amandaw
23-07-2008, 12:14 PM
Will apologise now for the late and long read - it's been a work in progress!
After a short sharp intense labour with Charlotte – I expected nothing less with this one, and certainly wasn’t disappointed!! My pregnancy had been very similar with a baby that didn’t engage till late, decided to give us all a heart attack at 36 weeks by becoming transverse, measured weeks ahead (but then dropping back to ‘normal’, but otherwise left me pain free and coping well (I will never forget a student’s remark of ‘how can you be doing that Miss....my Mum won’t even get plates out of the cupboard when she’s pregnant! :laughing:). Unlike last time, neither of us knew the gender, but being second baby, it was just going to start with Charlotte’s hand-me-downs to begin with anyway. My only real concern was that we’d moved further away from the hospital (about 35mins with a good run) and I’d tested positive to the Group B Strep, so knew that once my waters broke, I needed to be at hospital ASAP.
My due date came and went with barely a ripple, and it was driving my husband nuts!! Charlotte had arrived 6 days early, so we’d started to count anything beyond Anzac Day (I was due the first of May) as a possible arrival day – really silly idea as it turned out. In the two days prior to the delivery I had started to feel the occasional odd pain, but nothing that really made me believe that it was the beginning of labour (or maybe it was me just very wishfully wanting to hold out till Tuesday when my own Ob was back on). From lunchtime on the 4th, I started to notice these discomforts a little more regularly, and had what I now think was a little bit of a show, but again, still nothing that made me want to announce that anything may be happening. During dinner, Joel asked a couple of times if I was okay as I’d stop eating to grimace a little every 15 or so minutes. Despite my protests of ‘I doubted anything was happening soon’, he gave my Mum a call as she was our first plan of attack for looking after Charlotte, and he didn’t want to be the one making the 3am phone call with her over an hour away. She arrived about 8.00, and I had a shower and finished packing my bags (amazing what a little urgency will do!) Joel went and filled the car with towels – couldn’t destroy the new car seats :p
By about 9.30 my contractions were about 7 mins apart and I figured I’d better give the Wesley a call – just to make myself known and to see if they wanted me to come in considering the Strep factor and my hasty labour last time. The midwife I spoke to was fairly casual about it to start with, but when I mentioned that Charlotte had arrived within 3 hours (and it was going to be a half hour trip), she suggested it may be worthwhile coming in.
Being late on a Sunday night we had a smooth journey in, with my contractions ranging between 4 and 8 mins apart. I was shown through to the labour ward, with some relief that I couldn’t see the midwife I’d had last time! The first midwife I saw was great – extremely efficient and down to earth, and I nearly felt like crying when about ˝ an hour after I’d arrived, she said ‘I’ll just insert the canula and then I’ll be off.’ That done (4 attempts later..left hand, right hand, left hand, left wrist – and even then I ended up with a very small needle because they couldn’t find an appropriate vein for anything else) and the shift change happened and I was introduced to my new midwife Gabby. She started monitoring and checking through the tonnes of paperwork, while Joel fell asleep in the recliner. She raised an eyebrow at this, but I said to just let him be – it had already been a long day, and he needed his energy for when things got exciting! My contractions were coming 3 in 10 and measuring up to 55, but Gabby was laughing at me saying that other than the fact you could see a contraction occurring on the monitor, you could hardly tell I was in labour as I was in such high spirits! After a while, she took the monitoring band off me and left, and for the life of my I wasn’t sure what to do...with Charlotte I was constantly monitored therefore ‘stuck’ to the bed, whereas now I had freedom and wasn’t sure what would be best! For a while (I think it was till about midnight) I lay there watching the 20-20 IPL cricket match that was on (Joel had the remote tucked over under his arm :rolleyes:), then got up and went for a wander to the gym ball...sat on it for a while, getting off only to retrieve the gas when I felt I needed it. When Gabby came back I let her know that I was starting to feel sensation down below and she decided to do a VE (I was really surprised that this hadn’t been done earlier)...to my horror I was still only 4cm – I was sure it was so much more. Even so, I reiterated that last time it went from this to 10cm in under an hour and she decided to give the ob on duty a ring, just to keep her in the loop. When she came back I’d started to feel queasy (from the gas? the pain? A bit of both?) and no sooner than a ‘dish’ arrived I filled it – so much for my beautiful steak dinner....at the same time I believe my waters broke, but wasn’t sure – last time there had been an audible ‘pop’ on the monitor and an absolute gush – this time it just felt a little damp. Gabby was unable to distinguish exactly when it did occur (and started to consider the night before, which would have been a concern with the Step) so took tests. She came and sat in with me (I’d returned back to the bed by this stage – felt sort of silly hanging around) and asked lots of questions about life in general – I thought it was a bit odd until later I realised that she was just hanging around to see what actually was occurring in terms of how I was dealing with it all. She did another VE and I was 8cm and starting to feel like I needed to push. She rang the ob (with my strong encouragement) and by this stage Joel was starting to come to with all the noise and chatting. I was feeling lots of strong ,strong urges and was grateful to hear that Nikki had arrived – my first thought though when this ‘little’ female walked in was ‘what good’s she going to be if it needs suction (like C did)’ – she may be little, but she’s certainly no frills about her approach to dealing with pregnant women!!
