Jazz, aka Libby the Liberty Taker is now aka The Turd Burglar.
If you're picturing a dog on its hind legs, hunched over and tip toeing stealthily and looking shiftily left and right with front paws up in true Scooby Doo style, you're close.
Libby has always had a penchant for selecting only the ripest turds from the backyard menu and serving them up at the back doormat. She stopped for a time - we thought it was just a growing phase for our pup - and now it's started up again in earnest. Along with small stones. A leaf maybe. And sometimes a stray little twig. These other items I have no problems with. It's the finely crafted bits of dried shit that, er, I'm not so keen on as offerings.
Cigar, anyone?
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Top of the pops
Note to self:
If you're changing a nappy and you hear a sound come from the rear end of the baby, this is the usual cue to both close your mouth and move your head out of direct firing line because you are going to smell something. Failure to do so will end in watery eyes and/or mouthful of Parfum de Baby Guts.
I am going at such a slow pace at the moment that not even hearing a fart is enough to spur me into high-speed mode. What next? I mean, this time two weeks ago I was hearing those noises and literally jumping back and to the side *just in case* Now, I think the dear girl could projectile just about anything my way and I'd be just too darn tired to even side-step.
If you're changing a nappy and you hear a sound come from the rear end of the baby, this is the usual cue to both close your mouth and move your head out of direct firing line because you are going to smell something. Failure to do so will end in watery eyes and/or mouthful of Parfum de Baby Guts.
I am going at such a slow pace at the moment that not even hearing a fart is enough to spur me into high-speed mode. What next? I mean, this time two weeks ago I was hearing those noises and literally jumping back and to the side *just in case* Now, I think the dear girl could projectile just about anything my way and I'd be just too darn tired to even side-step.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
A story for a very looooong rainy day
Lauryn’s birth story
Diary entry 18.7.06
“We’ve made it! Past every obstacle, milestone, date we set to assure us we are “getting close”!
I had so hoped Lolly was going to choose her own birth date. But we’ve made it to the 18th and I will be induced tomorrow. We go in at 4pm.
I’m so excited. Very wired. Unsure how I’ll sleep, actually. I can’t wait to lay eyes on our little girl! So many people are waiting to hear of her safe arrival, but I don’t know if I want to burst the bubble too soon. I oscillate between expecting I’ll want to show her to everyone before the cord’s even been cut, to wanting her all to ourselves – just her dad and me.
We have waited so, so, so long. The anticipation is palpable! I have so much to give as a mother, I just know it will come flooding in. It was cut so short with Ella, but I knew in an instant (all of a sudden, some days after her birth) what I was like as a mum.
Lolly, I cannot wait to call you Lauryn!”
I struggled for weeks and weeks at the end of my pregnancy, with my emotions about becoming a mum again. I asked questions of people who have been down the road before me – women who became mothers again after losing their first-born child – I soul searched, I tried to connect with my baby. I was painfully aware our little family of three was about to become +1. And I was so worried I wouldn’t be up to scratch for her in terms of accepting her, of letting Ella go just that little bit more, and feeling so damn guilty about knowing I would have to focus wholly and solely on our new baby, thereby not giving much headspace to our angel Ella.
The day before Lauryn was born, I had to check in to the hospital for induction. I had been looking forward to the day for so long, it felt like the heady anticipation of a long-awaited holiday on a big international flight – I have similar butterflies when I look forward to and then dread a big plane trip on the eve of the flight.
I really had secretly hoped Lolly would take matters into her own hands as she had done throughout the entire pregnancy and each hoop I jumped through, and choose her own birthday, but when dawn came (following another night of around 4 hours sleep), I knew I would be in for a bit of a challenge with the labour. She had proven herself to be a sure but steady girl as she grew and each time I came across a scare (bleeding at 6 weeks, then 15 weeks, and threatened labour at 24 weeks causing hospitalisation until contractions subsided), I continually had this solid straightforward feeling from her – the only feeling I had from her! – and I knew she would just keep on coming. Slow and steady wins the race…
We went around that morning doing some last-minute house-keeping, I distracted myself by doing a few edits for a client, we watched a couple of funny TV shows and the mood was good. Even. A little incredulous that we would be seeing our little girl as soon as the next day and in good spirits despite the slight but building apprehension.
At around 1pm (about 2 hours before we had to get ready to leave), I started to get quite emotional. Scared about how I would feel about seeing her and whether I would do right by her if my feelings were mixed, immense guilt at inducing a perfectly happy baby instead of waiting for the day she chose to come, sadness that I felt so alone and that I had to go through yet another process emotionally isolated from most people who know me and haven’t experienced the birth of their next child after losing their first.
I have to admit to feeling very nervous and even leaving it a bit late to get ready to leave. I think perhaps I was so excited and so looking forward to seeing Lauryn that I lost my nerve at the last minute because I couldn’t believe the time had actually come. Until we got to not only the day, but the time to leave, I never quite believed it would happen and I guess it was all of that that started coming down on me that afternoon.
