Love, bubs and life on our little farm

Its a long one, I wanted to record everything I could remember so feel free to just skim. We had hoped for an active labour with lots of support from my husband. Fortunately we were also very open minded about what might actually happen as I am afraid my labour was far from active! Of course I would do it all again for my little Princess.

I had been experiencing prelabour for two weeks – regular 10 minute Braxton hicks that would drop to about 20 minutes at night. They drove me nuts and served to get Jase and Mum excited that it was labour quite a few times! It didn’t help that my obs kept getting excited at every weekly appointment and saying that he would see me in hospital within the next few days – hmm three weeks of him saying that and I was not so convinced! Sleep was pretty difficult and I was disappointed to feel myself getting weaker and less rested as the time wore on. But I continued to rest and relax and do lovely outings, long walks and shopping with Mum and Jase, soaking up the free time that we so rarely get! Around Thursday the 12th of June, the Braxton hicks began to get more uncomfortable and incorporated some back pain and lower pelvic cramping and I noticed bubs head feeling very low and heavy, making walking a slow process. I sent Mum home for the weekend on Friday the 13th and spent the day doing my last nesting jobs that I had planned for my pre-baby maternity leave. My lower back was really aching and my pelvis had that periody ache to it… that afternoon I had a bloody show – I finally felt like something might happen.

Jase and I spent Saturday walking around a nearby lake and driving over bumpy roads and were disappointed that all seemed to have settled down and I was just back to a few painful Braxton hicks and most just being painless tightenings. By then I was OVER it and had banned timing of them – I didn’t want to know! On Sunday the 15th of June, we tried some of the old wives tales to speed things up – including the usual couple time ;) and also some more walking, a really good cry (watching PS I Love You – its such a sweet memory of both of us tearing up) and eating pineapple! Well something worked – we did the groceries that afternoon and I could barely walk with all the pelvic aching and pain I was experiencing... again I banned any timing of contractions, had a shower and headed to bed. I had my suspicions that this was it but didn’t want to get my hopes up so just slept…

As per recent nights, a strong painful contraction woke me at 1.30am (16th June) – I headed to the loo and settled back in bed. Another woke me up so I sleepily checked the clock and noticed that it was only 10 minutes later and it had been equally as painful as the prior one. By the third one at 10 minutes later again, my breathing through it had woken Jase… I told him that this felt like it was actually going somewhere and asked him to make me a warm milo and some biscuits to eat as I felt a little nauseous and wanted something in my stomach. We settled into bed to watch crap night tv and to wait excitedly… but then I noticed that the contractions were dropping to 6 minutes apart. We live semi-rural and the hospital is a fair drive and they had told us to start heading in once contractions were under 10 minutes, so now we had to get moving! I jumped in the shower and washed my hair – much to Jases amusement I also blow dried it and applied some make-up – not sure what I was thinking! I guess I just figured it might be my last chance to look tidy for a long time! By the time I rung the hospital, I was having trouble talking and walking through the pain… we tidied the house, put out food for the animals and finished packing my hospital bag. As organised as we had been, Jase still had to go out and repair the chicken feeder in the dark at 3am – there is always something that gets overlooked! We locked up, walked to the car under the beautiful bright moonlight and realised that next time we drove back in our little farm, life would be very different.

I called my parents on the way in and let them know – they are a two hour drive away so they decided to head up to our place in the morning to take care of all the animals and wait for news. Contractions sped up to 4 minutes apart in the car and we were glad to pull into the hospital car park! The security guard was waiting to escort us to the mat ward – which he did at a very fast walk leaving me well and truly behind! I mean I would have thought it was usual for the labouring women he escorts to need a slower pace! The midwives welcomed us at the birthing suite front desk and said I looked way too smiley to be in labour (hehe the blow dried hair and make-up probable didn’t help)! They moved us into a birth suite and explained that there were three other ladies coming in that night (only 4 birth suites) and another 4 expected that morning so it was going to be a busy day.. It was about 4am and they placed me on the monitors. I had nice strong contractions and bubs heart rate was good, it was all looking promising. Then the midwife did an internal and boy did her face drop! Despite all my prelabour pains and strong contractions, I wasn’t dilated at all!!! She could force a finger through which then made me 0.5cm. I was almost completely effaced however so something had been happening. She explained that this meant it was going to be a long labour – she thought I wouldn’t get to 5cm until midday and then 1cm an hour from then on. So she was warning us not to expect bubs until Monday night… They decided to keep me in the suite however which surprised me since they were so busy.

Jase and I were keen for an active labour and had read Juju Sudin’s Birth Skills so we decided to get up and move around and not worry about times/dilation etc. We had a lovely shower together – loving that it wasn’t our tank water that we had to worry about preserving! I leant on the bed through the contractions and used my breathing to breathe the pain out, I paced the room and tried the bounce ball. The hours flew and soon it was 8am in the morning and we were waiting for our obs to drop in. He eventually got to us and was in a huge rush (he lacks somewhat in bedside manner unfortunately). He did a quick internal and I was only 1cm so he grabbed the hook and broke my waters and demanded I be put on a synto drip. In this instance I lost my active labour as I was now required to be on the monitoring machines :(. I managed to negotiate with the midwife that I could have one more shower before the drip was inserted. During this shower, the contractions really increased in severity and became rapid and my waters were coming out in gushes. Unfortunately, my waters had meconium in them so now I was very definitely placed on the bed with monitoring. The nurse inserted the synto and the contractions ramped up even more. I really began to struggle with the intensity and speed of the contractions – they were insanely painful and so strong that they were forcing my lower abdomen to push. Because I wasn’t dilated enough I was pushing against my own tight muscles and it was incredibly painful. We tried the gas but the contractions came on so fast and intense I couldn’t get enough gas in before the peak of the contraction and was just hyperventilating. I found grunting and moaning more effective against the pain than trying to keep the gas thing in my mouth! At this stage I was like a wild thing and I could see discomfort in Jason’s face whilst he watched me and tried to coach me through it. I was frantic, crying and thrashing, desperately saying to Jason how was I going to do this for another 8 hours or so – I had never expected to be dealing with constant strong contractions so early into the labour/dilation whilst being made to lie down. I was asked if I wanted an epidural as the ladies in the birthing suites on either side of me were having them and the anaesthetist was on his way. Now I had hoped to not need to go down the epidural path as I had wanted to avoid interventions but unfortunately the breaking of my waters and synto drip had already caused my labour to be unnaturally strong and I didn’t know how I could cope.

