razzle
21-03-2007, 09:17 AM
It's Eloise's third birthday today, I thought I'd share my birth experience... such wonderful memories of such a special little girl. How the time has flown, yet I remember this day three years ago, like it was three days ago... (actually that's a lie, because my memory is completely shot now and I can't actually remember what happened three days ago...!) Anyway, I remember this!!
*****
Eloise was due on Thursday, 18th of March 2004. I was well and truly ready for her to come out at least seven and a half weeks prior to that. I’d packed the “scary red bag” (my hospital suitcase) and it had been sitting in the doorway of the nursery for about a month. It also came with us in the car if we went any further than about 10 minutes away from home!
On Saturday the 20th morning my waters broke at about 4.30am. I didn’t panic or wake Rhys, just sat at the kitchen table counting the minutes, reading my birth book (yet again) and drinking tea. By 5.00am I’d had enough, already forgotten what was in the much thumbed birth book, and decided to wake DP who immediately leapt out of bed and started to mumble incoherently about the ‘scary red bag’ and phoning his parents in Melbourne (we were living in Murray Bridge, SA at that time). I handed him a coffee and told him to calm down. He phoned his parents at around 6am and told them to start driving (they arrived from Melbourne, an 8 hour drive, at about 8pm that night).
I phoned the hospital and they told me to take it easy and come in when I was ready, no rush. So we go up to the hospital at about 8.30am and I’m put on a foetal monitor. The contractions are showing up at 2 minutes apart – who would have guessed. I’m thinking ‘pfft... this is pretty easy!!’ Little did I know!! The midwife did an internal and there was no dilation. I hang out at the hospital, walking… walking… walking, and at 1.00pm my OB does an internal. Nothing. Contractions are still strong and every 2 to 5 minutes apart - not regular enough, so I am sent home to take it easy. I shower all afternoon, the only thing that seems to ease the pain, and try to absorb the information in the birth book.
At 7pm the pain is starting to wear me down so we go back to the hospital and see my OB, who after a very painful internal informs us that there is still no dilation. His suggestion is to take a couple of Panadeine Forte for the pain and sit it out. I jokingly ask him for a caesar and he takes me seriously and starts explaining. In the end we agree to wait until morning and see what happens.
I take the Panadeine Forte (like putting a Band-Aid on a stab wound!) and try and get some sleep. This doesn’t happen easily and I lie awake most of the night alternating between lying on my side panting and crunching up in pain. DP snores in the other bed next to me.
At 7.00am on Sunday morning DP goes home to shower and change, promising to be back in an hour. His parents had arrived last night and were at our house waiting for news. My contractions are still painful and regular but my breakfast comes and I’m quite happy to sit on the end of the bed eat my toast and drink my cup of tea. All of a sudden the pain gets really, REALLY intense and I only just manage to grab the sick bag before heaving breakfast up (to this day I can not eat honey on toast!). I literally cannot move the pain is so bad. I turn around to look for the buzzer, but its way on the other end of the bed and can’t move to grab it. So I sit there looking at the clock timing my contractions as best I can and praying that DP is, for once, on time. He isn’t – and has obviously got caught up talking to his parents (as usual).
I sit there until about 9am when a midwife looks in on me asks the crucial question – “are you OK?” Mmmm let me just think…. NO! She immediately comes over and gives me a huge hug, which makes me dissolve into tears, and we struggle towards the birthing suite. I tell another midwife to please phone DP. Too late - halfway down the hall (which is only about 10 metres long but took me half an hour to navigate!) we’re met by an apologetic DP, yes he did get caught up talking to his parents, and my mother (on the phone) who we believe is on her way to the hospital.
My midwife does another internal and there is still NO dilation. I’m thinking ‘oh great’ we have to sit this out until it happens. She gives me a raspberry cordial to drink, bizarrely thinking that this might help bring on labour (she'd read an article about raspberry leaf tea). Then I throw it up on her. As she’s cleaning herself up, I realise that she only has one arm – seriously! I pray she didn’t use the prosthetic one for the internal! I think I make a weird "I've had no sleep in over 24 hours" joke about the one armed doctor on ER. No one laughs, and in the uncomfortable silence that follows, DP looks at me like I'm a lunatic.
I have a shower to try and ease the pain a bit, which works, even though the water is not nearly hot enough. My OB comes in around 10.00am and does another internal, but there’s STILL no dilation. “Fabulous”, I think, “I'm broken.” He starts talking about putting me on the syntocinon drip, which will apparently speed up labour but would have no guarantee that I would dilate. “No good” I say, “I haven’t slept in over 30 hours, just slice me open and lets get the little bugger out!”