I pretty much spent my whole pregnancy like that. It probably made real emotional attachment a bit of a hurdle, although overall there was no denying my sheer joy nor could I overlook the sense that I was growing a wonderful, content, strong little girl with a big and definite energy (the nature of which, aside from knowing she was ‘happy’, she kept from me!).
We arrived at the Admissions desk and the clerk made small-talk, asking us if this was our first baby. My reply, of course, was “No, we have another little girl”. She excitedly said they would have fun being sisters and I had to then tell her that big sister Ella died as a baby. Without missing a beat, this woman said “Oh so this is your first really, then”. I HAD to correct her!
I felt very safe and supported at the maternity ward, as it was the same one where I had Ella. We were taken around to Foetal Monitoring and I was hooked up for one last time to listen to Lauryn’s heart, which was fine. Then by 5.30pm the gel had been inserted and I was told to have a rest and then go for a walk. DH went home and I was left to “wait and see”.
As it happened, a fellow EB member was admitted in the public ward and we had met the previous week. I decided to go around and sit with her and while we were chatting I got very uncomfortable. She had a twinkle in her eye and tried to tell me I was in early labour, but I waved the pains off and said “Nahhh!” while trying to get comfy in the visitor chair.
I ended up coming back to the ward at around 9pm and the pains were quite strong already but I was told it was probably just the effects of the gel and that sometimes, it mimicked labour but was not necessarily the start of anything. So I was given pain relief and sleeping tablets and tried to catch some sleep. When I woke, I still had contraction type pain and timed them 5 minutes apart for 40 minutes then called in the nurse again. She said to try and get more sleep, that it could still be nothing. I could have told her differently! But miraculously, I caught another hour and a half of much needed sleep and woke again in great agony around 1.30am. Calling the nurse in again, she told me to get up and come sit with her for a while so she could time the contractions and guage what was going on. They were understaffed that night and while I sat in the ward nursery, I timed my own contractions and they were now 3 minutes apart. Very strong and almost unbearable already, I tried to collect my thoughts and keep my wits about me. I didn’t recall them being quite so acute during my labour with Ella and I was surprised at my inability to even effectively breathe my way through them. They were over a minute long and coming 3 minutes apart, so there wasn’t much of a rest by this time.
There was another midwife tending to the babies in the nursery, who decided to step up the pace of getting me to Delivery, and I was told to go and grab that shower I wanted before going to the Labour Ward because it was highly unlikely I’d be getting any more sleep that night. I was relieved to hear someone say the pain hadn’t been for nothing!
It took me over half an hour to have a quick 1 minute shower and hobble back to the nursery which was only paces from my room. I could hardly walk, even between contractions, and still couldn’t understand why I was in such agony. It seemed that even as the contraction subsided, I was left with residual all-over-body intense pain and I was constantly very uncomfortable. It was around 3am and I silently started hoping they were going to tell me I wasn’t far from having this baby because I felt at the end of my endurance already and I was only 5 hours into it.
In Delivery, I was taken to a lovely quiet room at the end of the ward somewhere and the most lovely calm midwife was there to assist me. It felt like I hadn’t been in there long with her when, after being attached to the foetal monitor, she suggested I might like to call “hubby” and get him in. It was almost 4am.
By the time DH arrived, within half an hour, I really wasn’t in the mood for any more of the small talk the midwife had been using to very effectively distract me through a little more of the labour. It took everything in me to get through each contraction and I was not getting a break in between to catch my breath. They were still about 2 minutes apart but my mind was not overcoming my physical pain, something I had not been prepared for. I was absolutely exhausted by shift change-over at 7.30am (the midwives’ shift, not mine unfortunately!) as I farewelled the gorgeous angel of a midwife who had seen me through the middle of the night.
By this stage, I was asking for pain relief. Despite myself, my beliefs, my experience of being able to cope positively with the effort of labour and child birth last time, this time I felt different. It was intense, as intense as last time, I knew I was certainly in a different place emotionally now too. But even when I had the grave fears of delivering a baby 10 weeks prem (with Ella), I was able at that time to push those fears out of my mind and remain very stoic, positive and focused. This time, my labour felt out of control, I couldn’t think straight because there was no let-up of the pain, but I only realised this after the fact – during the process, all I could do was endure. I recall trying to rationalise with myself, that the pain I felt wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before. But yes it was! I started arguing in my own mind, some part of me trying to reason with the other pained part of me – at this point I felt like I literally separated myself in two: the mind and the body weren’t working together anymore. I think my body wanted to sack my brain for being a poor advocate up to that point and I guess that’s what it did!
This next part I was unclear about until it was pieced together with the help of DH and my obstetrician. I do remember pleading with anyone who would listen that I needed pain relief. I wanted an epidural (words I never thought I’d utter – I very naively just expected that I would be able to ‘wing it’ this time as I had done so well last time and never even thought I’d need to ask for pain relief). I didn’t want to try and do this on my own. But despite asking for help, all I was offered was the gas. I declined it because last time, I used it for about 15 minutes at the very end of the second stage and all it did was make me delirious and start to vomit. There was no relief from pain at all.
