English Rose

This is a long one – the story of Zoe’s birth. It took me a few days to write and process myself, I don’t think I really began to comprehend what had happened until the second week.

Thurs 7th September (38 weeks) – had routine midwife appointment in the morning. I was one of the last to be seen, which meant a lot of sitting around waiting. The nurse took my blood pressure and checked my urine and found my bp was higher than normal and there was protein in my urine. When I saw the midwife she rechecked my bp and it had gotten higher, which combined with the massive amounts of swelling I had, she decided wasn’t good so sent me off to the hospital for the afternoon for a blood pressure profile. She warned me they were busy and told me to take a book (which, of course, I did). I spent 2 hours being monitered at the hospital, listening to the baby’s heartbeat and having my blood pressure checked regularly. It didn’t come down over the afternoon. At 4pm I was told I had to wait and see a doctor who would tell me what was wrong and what would happen. By 5:15 I still hadn’t seen a doctor and the unit was closing for the day. Next thing I knew, a nurse was coming to take me to the ward, which was the first I’d heard about it. She told me (as if I should have known this all along) that I would be staying over night. I don’t like hospitals and was annoyed at the way they’d handled it, so to say I was anxious is probably an understatement. I phoned Duncan in tears and he came straight from work to the hospital. In the meantime, I saw the doctor who first told me I would be kept in and monitered at least overnight and then came back to tell me that, as I was 38 weeks and considered full term, I would be induced either that night or the next morning. Cue slightly more freaking out on my part. Duncan arrived shortly after and I filled him in. The midwife on duty then explained what would happen next and I begged to be allowed home for an hour to get my stuff together – packing my hospital bag had been the following week’s job. She reluctantly agreed and we got a taxi home and I dashed round the house getting things together. We got back to the hospital an hour later and we were taken to the labour ward, where I was strapped to a monitor again for an hour. Eventually, they did an internal and gave me the first dose of prostaglandin suppository. By this time it was midnight so Duncan left to get some sleep and I was supposed to do the same. Needless to say I didn’t sleep. I spent most of the night peeing in bedpans (so they could monitor my urine output – there’s nothing more embarrassing than having to annouce to a different midwife each time that you’ve peed in a bedpan and left it in the room for them to test. I had to do this for 2 days.) and tossing and turning listening to the woman in the next bed moaning in pain. By 4:30am I gave up on sleep and listened to some music (to block out the moaning).

Friday – At 8am, they put me back on the monitor to see how baby was doing. (Throughout the entire weekend, she was completely fine and in no danger whatsoever. It was just me that was the problem). I was, by now, a little freaked out by the screaming coming from the woman next to me. She was hysterical about how much pain she was in and, it turned out, she was only 1cm dilated. I began to wonder if I’d be able to handle it when/if I did go into labour. Another internal (by a student midwife, which was not at all nice) was done and showed nothing had happened so another dose was given and then Duncan arrived. We spent the day walking round the hospital and sitting and waiting. 5pm came and I was given another internal but still nothing. They couldn’t give me a 3rd dose until the next morning so they very kindly moved me to a private room so I could get some sleep. Duncan stayed until around 9pm and then left so we could both get some sleep. We were told that if the 2 induction attempts on Saturday failed, I’d be having a caesarian so we knew that, by the end of the weekend, we’d be parents.

Saturday – Again, at 8am, I was stuck on the monitor before having my 3rd dose of prostaglandin. Duncan arrived just after and, again, we spent the morning walking round the hospital grounds. It seemed to do something being on my feet, gravity was starting to bring the head further down but at the next check at 4pm, there was still nothing so I got the last dose. We walked around a lot more and by 7pm, I had my TENS machine on because I was getting terrible back ache in fairly regular waves. We really thought something might finally have started. However, we didn’t find out because they didn’t even bother with the last internal. At 10pm, the midwife and doctor came in to say that because my urine output had fallen off significantly, they were concerned about my kidney output and wanted to get the baby out as soon as possible so I would be having a semi-emergency c-section within the hour. A consent form was waved under my nose, which I signed. I was now so tired I’d have done pretty much anything to have it all over. By this time the pain had spread from my back to the top of my legs as well and was enough to take my breath away at times. We made a quick call to our mums to let them know what was going on (my mum was crying and completely stressed out. She kept saying how brave I was but I didn’t feel it. I was just doing what had to be done.) We were led down to theatre and Duncan went off to get changed whilst I was treated like a pin cushion. It took them 4 attempts to get the spinal in because of the swelling round my lower back. Unfortunately they hadn’t given me enough local anaesthetic for the first 3 attempts and I could feel almost everything. It was not fun. But when they finally got it in, it was nice to finally have the back ache stop. They let Duncan in and he sat by my head holding my hand. The op was fairly quick – 5 minutes from first cut to Zoe coming out – but very messy. Duncan said he looked round the screen once and saw loads of blood and was completely freaked out. They brought Zoe to us for a few seconds so I could see her and they took her off to be weighed and checked. They brought her back a couple of minutes later and gave her to Duncan to hold whilst they stitched me up. Eventually we were wheeled back to our room and after I was hooked up to the various drips and things, they helped me breastfeed Zoe for the first time. Duncan stayed until 3:30am before leaving to get some sleep. Unfortunately I couldn’t look after Zoe because I was still mostly numb and completely confined to bed so the midwife took her for the rest of the night so I could get some sleep. I felt, at that point, utterly useless that I couldn’t even pick my own daughter up when she cried. (obviously I know it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t but still.)

I stayed in hospital until Tuesday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon I was off the drip and had managed to have a shower (which felt wonderful) and by Monday lunch time I was dressed and walking about. I was utterly determined to be home asap as I felt that being in hospital was only adding to my anxiety and not helping my blood pressure. I eventually discharged myself on Tuesday – they wanted me to stay 24 more hours to monitor me on the new tablets they’d put me on for my bp but I knew I’d be much more relaxed at home (and I was right.) My blood pressure is slowly coming down and I’m on the road to recoveryfrom the section. The one benefit of pre-eclampsia was that of the 2.5 stone I’d put on during the pregnancy, a large amount was fluid retention and I now only have 7lbs to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight and I can already get my normal jeans back on 🙂

It’s been a steep learning curve for us and Zoe, not least with breastfeeding. We really didn’t get the hang of it until 8 days when my milk finally came in but since then she’s mostly been brilliant with the feeding, although I do find it draining – especially the cluster feeding in the evening when it seems all she does is feed. I do get frustrated that Duncan can’t help with the feeding but I don’t want her to have more formula (she had to have some in hospital because she wasn’t getting enough from me) and I don’t want to express and confuse her with the bottle just yet. I attended a local breastfeeding support group this week which was a big help, just from a confidence point of view if nothing else. The only other problem is sleeping – Zoe still hasn’t got the hang of day and night which has been fine whilst Duncan is able to help out by sitting up with her but he goes back to work on Monday so won’t be able to anymore (which is fair enough). I’m dreading him going back to work, if I’m honest, I’m not at all sure how I’m gonna cope alone all day and still manage to get things done like dinner and the washing. I’m still not allowed to do things like vacuuming so he’s still responsible for most of the housework, which will help for a while at least.

I’m gonna leave the ‘how I feel as a mum’ stuff for another entry cos I think this one’s long enough.

Until there is a next time…

xx