Labour of love - part 6

So by the time I'd been prepped for a C-section (I'm not sure what this involved other than shaving my pubes and making me wear a shower cap), TheBloke (TM) was finally allowed back in the room.]

Throughout the labour, I had been updating Twitter with hilariously witty and brilliant comments on the entire process.  I hadn't really thought this through.  Because at this point (with my last Tweet being something along the lines of "starting to push now"), there was suddenly radio silence from me.  Which probably worried people unnecessarily.  Well, a bit necessarily.  We were a bit worried too.

They put up a little curtain thingy - well, more a large blue piece of kitchen towel from my neck down, so neither TheBloke (TM) nor I could see the gory stuff.  I felt the surgeons draw a line across my tummy - this was the cut, but of course I felt no pain.  I felt some rummaging around.

Then - quite, quite horribly, I felt them pushing the baby back up my foo foo.  Essentially the baby had descended too far for a straightforward C-section, so she needed to be pushed back up again in order to get her out.  It was like giving birth in reverse.  Or - if you will - having a massive poo pushed back up inside you.  Not a good feeling.

The next thing I was consciously aware of was a heavy weight being removed from my stomach.  "Baby's clear," said someone wearing a gown.  My stomach felt empty.

Then... nothing.  No crying.  The beeping of machines that shouldn't have been beeping.  Or the lack of beeping of machines that should have been beeping.  I can't remember which.

"How's the baby?" I asked Pooja.

"Baby's with the baby doctor," was the only reply I was getting.  This was in stark contrast to every time I'd previously asked the question, when I'd been told, "Baby's fine, baby's happy."  Baby doctor.  Like I was too stupid to understand the word "paediatrician".

Nothing.  Minutes of nothing.

Then finally - a cry.  The baby was OK.

A bundle of something warm was handed to TheBloke (TM).  And then to me, though I couldn't really hold her as the surgeons were sewing me up.  Whipps Cross being a teaching hospital, I vaguely remember one of the surgeons telling the other one which bit to stitch.  Which even at the time was a bit disturbing.

TheBloke (TM) left the room again, with the bundle of warmth, to be weighed.  The bundle, that is, not TheBloke (TM).  TheBloke (TM) weighed more than he had that morning because he had eaten all of my hospital food.  Meanwhile, I had lost 8lb 8oz in literally two minutes.

Duly, I was wheeled into the recovery room, where I did some recovering.  As I came round every few minutes from my drug-induced stupor, I looked to my right, and was surprised every time that there was a baby next to me.  I kept forgetting I had a daughter.

This has happened several times since.  Notably when I offered to go to Co-Op with TheBloke (TM) and forgot that someone would need to stay home with the baby.  Still, I haven't yet accidentally left her in a carpark.  Watch this space.

So - a summary: low points of giving birth:

• Uncontrollable shitting
• Labour pains
• Scary big red button
• Having a baby pushed back up your foo foo

High points:

• Drugs.  Lovely drugs.
• Catheters.  Now this is a good invention.  You never need to go to the toilet again.  You don't even feel like you need to go.  Think of the time you would save!
• Being a first-time owner of a brand new one of these.  What can I say?  I love monkeys.

Labour of love - part 5

So, I was almost fully dilated... when The Worst Backache In the World Ever kicked in.  This wasn't like the backache I'd had during pregnancy; this was exclusively down my right-hand side, low down, almost in the bone, near my hip.  Despite the (vast) amount of painkillers I'd taken, this was something special.

"More... epidural..." I begged Debbie the midwife.  Debbie said that epidural wasn't effective against backache.  Even in my drugged state, this sounded like something of a lie.

"Shall I massage it?" asked TheBloke (TM), ever keen to be helpful, and whipping out the little vibrating hand massager he'd brought with him.

Suffice it to say that I had brought a lot of stuff with me that we didn't end up using.  This included, but was not limited to:

• A TENS machine (not so much pain relief as a different sort of mild pain to take your mind off it.  A bit like trying to focus on the rabbit gently licking your arm, rather than the fact that your leg is being sawn off with a rusty spoon.)
• A music system to play my "birth playlist" during labour.  To be honest, the playlist was full of songs I knew TheBloke (TM) hated, mostly out of spite, and because I knew I'd get my own way.  The drugs meant I had my own sountrack.
• Lipbalm.  Everyone said I needed lipbalm.  Perhaps they meant "morphine".
• A hair band.  Again, everyone said I'd need to tie my hair back.  For what?  In case I decided to bake some muffins midway through the experience?  I don't think so.
• Birthing ball.  Yes, because what I'd like to do now you've effectively paralysed my legs and hooked me up to a drip, is to balance on a fucking ball like a performing seal.

It was about this time that I heard the woman in the next room (either someone who had refused any pain medication (fool) or else a complete wuss) scream with a profundity that has stayed with me, "This is a curse."  Even through the backache, it made me chuckle.  I'm not sure why.

The backache went on for a while, and it was excruciating.  They wouldn't give me any more drugs.  Then suddenly, Debbie said, "You can have more epidural if you want."