Seeing as it didn’t seem worth having the gas and possibly feeling worse, and with my pleas for the epidural going ignored for some reason by the midwife, I felt so alone. I literally felt like I was just left there to tough it out and I started to feel quite desperate. I was begging to my husband, to the midwife, to another midwife who came in at one point, but all I was told was that my doctor would be in to check on me soon.
Dr R arrived sometime after 8am and I even asked him for an epidural! “Hello, how are you doing?” “GIVE ME AN EPIDURAL”, I think the conversation went…. Anyway, he performed an internal, the pain of which I was bracing for (“Great, more pain, I can’t stand this!” I was screaming in my mind), but I didn’t feel a thing. I was 4cm dilated. Dr R then advised that they weren’t picking up a consistent trace on Lolly’s heart beat and I had seen it on the monitor wavering around the 90-135bpm mark. But because of my moving around, it couldn’t be relied on as being accurate. So, as my waters hadn’t broken, he informed me he would break them and put a monitor on Lolly’s head to give a steady accurate reading. Then he told me he would be back at lunchtime to check on my progress and wished me luck. I sobbed that lunchtime was at least three hours away and where the hell was my epidural??! But he never answered.
So sometime after 9am, close to 9.30, I was checked to see how far along I was and the midwife kindly warned me that she would have to get another m/w to confirm her internal because she was “new at this”. I wasn’t very obliging with my reply I don’t think. I certainly didn’t need the added fear that I had an inexperienced midwife with me. Now, no offence to trainee midwives but I was not in a very fit state to have someone who was unsure, least of all tell me she was new to the whole caper. I was fearful enough of getting the baby out safely as it was, let alone knowing she might not have all the skill she required if something was going wrong.
And then it ALL started falling apart. Everything felt out of control. The room felt very tense, frantic, urgent. I was being told to flip this way and then that way. I glanced at the monitor and the heart rate was 89bpm. All I could say with the little breath I had was “WHOA!” and point. I felt so, so desperate. I felt like my grip on my endurance was really slipping already and now I also felt the intense urgency that I had to get my baby out soon because I didn’t like how I was feeling (that something was going wrong).
The midwives were talking at the tops of their voices, probably to get over my primal groans! But I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. I was just calling out for someone to please help me and really started to panic. From the pain, from the reading on the monitor, from the feeling that something wasn’t right and suspecting they knew more than I did and weren’t telling me what was going on.
DH told me afterwards that at this point, the first midwife had peformed the internal and thought I was 4cm but couldn’t be sure. The second midwife checked too and confirmed this was approximately correct. They then discussed quickly the Obop in heart rate and they did explain to me that they were watching to see how well she recovered after each contraction. It was this reading that was what they were keeping their eye on. I wasn’t convinced I was going to get my baby after all.
They then called my Ob who had begun his day at his consulting rooms next to the hospital. When the midwife came back to report to the other, she said he had told her to keep watching the heart rate and to call him if it dropped any lower, but to keep him informed. As it turned out, her heart rate did start to improve with a slight change in my position and one of the midwives went out to page my Ob to let him know it was looking ok.
Next thing I knew, I saw her walk back in the room and right behind her came my Ob. The speed that he burst in and the tone of his loud voice (he’s usually like an almost comatose-calm person!) really frightened me. He said to us later when he came to see us on the maternity ward that he had never run for anyone but he had run for me – awww! But holy crap at the same time…
Lauryn’s cord was around her neck. She was flagging with each contraction and her heart rate dropped to below 70bpm at one point. My DH knew this but I was unaware what the problem was, only that it all felt very urgent. I was trying so hard to internalise my screams because I knew that the louder I was, the more energy I was expending outwards and it wouldn’t help me when I needed it most. I didn’t realise until I was told later, but my Ob prepped me with forceps and gave me an episiotomy all without any anaesthetic or pain relief whatsoever. I have never felt more “out of it” in all my life.
Then all of a sudden, it was like all the noise from everyone else stopped and it was just me. I could only hear myself. My Ob stood at my side and said that the next time I felt a contraction I could push if I “wanted to”. I answered back that I didn’t feel like pushing, I didn’t have any urge. But the look on his face and his firm tone when he then said “Ok you need to push” told me … erm, I needed to find something somewhere in me to push! It was so physically exhausting, trying to push correctly without any urge whatsoever. But soon the urge did come. I was racing the biggest marathon of my life and I sit here crying now as I remember just how desperate I felt it all was. Was I birthing her safely? Was my body stifling her? Had the induction caused this somehow? Even at that time, my mind was racing that this wasn’t right, that I had caused this and that I was all alone in it. No one else could do this but me. But I was doing it. And little by little, as I felt more and more urge to get her out, the sheer force of her bearing down and the enormity of her energy (I could really start to feel it in me now) just got me over the line. At one point, I was told to stop pushing. And I asked what was happening, very scared at the stillness in the room and knowing she wasn’t out yet. I was reassured that her head was out – DH said that my Ob simply said “Cord” at this point and that is when he cut it to free it from her neck – and then before I knew it I was told I could push again. With her shoulders clear, she came sliding out and it was all over. I went into a bit of shock after that. They placed her on my chest and I could see her colour was quite different to her sister’s. I was shocked and scared by this, as Ella had been so pink (in fact, her face was very bruised right after the birth, but her body was a very healthy fleshy colour) despite her prematurity, and here was my huge full term baby looking very wan and not making even a whimper.