I agreed to the epi and then had the long wait for it to be my turn! It was difficult to get the epi in as the contractions were nearly impossible to sit still through and there was basically no breaks between them, but eventually it was done. Straight away it was obvious that it had not worked well – there was a large window of pain throughout the lower right of my abdomen. They tried a few different positions but nothing much helped. However, the severe level of pain had been relieved and I relaxed in discomfort rather than agony for an hour or two. It was midday by now. By 2pm I had become very uncomfortable again – the pain had overridden any relief that the epidural had offered and I was panting and groaning through the contractions again – the pain had moved into my lower back also and I was feeling contractions and burning throughout it. The midwives gave me two large top ups of the epidural drug but nothing would touch the back pain. Now I was incredibly uncomfortable as the extra drug doses had completely numbed my legs to my groin and I couldn’t stay up in the bed. Lying flat was worst for my back pain so it became very awkward. Jason found my dead legs that kept flopping off the end of the bed amusing but I was less impressed!

By examination at about 4pm, I was 8cm dilated so there wasn’t time to call back the anaesthetist to try and fix things. I was assured that bub would be out very soon so I continued to struggle through the constant contractions and insane back pain. The obs checked me at about 6pm, helped her move past my cervix lip with me pushing and declared things ready to continue pushing. More synto was given to me to try and space the contractions out as they were basically constant and not dropping before peaking again. This made them super strong again and I don’t remember much as the pain, particularly the back pain, was taking over everything. I pushed and pushed which made the back pain worse. Jase was the only reason I could keep pushing, his gentle encouragement was what I focused on through the haze.

After one and half hours of pushing, the obs stormed in and was shocked as bub hadn’t moved despite the enormous contractions. I wasn’t surprised – despite trying my hardest with the pushing, I couldn’t feel her moving down the birth canal at all – she was still right at the top. The obs very helpfully kept telling me “something is wrong, something is wrong, we are getting this baby out”! All of a sudden it was all hands on deck and I was up in stirrups, the obs was in a gown and gumboots and he was trying to vacuum her out. I was pushing as much as I could but it still wasn’t enough. He asked for episotomy scissors and I tuned in, having basically not spoken to anyone in hours, and demanded a local! He had to cut twice, cutting deeper through my muscle and start more vacuuming, the pulling was intense - I never thought she was going to come but then her head finally crowned. She was so big compared to me so it took a hell of a lot more pushing and strong pulling from the obs to even get her shoulders and body out! It was pretty epic! But then she was up on my chest and it was all over at 8.03pm. I was marvelling at her dark hair and olive skin like her Dad and despite the rough entry to the world she looked perfect just with a little egg on her head which was gone by morning. I had lots of skin to skin time and Elka had a breastfeed and Jase got to weigh her. The stitching took forever but apparently my obs has a great reputation for excellent stitching so I didn’t complain. While I was being stitched, the obs explained I was just too small through the birthing canal and that I wasn’t a good shape for giving birth. Yep after that ordeal I believed him! I don’t think my strong pelvic floor muscles from horseriding helped either. The midwife bent the rules and let my mum, dad and brother come into the birth suite and we had a lovely visit... then after wash for bub and I, it was off to our room for a night of sleep :).

We had a great hospital stay with a double bed private room so that Jase could stay and learn and bond with Elka also. The midwives were so patient and we asked and learnt a lot. We were quite confident new parents by the end and were continually asked if we were really first time parents! My baby blues lasted about 10 minutes when I had a little boohoo as I had been told that Elka had some slight jaundice! Oh and when they took her away in the middle of the night for her heelprick test and didn’t bring her back for 40 minutes. She is sleeping and feeding like a champ and I am amazed at the level of emotions I am experiencing. I am feeling pretty well physically and am shocked at how fast the preggy tummy disappears. I can’t remember being a big whale anymore! Also I am loving being able to roll over in bed I must admit ;).

The anaesthetist contacted me the next day to discuss the epidural and its failure. He explained that the back pain was caused by her head pressing nerves in my tight birth canal and he said that it was basically impossible to block these nerves with an epidural :(. So now I am pretty darn frightened of trying to birth number two vaginally which makes me sad – it’s so hard when it’s your own body that is the problem!

But as I said I would do it all again as I am so in love with my little girl and I love seeing Jase be such a proud Dad. Life is just wonderful.

Elka Gwendoline – her middle name is after my late grandmother.
16 June 2008 – her due date, 8.03pm.
3.81kg (8 pounds 6), head circumference 36.2cm, length 52cm, Apgars of 9 and 9.