool ready as I would be able to get in soon. He then dissappeared for an hour as we had underestimated how long the pool would take to fit the liner and fill up. I stayed upstairs with the midwife bent over the sink and getting her to press on my lower back through each contraction. I also developed my own funny little swaying manouver as I couldnt stay still through the pain. Finally it was ready and since contractions were so thick and fast I was allowed in. Oh it was bliss!!!

 (The picture is obviously not taken during labour but when we set the pool up 5 weeks previously).

Rewind a little.... (part 1 - Can I avoid induction?)

So I know that I havent posted a birth story yet but it has taken me some time to get my head around it all. There were things that I found too upsetting to think about and I had to rationalise these in my head and look at the bigger picture. Now that that is all sorted and straightened out, I feel in a better position to get it all out of my head.

Here goes...

Trying to avoid an induction
I came to realise throughout this pregnancy that this little lady likes to keep us waiting and there is no hurrying her up to do things in the timeframe that you would like. To start with, it took 5 years for her to arrive, then when trying to get some 4D pictures, it took three visits to the ultrasound place to actually get one of her face as she was always hiding it. Then, she would keep us on our toes about whether she would turn from breech position or not and eventualy turned just after 37 weeks (and several inversion exercises - see pic) so cut it a bit fine, and caused me some level of anxiety about whether it would have to be a C section.

Then, the due date came and went and no sign of anything happening.  41 weeks came and went with no sign of anything happening. Each time I was checked by the midwife, my body had made no progress. I was booked in to start an induction at  41weeks and 5 days and desperately wanted to avoid this as I know my body doesnt react well when you force it to work when it is not ready. I had seen this already during the whole IVF process. So I felt I had to make sure I had done everything possible to encourage her to make her own way out. I had accupuncture on the friday (41w1d) and was given some accupressure points to keep working on over the weekend, which I did religiously every hour on the saturday until the points were so bruised they hurt too much.  The accupuncturist even left these little plasters on the points which had tiny little needles on that I was supposed to massage.

 We ate spicy food, I ate dates, basil, oregano, and we (somehow) had sex too!


I started getting quite down by the monday (41w4d) that I was a failure, I couldnt even go into labour myself, that this was all some big illusion or something and just another thing that we were doing to try and have a baby but that it would all end in a big fat nothing like all the other things we had tried over the years. I cried for the whole morning as I came to terms with the fact that I would have to go into hospital the next day to be induced; I wouldnt get to labour at home or use the birth pool we had had blown up and ready for the past 5 weeks; Id have to manage in hospital with the pelvic dysfunction that I had been troubled by all pregnancy; and finally that I would be spending my birthday in hospital, wednesday, probably not in labour as my body wouldnt respond to the induction drugs and it would be a horrible, long and drawn out process. To top it off, I was being inundated with texts, emails and calls about whether I had had the baby yet, or was there any news, or jokingly saying I should get a move on. Im afraid I started ignoring them, even though many were well meaning, since I cried even more with each one I received.

So to try and keep positive we went out for an early birthday dinner that evening seeing as we would be stuck in hospital from the next day onwards. I psyched myself up to deflate the birthing pool the next day and pack my bag for the hospital. We had a nice meal and went to bed knowing that at least in the next few days we would have a little baby, however she came.

I then woke up at 2am and had some cramps, I went to the toilet, got back in bed, and then had my first contraction!! I thought, hmm, I know this can take a while...ill just try to sleep a bit more....but that never happened...

She is here!!!!

I know I have been really bad at updating this and I dont have the full birth story ready at the moment but thought that I would add a little picture.

Phoebe Louise was born on 4th September, my birthday, weighing 8lb6oz. She was close to being induced as we were 41weeks 5 days when I went into labour.

She was poorly when born as had thick merconium in her lungs and spent some time in special care. She wasnt there too long before they let her on the ward with me but was still back and forth to the special care unit for IV antibiotics. It was horrible first seeing her in the special care unit but she is all better now and we are home. Will write up the birth story soon and post.