They whisked her off me almost as soon as she’d had a chance to land. And as I lay dumbfounded at the sudden relief from all the pain and pressure, I kept asking over and over if my baby was ok. I still couldn’t hear her cries, because she wasn’t making a sound, and there were several people clamouring around her so I couldn’t even see her. No one was answering me or if they did, I didn’t hear them, and then my midwife told me she was beautiful. Then I saw them wheel an isolette into the room, the same kind her sister had spent her four weeks of life. I really started to panic and yelled at them to tell me if she was ok, that she could be beautiful but not ok! That’s when a few people at once did confirm that she was fine. Great. Thanks everyone for the suspense!
As it turned out, the isolette was merely to keep her warm as she was a bit cold and had needed a little bit of help with respiration right after birth. Once she was all sorted, my Ob began stitching me up. I had been only 8cm dilated when told to start pushing, hence I guess the lack of an urge to push. I had torn internally and of course he had to stitch the episiotomy point as well. It took for.ever. For those stitches to be done. In the calm quiet of the room now, it was pretty hard to make chit chat with people as I lay there thinking “You’ve just birthed a big baby without pain relief, how can you be whincing at a few stitches?!”
As for the elusive epidural, at my 6 week checkup I quizzed my Ob as to why I wasn’t given one, despite begging and pleading for some several hours. He said flippantly that they probably thought I was coping very well without it. Damn! I knew I should have started biting people and spitting in their faces. I don’t know how much clearer I could have been. But anywho…!
Lauryn Renee was born 8lb 7oz (3.84kg) and 53.5cm long with a HC of 35.5cm. She was a posterior labour. My Ob informed me later on the ward that there had been no time for a Caesarian section. He had figured, with the issue with the cord and her low heart rate, he had about 30 minutes maximum up his sleeve before brain damage or “other complications”. We knew what he was saying. We were speechless and we all sat there with rather glassy eyes, my Ob included. He delivered Ella and has said ever since that he would get me “there” safely. Well, he nearly didn’t and the choice wouldn’t have been his if I wasn’t meant to know Lauryn and bring her home. But I can’t fault his adept handling of a tricky situation.
He told me that I did in five minutes what would usually take a woman an hour to do. I had pushed my cervix out of the way, dilated enough for her to pass through and she had turned from posterior to anterior to come out the right way round. I don’t know how close I came to it all going very sour but it is this thought that gave me little panics in the first weeks and I’d wake from sleep very upset at nasty dreams reliving it in the worst possible scenario outcome. Over time, I have been slowly healing physically. Now that I have written this out in full, I know it will also help me put to rest some of the huge emotion of it all I have been carrying.
Our girl was from birth, and continues to be now, the most placid, content little person who more often than not wears a look of sheer enjoyment on her face. I can hardly believe that from her urgent, frantic, traumatic birth has come this beautiful, happy soul. I remain quite traumatised by this possible end to any ttc #3 in the foreseeable future. I’ve been quite frightened off the idea frankly and for that alone, I need to recuperate my body and my heart and mind. I’ve been pregnant 10 times and delivered two babies. We’ve ttc’d for our entire married lives (6 years to the point of conceiving Lauryn). Now is the time for us to relax and enjoy her for as many years as we all need and want. We agreed we owed this to each other and to our girl.
I felt like I birthed the world that day. And as it turned out, I did. My world.
Diary entry 18.7.06
“We’ve made it! Past every obstacle, milestone, date we set to assure us we are “getting close”!
I had so hoped Lolly was going to choose her own birth date. But we’ve made it to the 18th and I will be induced tomorrow. We go in at 4pm.
I’m so excited. Very wired. Unsure how I’ll sleep, actually. I can’t wait to lay eyes on our little girl! So many people are waiting to hear of her safe arrival, but I don’t know if I want to burst the bubble too soon. I oscillate between expecting I’ll want to show her to everyone before the cord’s even been cut, to wanting her all to ourselves – just her dad and me.
We have waited so, so, so long. The anticipation is palpable! I have so much to give as a mother, I just know it will come flooding in. It was cut so short with Ella, but I knew in an instant (all of a sudden, some days after her birth) what I was like as a mum.