"I thought you said I couldn't?"

"I just wanted to see if you could do without it.  Do you want it?"

"Yes," I screamed, "yes, yes, yes.  I want to kiss you.  Can I kiss you?  Oh, that's not sexual harassment by the way.  Sorry."

More epidural was delivered, Debbie went home at 8 a.m., leaving Pooja in her place, and lo it was suddenly time to start pushing.

Except I had had so much epidural I had no idea if I was pushing or not.  "Push," encouraged Pooja and TheBloke (TM).

"Am I pushing?" I asked.  "Oh dear," I said.  "I think I'm going to be sick."

And I was.  If you've never seen a McDonalds apple pie in reverse, it looks a lot like a McDonalds apple pie the right way round.

I was told the baby was halfway down the birth canal - I was doing good pushing, but unfortunately the baby's heart-rate kept dropping on the monitor.  This wasn't a massive problem (indeed, it's designed to do this), so long as it came up again, which it did.

Until suddenly it didn't.

There's a big red button on the wall.  The midwife asked TheBloke (TM) to press it.  Suddenly - and I mean suddenly - there were literally about ten people in the room.  One of them introduced herself as the consultant surgeon and examined me.  She told me the baby's head was facing the wrong way, the baby was effectively stuck and she was going to try and turn her manually.

And yes, manually does mean "by hand".

It hurt.  Too much to continue.

With the baby's heart-rate dangerously low, we were told they'd take me into theatre, give me more anaesthetic, try to rotate her manually again, and if that didn't work, it would be forceps, and if that didn't work, it would be a C-section.

I was made to sign paperwork that I had no chance of reading, and was told that if they needed to give me a hysterectomy to save my life, they would.  That was scary.

I was wheeled down the corridor in my bed, TheBloke (TM) following behind.  He wasn't allowed in theatre to start with - was handed scrubs and told to wait.  I kept asking for him, and was told he'd be in shortly.  Neither of us has any sense of time over how long this part took.  Eventually TheBloke (TM) was allowed into the room.

I was given more anaesthetic and the consultant tried again to manually rotate the baby.  It didn't hurt me this time, but the baby was not for turning.  Then forceps.  Still no joy.  The baby was stuck like a fat piglet with its head trapped.

At this point, TheBloke (TM) was sent out of the room again.  It was C-section time.

Pooja shaved my pubes.

And on that sentence, stay tuned for the final episode.

Labour of love - part 4

So - a recap: I'd been in hospital for about 24 hours.  I'd had a McDonalds.  I'd had a cannula put in my hand.  Despite what the lawsuit says, I had not punched a member of the medical team.  And whilst I'd fully planned to send TheBloke (TM) home for a good night's sleep, it began to look like things were kicking off big-stylee, labour-wise.  We knew this because my swearing went from Slightly Sweary ("Oh Jesus Christ") to Really Very Sweary Indeed ("For fuck's sake, fucking, fucking, fuck bucket!").  This meant TheBloke (TM) was denied his opportunity to go home.  Luckily he had already set the cat food timer so Monty Cat wouldn't starve.

I had had diamorphine.  I was feeling OK-ish, though contractions still hurt and I still wanted an epidural.  I just couldn't articulate it anymore.  Luckily, it was all in the plan, and eventually a) an anaesthetist and b) a delivery room became available.  At this stage of the story, I have to rely on TheBloke (TM)'s narrative, as my sense of time is a bit warped from all the drugs, and I'm not sure if the dancing gerbils were real or not.

So apparently, before they give you an epidural, they generally give you an enema.  My memory of this is the midwife showing me a massive syringe and telling me she was going to shove it up my arse.  At this stage I didn't care.  "You will probably need to go to the toilet in about 30 minutes," she said, "and your husband will need to take you."

This would have been a tad embarrassing, but luckily TheBloke (TM) and I have never been one of those couples who is shy around each other.  I have friends who say that they have never farted in front of their significant other.  Christ, if that were the case and TheBloke (TM) had never even heard me fart, the next twenty minutes of his life would have been nothing short of fatally traumatic.

Amongst the things that childbirth has taught me is that I have quite an efficient bowel.  I reckon it was no more than two minutes later that I said, "I need to go to the toilet.  Now."  There was no time to walk down the corridor to the toilet.  A bedpan was fetched.  And that, dear readers, is how I ended up squatting over the hospital bed, shitting my guts out into a bedpan.

Twice.

And once (fast asleep because of the morphine), shitting myself in my sleep, and having to ask TheBloke (TM) if what I thought had just happened had actually just happened.  There's nothing like romance when you have to ask your life partner if you have just shat yourself.  He wanted to take photos, but I used some of the language referenced above and he refrained.

As I was squatting over the second bedpan, in came the very posh epidural doctor, who practically fainted at the sight.  I swear she needed smelling salts.  Actually, anything to take the smell away probably would have done.  She excused herself and came back five minutes later, asking the midwife to take away the bedpan.

Ah, the epidural.  Lovely, lovely epidural.  I don't remember much about the injection, other than having to keep still (tough during a contraction), but I do remember not being that bothered about contractions after that.  I had a nice conversation / debate with the midwife about science versus arts, and TheBloke (TM) finished all the levels on Angry Birds.