A whirlwind of activity follows, in which I try to take the gas (which does absolutely nothing) and relax, and everyone else runs around trying to organise a caesarean. As it's a Sunday, they have to call in extra staff, I'm happy that they'll receive double time!! I’m taken down to surgery and given an epidural – no easy task when contractions are hitting me in what feels like every 20 seconds. I’m already hunched over in pain, so I’m in the right position! The drugs hit me like a ton of feathers and I looovvveee this feeling. I have no idea what they’re doing down there, they keep asking if I’m OK. “Sure” I say and we carry on having a conversation like we’re all waiting for a bus. I can feel a slight tugging sensation but that’s about it. In fact, the only thing that's really bothering me is the radio in the background, tuned to the local radio station, at which both DP and I worked. I can hear my boss announcing, and my own and DP's voice on commercials. I have to get them to switch it off!! Eeeuuwww!! It's like my boss is in the room with us!
All of a sudden, I hear a squelchy kind of gurgle and the doctor holds up this gooey, squirmy thing. DP gasps... “It’s a little girl!” in the most amazed, awed, and overwhelmed voice – I’ll never forget it – and she’s held up for me to see. My eyes tear up and I'm wishing I had've kept my glasses on, all I can see is a blurry, red thing. Then I remember the goo factor, and I remember why I took them off. They whisk her over to the other side of the room to clean her up and DP is invited to come over and cut the cord. He tells me later it was like cutting calamari with blunt scissors. She’s all wrapped up, and DP holds her, just studying her, until I’m sewn back together. He places her in my arms and we stare at each other for the longest time. I feel like no one else exists. We breastfeed all the way back to my room.
As we’re being wheeled up to my room and told that all the grandparents are in the waiting room. “Well” I say to DP, “It’s called a ‘waiting room’ for a reason and they can all jolly well wait ‘til we’re ready!” I finished feeding her and half an hour later they’re all invited in. We introduce Eloise Cameron (named for her great grandmother Ellen, who sadly passed when I was 4 months pregnant, my middle name Louise, and her father’s middle name Cameron), born at 11.35am on Sunday the 21st of March, weighing 3.69kg (or 8lb2oz for the oldies), measuring 53 cm long with a head circumference of 32cm, to her grandparents.
I can't wait to do it all again.
*****
Eloise was due on Thursday, 18th of March 2004. I was well and truly ready for her to come out at least seven and a half weeks prior to that. I’d packed the “scary red bag” (my hospital suitcase) and it had been sitting in the doorway of the nursery for about a month. It also came with us in the car if we went any further than about 10 minutes away from home!
On Saturday the 20th morning my waters broke at about 4.30am. I didn’t panic or wake Rhys, just sat at the kitchen table counting the minutes, reading my birth book (yet again) and drinking tea. By 5.00am I’d had enough, already forgotten what was in the much thumbed birth book, and decided to wake DP who immediately leapt out of bed and started to mumble incoherently about the ‘scary red bag’ and phoning his parents in Melbourne (we were living in Murray Bridge, SA at that time). I handed him a coffee and told him to calm down. He phoned his parents at around 6am and told them to start driving (they arrived from Melbourne, an 8 hour drive, at about 8pm that night).
I phoned the hospital and they told me to take it easy and come in when I was ready, no rush. So we go up to the hospital at about 8.30am and I’m put on a foetal monitor. The contractions are showing up at 2 minutes apart – who would have guessed. I’m thinking ‘pfft... this is pretty easy!!’ Little did I know!! The midwife did an internal and there was no dilation. I hang out at the hospital, walking… walking… walking, and at 1.00pm my OB does an internal. Nothing. Contractions are still strong and every 2 to 5 minutes apart - not regular enough, so I am sent home to take it easy. I shower all afternoon, the only thing that seems to ease the pain, and try to absorb the information in the birth book.
At 7pm the pain is starting to wear me down so we go back to the hospital and see my OB, who after a very painful internal informs us that there is still no dilation. His suggestion is to take a couple of Panadeine Forte for the pain and sit it out. I jokingly ask him for a caesar and he takes me seriously and starts explaining. In the end we agree to wait until morning and see what happens.
I take the Panadeine Forte (like putting a Band-Aid on a stab wound!) and try and get some sleep. This doesn’t happen easily and I lie awake most of the night alternating between lying on my side panting and crunching up in pain. DP snores in the other bed next to me.