Lolly, I cannot wait to call you Lauryn!”
I struggled for weeks and weeks at the end of my pregnancy, with my emotions about becoming a mum again. I asked questions of people who have been down the road before me – women who became mothers again after losing their first-born child – I soul searched, I tried to connect with my baby. I was painfully aware our little family of three was about to become +1. And I was so worried I wouldn’t be up to scratch for her in terms of accepting her, of letting Ella go just that little bit more, and feeling so damn guilty about knowing I would have to focus wholly and solely on our new baby, thereby not giving much headspace to our angel Ella.
The day before Lauryn was born, I had to check in to the hospital for induction. I had been looking forward to the day for so long, it felt like the heady anticipation of a long-awaited holiday on a big international flight – I have similar butterflies when I look forward to and then dread a big plane trip on the eve of the flight.
I really had secretly hoped Lolly would take matters into her own hands as she had done throughout the entire pregnancy and each hoop I jumped through, and choose her own birthday, but when dawn came (following another night of around 4 hours sleep), I knew I would be in for a bit of a challenge with the labour. She had proven herself to be a sure but steady girl as she grew and each time I came across a scare (bleeding at 6 weeks, then 15 weeks, and threatened labour at 24 weeks causing hospitalisation until contractions subsided), I continually had this solid straightforward feeling from her – the only feeling I had from her! – and I knew she would just keep on coming. Slow and steady wins the race…
We went around that morning doing some last-minute house-keeping, I distracted myself by doing a few edits for a client, we watched a couple of funny TV shows and the mood was good. Even. A little incredulous that we would be seeing our little girl as soon as the next day and in good spirits despite the slight but building apprehension.
At around 1pm (about 2 hours before we had to get ready to leave), I started to get quite emotional. Scared about how I would feel about seeing her and whether I would do right by her if my feelings were mixed, immense guilt at inducing a perfectly happy baby instead of waiting for the day she chose to come, sadness that I felt so alone and that I had to go through yet another process emotionally isolated from most people who know me and haven’t experienced the birth of their next child after losing their first.
I have to admit to feeling very nervous and even leaving it a bit late to get ready to leave. I think perhaps I was so excited and so looking forward to seeing Lauryn that I lost my nerve at the last minute because I couldn’t believe the time had actually come. Until we got to not only the day, but the time to leave, I never quite believed it would happen and I guess it was all of that that started coming down on me that afternoon.
I pretty much spent my whole pregnancy like that. It probably made real emotional attachment a bit of a hurdle, although overall there was no denying my sheer joy nor could I overlook the sense that I was growing a wonderful, content, strong little girl with a big and definite energy (the nature of which, aside from knowing she was ‘happy’, she kept from me!).
We arrived at the Admissions desk and the clerk made small-talk, asking us if this was our first baby. My reply, of course, was “No, we have another little girl”. She excitedly said they would have fun being sisters and I had to then tell her that big sister Ella died as a baby. Without missing a beat, this woman said “Oh so this is your first really, then”. I HAD to correct her!
I felt very safe and supported at the maternity ward, as it was the same one where I had Ella. We were taken around to Foetal Monitoring and I was hooked up for one last time to listen to Lauryn’s heart, which was fine. Then by 5.30pm the gel had been inserted and I was told to have a rest and then go for a walk. DH went home and I was left to “wait and see”.
As it happened, a fellow EB member was admitted in the public ward and we had met the previous week. I decided to go around and sit with her and while we were chatting I got very uncomfortable. She had a twinkle in her eye and tried to tell me I was in early labour, but I waved the pains off and said “Nahhh!” while trying to get comfy in the visitor chair.
I ended up coming back to the ward at around 9pm and the pains were quite strong already but I was told it was probably just the effects of the gel and that sometimes, it mimicked labour but was not necessarily the start of anything. So I was given pain relief and sleeping tablets and tried to catch some sleep. When I woke, I still had contraction type pain and timed them 5 minutes apart for 40 minutes then called in the nurse again. She said to try and get more sleep, that it could still be nothing. I could have told her differently! But miraculously, I caught another hour and a half of much needed sleep and woke again in great agony around 1.30am. Calling the nurse in again, she told me to get up and come sit with her for a while so she could time the contractions and guage what was going on. They were understaffed that night and while I sat in the ward nursery, I timed my own contractions and they were now 3 minutes apart. Very strong and almost unbearable already, I tried to collect my thoughts and keep my wits about me. I didn’t recall them being quite so acute during my labour with Ella and I was surprised at my inability to even effectively breathe my way through them. They were over a minute long and coming 3 minutes apart, so there wasn’t much of a rest by this time.
There was another midwife tending to the babies in the nursery, who decided to step up the pace of getting me to Delivery, and I was told to go and grab that shower I wanted before going to the Labour Ward because it was highly unlikely I’d be getting any more sleep that night. I was relieved to hear someone say the pain hadn’t been for nothing!
