A Good Birth Story #2!

So, lets start at the beginning... I think it is important to document positive birth stories. When you are pregnant you are bombarded by horror stories; from well meaning family, friends, complete strangers etc. as well as on social media and the numerous parenting forums. As a person who is classed as high risk due to a raised BMI there is also the added pressure and guilt of the extra risks you are putting on you and your baby. Before my first son was born I was convinced that I was too fat to have a good birth, I was definitely going to have my own horror story to tell. But if you would like to revisit my previous post 'A Good Birth Story!' you will see that I had an almost textbook labour and birth, with only gas and air, which lasted around 8 hours.

Anyway, I again headed towards my due date drowning in horror stories and guilt; although maybe with a little more faith that I could have an easy labour - if conditions were favourable. Baby was due on 9th September, I had my final consultant review on the 7th. I saw a very thorough and efficient Middle Grade who surprised me with the offer of a sweep that very day. I was slightly horrified as I had not prepared the old vag for public display, I didn't even have a wet wipe with me!! I did however have a wild 3 year old and no responsible adult! So, Casper sat by my head, held my hand and asked appropriate questions ("Where are your pants Mummy?"), the news was good though, my cervix was looking "...very favourable...". Thank goodness for nursing keeping me on my feet and working that cervix hard!

That evening and night I thought I was having stronger Braxton Hicks that normal, but essentially ignored them. They did, however, become stronger and more regular, and at around 2am I got up for a wee and the lovely mucous plug evacuated the building, swiftly followed by some spurts of amniotic fluid. Contractions were still very mild and irregular so I attempted to sleep until I couldn't ignore them, at around 4am I rang the labour ward to inform them about the events of the night and warn them of my previous quick labour. They advised to come in when contractions were regularly 5 mins apart - the usual advice. At 6am I decided we should start to make a move to avoid the morning traffic so I woke the Man, rang my mother to come to sit with Casper.

On arrival at the hospital labour had slowed right down so I felt like a fraud, but they hooked me up to their contraction monitor, took some swabs to check if my waters had really broken (they had!!), established that I was only 3cm dilated,  and brought in every passing doctor they could find - the night doc, the day doc, the consultant and his herd of juniors and a lovely anaesthetist who I used to work with. I had a lovely, and very thorough midwife who was concerned about some mild deceleration of the babies heartbeat around my contraction. No one else was concerned, and it turned out not to be an issue but the consultant wanted me kept on the monitor just in case. This was rather fortuitous because they had been muttering about sending me home, I advised against this due to the speed of arrival of Baby #1. Jokes were made that maybe Baby would be here before the lunch trolley...

At about 10am I asked to be allowed to walk around to try and get things moving. I was granted one hour off the machine as baby seemed to be behaving! So I paced, rocked, lunged and moaned my way through stronger contractions until I had to get back on the bed so I could use the gas and air - it makes me feel like I will fall over so I voluntarily got back on the bed. At 11am the midwife returned and looked pleased that I now appeared to be in active labour she hooked me back up the monitor and suggested another to internal exam to assess how dilated I was. She went to get a senior midwife to assist and to look at the monitor as a fresh pair of eyes (standard practice in midwifery I gather), when she returned at 11.30, she gasped and exclaimed "You're going to have a baby!". I was under the impression that that was what I was there for, so wasn't too shocked. Various trolleys were brought in and a very useless cannula was inserted, and promptly fell out again. The instruction to "...push when I felt I needed to..." was called and I pushed as I had been trying not to for a while due to being on my own! 

At 11.45 (just before lunch at 12!) beautiful Baby Felix was born weighing a healthy 8lb 8.5oz (thank goodness he wasn't late), with everyone looking a bit shocked. I can not describe that feeling when you do that final push and the baby slides out, the relief is like nothing on earth, I'm sure it's why some people get addicted to having babies! And with that, the world's hungriest baby was placed on my chest already sucking his hand to tell me how starving he was, unlike his brother who had to be woken for his first feed. We managed to 'wait for white' (delayed cord clamping) to allow the blood in the cord to flow back into the babies circulation before I had the syntocinon injection to deliver the placenta. Due to my raised BMI and a previous very minor post-partum haemorrhage I was worried they would say I was too high risk to delay getting the placenta out, but both the midwives were really positive and enabled us to see how it went - obviously I had said that if it looked like there was issues then just do what ever needed to be done. I fed Felix while an efficient but obviously non-vagina owning doctor stitched me up, and we waited for our first visitors - Nanny (my Mum) and a very proud Casper!

Compared to my first labour I felt much more in control, and
the pushing stage wasn't such a rush - Casper flew out AT SPEED! Because I got to the hospital earlier I was able to communicate my wishes much better, and the journey in was much more pleasant. It just seemed like the second birth wasn't such a shock to the system; I was up at about by the time Mum arrived (much to her surprise) and we were discharged that evening with feeding already well established. Both labours were a similar length, and I used the same pain relief, but the second one seemed much more gentle and I felt more present and involved in the whole process. Bring on #3 hey??!