At 7.00am on Sunday morning DP goes home to shower and change, promising to be back in an hour. His parents had arrived last night and were at our house waiting for news. My contractions are still painful and regular but my breakfast comes and I’m quite happy to sit on the end of the bed eat my toast and drink my cup of tea. All of a sudden the pain gets really, REALLY intense and I only just manage to grab the sick bag before heaving breakfast up (to this day I can not eat honey on toast!). I literally cannot move the pain is so bad. I turn around to look for the buzzer, but its way on the other end of the bed and can’t move to grab it. So I sit there looking at the clock timing my contractions as best I can and praying that DP is, for once, on time. He isn’t – and has obviously got caught up talking to his parents (as usual).
I sit there until about 9am when a midwife looks in on me asks the crucial question – “are you OK?” Mmmm let me just think…. NO! She immediately comes over and gives me a huge hug, which makes me dissolve into tears, and we struggle towards the birthing suite. I tell another midwife to please phone DP. Too late - halfway down the hall (which is only about 10 metres long but took me half an hour to navigate!) we’re met by an apologetic DP, yes he did get caught up talking to his parents, and my mother (on the phone) who we believe is on her way to the hospital.
My midwife does another internal and there is still NO dilation. I’m thinking ‘oh great’ we have to sit this out until it happens. She gives me a raspberry cordial to drink, bizarrely thinking that this might help bring on labour (she'd read an article about raspberry leaf tea). Then I throw it up on her. As she’s cleaning herself up, I realise that she only has one arm – seriously! I pray she didn’t use the prosthetic one for the internal! I think I make a weird "I've had no sleep in over 24 hours" joke about the one armed doctor on ER. No one laughs, and in the uncomfortable silence that follows, DP looks at me like I'm a lunatic.
I have a shower to try and ease the pain a bit, which works, even though the water is not nearly hot enough. My OB comes in around 10.00am and does another internal, but there’s STILL no dilation. “Fabulous”, I think, “I'm broken.” He starts talking about putting me on the syntocinon drip, which will apparently speed up labour but would have no guarantee that I would dilate. “No good” I say, “I haven’t slept in over 30 hours, just slice me open and lets get the little bugger out!”
A whirlwind of activity follows, in which I try to take the gas (which does absolutely nothing) and relax, and everyone else runs around trying to organise a caesarean. As it's a Sunday, they have to call in extra staff, I'm happy that they'll receive double time!! I’m taken down to surgery and given an epidural – no easy task when contractions are hitting me in what feels like every 20 seconds. I’m already hunched over in pain, so I’m in the right position! The drugs hit me like a ton of feathers and I looovvveee this feeling. I have no idea what they’re doing down there, they keep asking if I’m OK. “Sure” I say and we carry on having a conversation like we’re all waiting for a bus. I can feel a slight tugging sensation but that’s about it. In fact, the only thing that's really bothering me is the radio in the background, tuned to the local radio station, at which both DP and I worked. I can hear my boss announcing, and my own and DP's voice on commercials. I have to get them to switch it off!! Eeeuuwww!! It's like my boss is in the room with us!
All of a sudden, I hear a squelchy kind of gurgle and the doctor holds up this gooey, squirmy thing. DP gasps... “It’s a little girl!” in the most amazed, awed, and overwhelmed voice – I’ll never forget it – and she’s held up for me to see. My eyes tear up and I'm wishing I had've kept my glasses on, all I can see is a blurry, red thing. Then I remember the goo factor, and I remember why I took them off. They whisk her over to the other side of the room to clean her up and DP is invited to come over and cut the cord. He tells me later it was like cutting calamari with blunt scissors. She’s all wrapped up, and DP holds her, just studying her, until I’m sewn back together. He places her in my arms and we stare at each other for the longest time. I feel like no one else exists. We breastfeed all the way back to my room.
As we’re being wheeled up to my room and told that all the grandparents are in the waiting room. “Well” I say to DP, “It’s called a ‘waiting room’ for a reason and they can all jolly well wait ‘til we’re ready!” I finished feeding her and half an hour later they’re all invited in. We introduce Eloise Cameron (named for her great grandmother Ellen, who sadly passed when I was 4 months pregnant, my middle name Louise, and her father’s middle name Cameron), born at 11.35am on Sunday the 21st of March, weighing 3.69kg (or 8lb2oz for the oldies), measuring 53 cm long with a head circumference of 32cm, to her grandparents.
I can't wait to do it all again.