It took me over half an hour to have a quick 1 minute shower and hobble back to the nursery which was only paces from my room. I could hardly walk, even between contractions, and still couldn’t understand why I was in such agony. It seemed that even as the contraction subsided, I was left with residual all-over-body intense pain and I was constantly very uncomfortable. It was around 3am and I silently started hoping they were going to tell me I wasn’t far from having this baby because I felt at the end of my endurance already and I was only 5 hours into it.
In Delivery, I was taken to a lovely quiet room at the end of the ward somewhere and the most lovely calm midwife was there to assist me. It felt like I hadn’t been in there long with her when, after being attached to the foetal monitor, she suggested I might like to call “hubby” and get him in. It was almost 4am.
By the time DH arrived, within half an hour, I really wasn’t in the mood for any more of the small talk the midwife had been using to very effectively distract me through a little more of the labour. It took everything in me to get through each contraction and I was not getting a break in between to catch my breath. They were still about 2 minutes apart but my mind was not overcoming my physical pain, something I had not been prepared for. I was absolutely exhausted by shift change-over at 7.30am (the midwives’ shift, not mine unfortunately!) as I farewelled the gorgeous angel of a midwife who had seen me through the middle of the night.
By this stage, I was asking for pain relief. Despite myself, my beliefs, my experience of being able to cope positively with the effort of labour and child birth last time, this time I felt different. It was intense, as intense as last time, I knew I was certainly in a different place emotionally now too. But even when I had the grave fears of delivering a baby 10 weeks prem (with Ella), I was able at that time to push those fears out of my mind and remain very stoic, positive and focused. This time, my labour felt out of control, I couldn’t think straight because there was no let-up of the pain, but I only realised this after the fact – during the process, all I could do was endure. I recall trying to rationalise with myself, that the pain I felt wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before. But yes it was! I started arguing in my own mind, some part of me trying to reason with the other pained part of me – at this point I felt like I literally separated myself in two: the mind and the body weren’t working together anymore. I think my body wanted to sack my brain for being a poor advocate up to that point and I guess that’s what it did!
This next part I was unclear about until it was pieced together with the help of DH and my obstetrician. I do remember pleading with anyone who would listen that I needed pain relief. I wanted an epidural (words I never thought I’d utter – I very naively just expected that I would be able to ‘wing it’ this time as I had done so well last time and never even thought I’d need to ask for pain relief). I didn’t want to try and do this on my own. But despite asking for help, all I was offered was the gas. I declined it because last time, I used it for about 15 minutes at the very end of the second stage and all it did was make me delirious and start to vomit. There was no relief from pain at all.
Seeing as it didn’t seem worth having the gas and possibly feeling worse, and with my pleas for the epidural going ignored for some reason by the midwife, I felt so alone. I literally felt like I was just left there to tough it out and I started to feel quite desperate. I was begging to my husband, to the midwife, to another midwife who came in at one point, but all I was told was that my doctor would be in to check on me soon.
Dr R arrived sometime after 8am and I even asked him for an epidural! “Hello, how are you doing?” “GIVE ME AN EPIDURAL”, I think the conversation went…. Anyway, he performed an internal, the pain of which I was bracing for (“Great, more pain, I can’t stand this!” I was screaming in my mind), but I didn’t feel a thing. I was 4cm dilated. Dr R then advised that they weren’t picking up a consistent trace on Lolly’s heart beat and I had seen it on the monitor wavering around the 90-135bpm mark. But because of my moving around, it couldn’t be relied on as being accurate. So, as my waters hadn’t broken, he informed me he would break them and put a monitor on Lolly’s head to give a steady accurate reading. Then he told me he would be back at lunchtime to check on my progress and wished me luck. I sobbed that lunchtime was at least three hours away and where the hell was my epidural??! But he never answered.
So sometime after 9am, close to 9.30, I was checked to see how far along I was and the midwife kindly warned me that she would have to get another m/w to confirm her internal because she was “new at this”. I wasn’t very obliging with my reply I don’t think. I certainly didn’t need the added fear that I had an inexperienced midwife with me. Now, no offence to trainee midwives but I was not in a very fit state to have someone who was unsure, least of all tell me she was new to the whole caper. I was fearful enough of getting the baby out safely as it was, let alone knowing she might not have all the skill she required if something was going wrong.
And then it ALL started falling apart. Everything felt out of control. The room felt very tense, frantic, urgent. I was being told to flip this way and then that way. I glanced at the monitor and the heart rate was 89bpm. All I could say with the little breath I had was “WHOA!” and point. I felt so, so desperate. I felt like my grip on my endurance was really slipping already and now I also felt the intense urgency that I had to get my baby out soon because I didn’t like how I was feeling (that something was going wrong).
The midwives were talking at the tops of their voices, probably to get over my primal groans! But I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. I was just calling out for someone to please help me and really started to panic. From the pain, from the reading on the monitor, from the feeling that something wasn’t right and suspecting they knew more than I did and weren’t telling me what was going on.