The first thing Nikki did was make me turn off the gas – much to my distress :laughing: She did an examination and said less than half an hour (but I had no idea of what time it was to see if she was actually right!) My only real memories of the next period of time, if feeling like I was splitting in two – with Charlotte I’d had an episiotomy, whereas here, I just felt like I was being stretched and it HURT! Each time, they wanted me to try another push, and I just felt like my body was piking on me - I was buggered and was starting to get seriously worried about whether or not I was going to be able to do this. Even when Nikki announced the bub had dark hair, I felt no sense of relief knowing that there was an end in sight. Joel stayed with me encouraging me, getting me to drop my chin and generally just dealing with me saying ‘I caaaannntttt!!!’ I told Nikki that Charlotte had needed a little help with the suction and she basically said, you can do this without,’ but then there was a little flurry of action and the kiwi cup was attached – with even more fanfare of pain – it hurt too – I seriously felt stretched and felt like begging for an episiotomy!!
I was later to find out that the baby’s heart rate had dropped – or so they believed at the time – he scored 9 on the first APGAR, so was obviously just playing with us! Mitchell Campbell arrived in the world at 2.31am on Monday the 5th of May 2008 :goodvibes:(also International Midwife’s Day, so he’s got a little shirt “A Midwife Helped Me Out” to commemorate). He weighed 8 pd 7 (3850g) and was 52cm long. From the get go, he had wide alert eyes, long eyelashes and the most gorgeous looking mouth... though I do remember saying to Joel “he’s not as nice looking as Charlotte was” – the things that come out of our mouths at the end of the journey :laughing: Mitchell has been a much loved and much welcomed addition to the family!
After a short sharp intense labour with Charlotte – I expected nothing less with this one, and certainly wasn’t disappointed!! My pregnancy had been very similar with a baby that didn’t engage till late, decided to give us all a heart attack at 36 weeks by becoming transverse, measured weeks ahead (but then dropping back to ‘normal’, but otherwise left me pain free and coping well (I will never forget a student’s remark of ‘how can you be doing that Miss....my Mum won’t even get plates out of the cupboard when she’s pregnant! :laughing:). Unlike last time, neither of us knew the gender, but being second baby, it was just going to start with Charlotte’s hand-me-downs to begin with anyway. My only real concern was that we’d moved further away from the hospital (about 35mins with a good run) and I’d tested positive to the Group B Strep, so knew that once my waters broke, I needed to be at hospital ASAP.
My due date came and went with barely a ripple, and it was driving my husband nuts!! Charlotte had arrived 6 days early, so we’d started to count anything beyond Anzac Day (I was due the first of May) as a possible arrival day – really silly idea as it turned out. In the two days prior to the delivery I had started to feel the occasional odd pain, but nothing that really made me believe that it was the beginning of labour (or maybe it was me just very wishfully wanting to hold out till Tuesday when my own Ob was back on). From lunchtime on the 4th, I started to notice these discomforts a little more regularly, and had what I now think was a little bit of a show, but again, still nothing that made me want to announce that anything may be happening. During dinner, Joel asked a couple of times if I was okay as I’d stop eating to grimace a little every 15 or so minutes. Despite my protests of ‘I doubted anything was happening soon’, he gave my Mum a call as she was our first plan of attack for looking after Charlotte, and he didn’t want to be the one making the 3am phone call with her over an hour away. She arrived about 8.00, and I had a shower and finished packing my bags (amazing what a little urgency will do!) Joel went and filled the car with towels – couldn’t destroy the new car seats :p
By about 9.30 my contractions were about 7 mins apart and I figured I’d better give the Wesley a call – just to make myself known and to see if they wanted me to come in considering the Strep factor and my hasty labour last time. The midwife I spoke to was fairly casual about it to start with, but when I mentioned that Charlotte had arrived within 3 hours (and it was going to be a half hour trip), she suggested it may be worthwhile coming in.