At about 6 in the morning, a doctor came along to see how dilated I was.  Apparently I was 8 cm.  Yay me! He broke my waters, and told me there was meconium in it.  This can be a sign of baby distress, as it means the baby has opened their bowels before they've been born.  Apparently it meant we needed to get the baby out sooner rather than later, and the baby would have to stay in for 24 hours after the birth for observations in case the baby had inhaled the meconium, but there was no massive emergency.  They put me on a hormone drip to speed things up.  So far, so good.

Every hour or so, the midwife would top up my epidural.  According to her, the epidural shots were £250 a time.  Now, I pay quite a lot of taxes, so every time she asked me if I wanted more pain relief, I just saw it as a way of getting some of that back.  About £1500 worth of epidurals later, the midwife shift changed, and I was assured we'd have our baby within an hour or so - she was already halfway down the birth canal so I'd avoided a C-section.

This labour thing - other than the random shitting - really wasn't that bad!

Next time: McDonalds - the return (and not in a good way).

Labour of love - part 3

So the cannula was in, Dr Duffy remained unpunched, and all that remained was to be induced.  This involved (unsurprisingly to those of you who have been following so far) more fingering.  Though this time with some sort of hormone gel.  The hormone gel was apparently SO effective that a) they would try it and wait six hours, b) because they didn't really expect it to work, they'd try it again six hours later c) then wait 24 hours and after that give up and put me on a drip.  Brilliant.  It sounded slightly less effective than the pineapple / long walk / sex / blowjob / curry combo already recommended.

Still, Whipps Cross being as busy as it was (see earlier reference to bastard queue jumpers), I got bumped out of my private delivery room and stuck back on a ward.  No induction for me.  My "natural" contractions were happening about every ten minutes, barely strong enough for me to feel, and certainly not enough to push a massive fat baby out.

The day passed.  I read more of Remains of the Day.  TheBloke (TM) spent more time with some Angry Birds.  At 6 p.m. "dinner" was served.  "Would you like a cheese and tomato sandwich or a tuna and cucumber sandwich?"  I could take no more and sent TheBloke (TM) out for McDonalds.  One McChicken Sandwich, fries, chocolate milkshake and an apple pie later, Whipps Cross were ready to induce me.

So I was fingered by yet another midwife (I assume she was a midwife, not just a passing stranger.  I probably should have asked.  By this stage I was willing to show my foo-foo to pretty much anyone who asked, and quite a few people who didn't).  The special gel was inserted, and I was instructed to go for a walk, to make it work.  Well, I couldn't be arsed to put my clothes on again, so TheBloke (TM) and I went for a wander around the hospital.  At which point, in my nightdress, with one slightly leaky boob, I bumped into an immaculately-groomed member of my NCT group, who had come in for induction THAT MORNING and had already been induced.  (See: queue-jumping bastards).  I had been in hospital for 24 hours by this stage.

Miraculously (it seemed) after about an hour, contractions started in earnest.  They are kind of hard to describe.  A little bit like period pains, but only lasting for about a minute each time.  A crescendo and then diminuendo of pain, each crescendo reaching greater heights than the previous.

Turns out TheBloke (TM) was right, and I don't have much of a threshold for pain. We came back to our bed on the ward (where no-one else was in labour, and where I must have terrified the other patients, as I  understand I got a bit shouty when I was told that there weren't any rooms available for gas and air and the anaesthetist who was going to do the epidural had been called away).

When a contraction was in full force, I couldn't speak, couldn't shout, couldn't do anything other than focus on the pain.  TheBloke (TM) had been to all of the classes.  "Breathe," he said, supportively, "breathe."

I am given to understand my response was, "Of course I'm going to fucking breathe.  As if I'm going to forget to breathe.  Do you think one of the leading causes of maternal deaths is forgetting to fucking breathe, you fucking moron?"

It was shortly after this point, the midwives decided (probably for the sake of the other patients) that perhaps I should have some diamorphine.

I asked how long it would take to work and was told about twenty minutes.  So I thought I'd venture to the toilet in the interim.  Two things to note: diamorphine takes approximately 30 seconds to work on me.  Also, isn't the word "toilet" funny when you think about it for too long?  So long, in fact, TheBloke (TM) had to hammer on the door to ask if I was OK.  I was fine.  Just giggling at the word toilet.

Here is a picture of me in the middle of a strong contraction after the injection of lovely diamorphine.

I'll be honest, the next hour or so is a bit of a blur.  I updated Twitter with something along the lines of, "Had morphine - off my tits."  But I had to correct it twice, as I accidentally wrote "off my tots".  Which kind of illustrated my point.

Apparently I was then moved back to a delivery room.  I have no recollection of this.  But this might be because the diamorphine had made me look a bit like this.

I don't know if you can see in this photo, but I am definitely smirking.

This was probably the high point of the labour.  Tune in soon for: enemas, random shitting, sexual harassment of a midwife and eventually... a baby.