DH told me afterwards that at this point, the first midwife had peformed the internal and thought I was 4cm but couldn’t be sure. The second midwife checked too and confirmed this was approximately correct. They then discussed quickly the Obop in heart rate and they did explain to me that they were watching to see how well she recovered after each contraction. It was this reading that was what they were keeping their eye on. I wasn’t convinced I was going to get my baby after all.
They then called my Ob who had begun his day at his consulting rooms next to the hospital. When the midwife came back to report to the other, she said he had told her to keep watching the heart rate and to call him if it dropped any lower, but to keep him informed. As it turned out, her heart rate did start to improve with a slight change in my position and one of the midwives went out to page my Ob to let him know it was looking ok.
Next thing I knew, I saw her walk back in the room and right behind her came my Ob. The speed that he burst in and the tone of his loud voice (he’s usually like an almost comatose-calm person!) really frightened me. He said to us later when he came to see us on the maternity ward that he had never run for anyone but he had run for me – awww! But holy crap at the same time…
Lauryn’s cord was around her neck. She was flagging with each contraction and her heart rate dropped to below 70bpm at one point. My DH knew this but I was unaware what the problem was, only that it all felt very urgent. I was trying so hard to internalise my screams because I knew that the louder I was, the more energy I was expending outwards and it wouldn’t help me when I needed it most. I didn’t realise until I was told later, but my Ob prepped me with forceps and gave me an episiotomy all without any anaesthetic or pain relief whatsoever. I have never felt more “out of it” in all my life.
Then all of a sudden, it was like all the noise from everyone else stopped and it was just me. I could only hear myself. My Ob stood at my side and said that the next time I felt a contraction I could push if I “wanted to”. I answered back that I didn’t feel like pushing, I didn’t have any urge. But the look on his face and his firm tone when he then said “Ok you need to push” told me … erm, I needed to find something somewhere in me to push! It was so physically exhausting, trying to push correctly without any urge whatsoever. But soon the urge did come. I was racing the biggest marathon of my life and I sit here crying now as I remember just how desperate I felt it all was. Was I birthing her safely? Was my body stifling her? Had the induction caused this somehow? Even at that time, my mind was racing that this wasn’t right, that I had caused this and that I was all alone in it. No one else could do this but me. But I was doing it. And little by little, as I felt more and more urge to get her out, the sheer force of her bearing down and the enormity of her energy (I could really start to feel it in me now) just got me over the line. At one point, I was told to stop pushing. And I asked what was happening, very scared at the stillness in the room and knowing she wasn’t out yet. I was reassured that her head was out – DH said that my Ob simply said “Cord” at this point and that is when he cut it to free it from her neck – and then before I knew it I was told I could push again. With her shoulders clear, she came sliding out and it was all over. I went into a bit of shock after that. They placed her on my chest and I could see her colour was quite different to her sister’s. I was shocked and scared by this, as Ella had been so pink (in fact, her face was very bruised right after the birth, but her body was a very healthy fleshy colour) despite her prematurity, and here was my huge full term baby looking very wan and not making even a whimper.
They whisked her off me almost as soon as she’d had a chance to land. And as I lay dumbfounded at the sudden relief from all the pain and pressure, I kept asking over and over if my baby was ok. I still couldn’t hear her cries, because she wasn’t making a sound, and there were several people clamouring around her so I couldn’t even see her. No one was answering me or if they did, I didn’t hear them, and then my midwife told me she was beautiful. Then I saw them wheel an isolette into the room, the same kind her sister had spent her four weeks of life. I really started to panic and yelled at them to tell me if she was ok, that she could be beautiful but not ok! That’s when a few people at once did confirm that she was fine. Great. Thanks everyone for the suspense!
As it turned out, the isolette was merely to keep her warm as she was a bit cold and had needed a little bit of help with respiration right after birth. Once she was all sorted, my Ob began stitching me up. I had been only 8cm dilated when told to start pushing, hence I guess the lack of an urge to push. I had torn internally and of course he had to stitch the episiotomy point as well. It took for.ever. For those stitches to be done. In the calm quiet of the room now, it was pretty hard to make chit chat with people as I lay there thinking “You’ve just birthed a big baby without pain relief, how can you be whincing at a few stitches?!”
As for the elusive epidural, at my 6 week checkup I quizzed my Ob as to why I wasn’t given one, despite begging and pleading for some several hours. He said flippantly that they probably thought I was coping very well without it. Damn! I knew I should have started biting people and spitting in their faces. I don’t know how much clearer I could have been. But anywho…!
Lauryn Renee was born 8lb 7oz (3.84kg) and 53.5cm long with a HC of 35.5cm. She was a posterior labour. My Ob informed me later on the ward that there had been no time for a Caesarian section. He had figured, with the issue with the cord and her low heart rate, he had about 30 minutes maximum up his sleeve before brain damage or “other complications”. We knew what he was saying. We were speechless and we all sat there with rather glassy eyes, my Ob included. He delivered Ella and has said ever since that he would get me “there” safely. Well, he nearly didn’t and the choice wouldn’t have been his if I wasn’t meant to know Lauryn and bring her home. But I can’t fault his adept handling of a tricky situation.