Being late on a Sunday night we had a smooth journey in, with my contractions ranging between 4 and 8 mins apart. I was shown through to the labour ward, with some relief that I couldn’t see the midwife I’d had last time! The first midwife I saw was great – extremely efficient and down to earth, and I nearly felt like crying when about ˝ an hour after I’d arrived, she said ‘I’ll just insert the canula and then I’ll be off.’ That done (4 attempts later..left hand, right hand, left hand, left wrist – and even then I ended up with a very small needle because they couldn’t find an appropriate vein for anything else) and the shift change happened and I was introduced to my new midwife Gabby. She started monitoring and checking through the tonnes of paperwork, while Joel fell asleep in the recliner. She raised an eyebrow at this, but I said to just let him be – it had already been a long day, and he needed his energy for when things got exciting! My contractions were coming 3 in 10 and measuring up to 55, but Gabby was laughing at me saying that other than the fact you could see a contraction occurring on the monitor, you could hardly tell I was in labour as I was in such high spirits! After a while, she took the monitoring band off me and left, and for the life of my I wasn’t sure what to do...with Charlotte I was constantly monitored therefore ‘stuck’ to the bed, whereas now I had freedom and wasn’t sure what would be best! For a while (I think it was till about midnight) I lay there watching the 20-20 IPL cricket match that was on (Joel had the remote tucked over under his arm :rolleyes:), then got up and went for a wander to the gym ball...sat on it for a while, getting off only to retrieve the gas when I felt I needed it. When Gabby came back I let her know that I was starting to feel sensation down below and she decided to do a VE (I was really surprised that this hadn’t been done earlier)...to my horror I was still only 4cm – I was sure it was so much more. Even so, I reiterated that last time it went from this to 10cm in under an hour and she decided to give the ob on duty a ring, just to keep her in the loop. When she came back I’d started to feel queasy (from the gas? the pain? A bit of both?) and no sooner than a ‘dish’ arrived I filled it – so much for my beautiful steak dinner....at the same time I believe my waters broke, but wasn’t sure – last time there had been an audible ‘pop’ on the monitor and an absolute gush – this time it just felt a little damp. Gabby was unable to distinguish exactly when it did occur (and started to consider the night before, which would have been a concern with the Step) so took tests. She came and sat in with me (I’d returned back to the bed by this stage – felt sort of silly hanging around) and asked lots of questions about life in general – I thought it was a bit odd until later I realised that she was just hanging around to see what actually was occurring in terms of how I was dealing with it all. She did another VE and I was 8cm and starting to feel like I needed to push. She rang the ob (with my strong encouragement) and by this stage Joel was starting to come to with all the noise and chatting. I was feeling lots of strong ,strong urges and was grateful to hear that Nikki had arrived – my first thought though when this ‘little’ female walked in was ‘what good’s she going to be if it needs suction (like C did)’ – she may be little, but she’s certainly no frills about her approach to dealing with pregnant women!!
The first thing Nikki did was make me turn off the gas – much to my distress :laughing: She did an examination and said less than half an hour (but I had no idea of what time it was to see if she was actually right!) My only real memories of the next period of time, if feeling like I was splitting in two – with Charlotte I’d had an episiotomy, whereas here, I just felt like I was being stretched and it HURT! Each time, they wanted me to try another push, and I just felt like my body was piking on me - I was buggered and was starting to get seriously worried about whether or not I was going to be able to do this. Even when Nikki announced the bub had dark hair, I felt no sense of relief knowing that there was an end in sight. Joel stayed with me encouraging me, getting me to drop my chin and generally just dealing with me saying ‘I caaaannntttt!!!’ I told Nikki that Charlotte had needed a little help with the suction and she basically said, you can do this without,’ but then there was a little flurry of action and the kiwi cup was attached – with even more fanfare of pain – it hurt too – I seriously felt stretched and felt like begging for an episiotomy!!
I was later to find out that the baby’s heart rate had dropped – or so they believed at the time – he scored 9 on the first APGAR, so was obviously just playing with us! Mitchell Campbell arrived in the world at 2.31am on Monday the 5th of May 2008 :goodvibes:(also International Midwife’s Day, so he’s got a little shirt “A Midwife Helped Me Out” to commemorate). He weighed 8 pd 7 (3850g) and was 52cm long. From the get go, he had wide alert eyes, long eyelashes and the most gorgeous looking mouth... though I do remember saying to Joel “he’s not as nice looking as Charlotte was” – the things that come out of our mouths at the end of the journey :laughing: Mitchell has been a much loved and much welcomed addition to the family!