We've been home from the hospital since Tuesday afternoon & already I have so very much that I want to share - my brain has a million thoughts and emotions right now, it's hard to keep them all orgainzed! I'm going to start with the 'birth story' and see where it leads us. This is a long post; it's going to be my only record of the experience. I won't be offended if you don't read the whole thing!
Fact - walking, lifting and general exercise can bring on labour. Looking back at it now, I am convinced that the combination of my last 'nesting' project (in particular, moving the free weights, all 10 of them upstairs), the amount of walking I did on Friday, Jan 29 & the visit to my OB (during which she checked my cervix) started my labour.
Fact - contractions often (as in usually) begin befor the waters break, leaving many women, including me, to wonder 'hmmm, are these contractions or am I just feeling a little crampy today?'
So...not really knowing what was happening I spent all night Friday on the extra sofa timing my "cramps", length and time in between - thus the earlier post at 3:30am! When the cramps became freakishly regular, spaced very close together AND began to last longer than a few seconds, I woke up Michael and called the hospital.
We arrived at BC Womens Hospital at 7:30am or so on Saturday, Jan 30...This is when things really got going - again because insisted on walking rather than get wheeled up to birth rooms! I have now been in stage 1 labour for about 12 hours, not uncommon for first time moms and totally bearable.
The doctor suggested that he break my water to get things moving (or they might just send me home!)...um, NOT going home & yep, once he did this 'things' moved much more quickly and suddenly I was having 2 to 3 contractions every 10mins and got about 6 or 7cm dilated and feeling quite a different level of PAIN; nothing I read or heard from others prepared me for that!To make this part of my story short, I'll say this...things stalled at 7cm dilated...at 7pm...still Jan 30.
At shift change, my new nurse (who BTW was amazing, he was all business but had a great demeanour!) suggested that I get in the tub; um, HEAVEN! Labouring in a bath of toasty warm water took the edge off the pain and made my whole body feel totally relaxed...
Have I mentioned yet that I opted for NO pain meds, none...the entire delivery.
At any rate the toasty bath worked like a charm & I entered stage two (pushing) labour at about 8pm...this part of labour is a real bitch. The pain is unbelieveable. The whole 'pushing' thing is not what you expect - where to direct the pressure, the focus on what's going on between your legs - I will never again be overly body conscious; let's be honest, once you've had a dozen or so folks staring at your vagina for hours, monitoring your bodily fluids and generally observing you at your most vulnerable who cares!
I want to say that Michael was a trooper through the whole thing. I appear to be dying from the pain, he can't do anything to help me but having him there to scream with me, grip my hands with more force than you can imagine and help me remember to breathe was exactly what I needed.
Back to labour - I pushed for 3hrs, no pain meds and the little bugger (baby that is) was just not going to make an appearance. We stared at the tip of his head, slid forward & then rock back inside - a real stubborn little guy! We decided to help things along with a little oxycotin. This should have increased my contractions but it didn't and now things are getting serious because our ray of sunshine is no longer recovering from the contractions, meaning that it's taking a long time for his heart rate to come back up. Enter, the doctor and a little thing called a "vacuum"...it's essentially a small hand pumped, suction cup that is placed on the crown of the baby's head; this give the doctor leverage to literally pull the baby out, with me still pushing with every contraction. The only issue with this procedure is that it hurts like bloody hell! You want to talk about a 'ring of fire', I am now an expert on that topic.
Unfortunately for me I still could not get Christopher out...stubborn, stubborn, stubborn! The doctor made a decision to perform an episiotomy to open me up further - in English, he cut the tissues around the vaginal opening - it's called the perineum and I want to remind you - NO PAIN meds.
Suffice to say, this was all that was needed and with the next 2 contractions Christopher slid into the world with barley a scream (which scared the living hell out of me) - totally relaxed and ready to breastfeed, he went immediately onto the boob (I litterally mean that he squirmed his way, on his own, to my breast, with no direction or assistance from me) & I immediately began to cry & laugh all at the same time - the emotion of giving birth cannot be explained, it can only be experienced.
That's it, that's the birth of Christopher Paul William Bajada & in my very biased opinion he's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen and is perfect in every way.