He told me that I did in five minutes what would usually take a woman an hour to do. I had pushed my cervix out of the way, dilated enough for her to pass through and she had turned from posterior to anterior to come out the right way round. I don’t know how close I came to it all going very sour but it is this thought that gave me little panics in the first weeks and I’d wake from sleep very upset at nasty dreams reliving it in the worst possible scenario outcome. Over time, I have been slowly healing physically. Now that I have written this out in full, I know it will also help me put to rest some of the huge emotion of it all I have been carrying.
Our girl was from birth, and continues to be now, the most placid, content little person who more often than not wears a look of sheer enjoyment on her face. I can hardly believe that from her urgent, frantic, traumatic birth has come this beautiful, happy soul. I remain quite traumatised by this possible end to any ttc #3 in the foreseeable future. I’ve been quite frightened off the idea frankly and for that alone, I need to recuperate my body and my heart and mind. I’ve been pregnant 10 times and delivered two babies. We’ve ttc’d for our entire married lives (6 years to the point of conceiving Lauryn). Now is the time for us to relax and enjoy her for as many years as we all need and want. We agreed we owed this to each other and to our girl.
I felt like I birthed the world that day. And as it turned out, I did. My world.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
I was wondering...
How do certain words or phrases come about? Is it because they actually happened? I mean, I've been curious for a while now about this:
"Stop piss-farting around"
Did someone actually lose control of their bodily functions while they were supposed to be getting on with something?
I overthink things waaaaaay too much. As evidenced by the above.
"Stop piss-farting around"
Did someone actually lose control of their bodily functions while they were supposed to be getting on with something?
I overthink things waaaaaay too much. As evidenced by the above.
Friday, September 15, 2006
A car full of double-edged swords
Case in point:
• A dummy on a long journey can soothe. It can also fall out.
• A car you call The Tardis because of its uncanny ability to be so small on the outside yet so roomy on the inside makes reaching from the front into the back to replug the dummy nigh on impossible without contorting like a rubber man from a freak show.
• Each red light you stop at gives opportunity for you to twist into said position. It also takes you longer to get home.
• A dummy on a long journey can soothe. It can also fall out.
• A car you call The Tardis because of its uncanny ability to be so small on the outside yet so roomy on the inside makes reaching from the front into the back to replug the dummy nigh on impossible without contorting like a rubber man from a freak show.
• Each red light you stop at gives opportunity for you to twist into said position. It also takes you longer to get home.
Monday, September 11, 2006
She was there to sell makeup but the father saw more
I ask you, what kind of irresponsible single parent could possibly hire someone to nanny his children on these few flippant facts:
She had style
She had flair
She was there*
That's all! That was the extent of her resumé and the basis on which she was hired. Apparently the girl they described, was just exactly what the doctor prescribed. Really?? For serious? He should have at least asked her to say something, because I'm sure that would've changed Mr. Sheffield's mind. Suffer the little children, indeed.
*Disclaimer: I do NOT watch The Nanny. I was just flicking past. On my way to the Biography Channel. Honest injin. And I only know the father's name because it's well quoted by Nanny Fine and has become like a catch phrase. Oh, and I only know her name is Nanny Fine because..... just because. But I swear, I've never watched an episode. Ok, well I've never watched a FULL episode. I'm going now.
She had style
She had flair
She was there*
That's all! That was the extent of her resumé and the basis on which she was hired. Apparently the girl they described, was just exactly what the doctor prescribed. Really?? For serious? He should have at least asked her to say something, because I'm sure that would've changed Mr. Sheffield's mind. Suffer the little children, indeed.
*Disclaimer: I do NOT watch The Nanny. I was just flicking past. On my way to the Biography Channel. Honest injin. And I only know the father's name because it's well quoted by Nanny Fine and has become like a catch phrase. Oh, and I only know her name is Nanny Fine because..... just because. But I swear, I've never watched an episode. Ok, well I've never watched a FULL episode. I'm going now.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Hey is this some kind of joke to you, Google??!
Imagine my horror when I log on to my blog to see that the Google ads of choice down the side are promoting adult diapers, TENAS for bladder weakness..... *shifty look* I could've sworn I didn't divulge in here that I've become that most awful of continents. The "in" kind.
I'm being deliberately mysterious and wordy so that our only male reader won't catch on that I'm talking about the fact that I am not currently able to hold my water since pushing out a 3.8kg human being.....
Oh. D'oh! I just gave it away.
I'm being deliberately mysterious and wordy so that our only male reader won't catch on that I'm talking about the fact that I am not currently able to hold my water since pushing out a 3.8kg human being.....
Oh. D'oh! I just gave it away.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
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