Labour Story, Part 3

My Handsome Jude-o aka Joodles Noodles Doodles

So, no more babies. Should I be more freaked out by this? I mean, I know how lucky I am, both in terms of the fact that I have two kids and in how much of a lucky escape we had in terms of the whole ruptured uterus scenario. But now I’m one of those women who can’t have any more kids. My body no longer is capable of performing the thing that it was designed to perform. I suppose if I only had one child, this would be really devastating news for me. But I’m not too bothered, if I’m honest. It just sometimes feels a bit surreal being really rather unaffected by circumstances which are, at face value, really quite enormous.  I know there are millions of sister-wives around the world who can't have babies... I feel a bit fraudlent claiming to join their ranks, especially as I type this with two babies safe under this roof, but my heart goes out to them with some slight sense of recognition anyway.

The day after Jude was born I was very tired and didn’t have a lot of energy. I felt like a ghost of myself – a tremendously elated ghost of myself. Very strange! I’d suffered quite a substantial blood loss during the Caesarean, according to my midwives. 2.5 litres, if you please.

Two point five?

SRSLY, people.

That’s like... one of those big bottles of Diet Coke plus a glass. Ouch!

Now THIS piece of information freaks me out a little. I’m funny about blood... I don’t like injections or withdrawals of any description, and I’ll never be a blood donator. This latter fact will make me sound a bit assholy in light of what I’m about to tell you, but something in my silly little head says that the stuff that’s inside my body is obviously there for a reason, and should remain in there because... like... I NEED IT, okay? But, the ghosty me was faltering, so the Doctor came to recommend that I should have a blood transfusion. “Well, of course you don’t have to have one, you are well within your rights to refuse, “ she began, “So you could try iron tablets for three weeks or you could have a transfusion and get the same results instantly.” I opted for the transfusion. The doctor recommended it as the best course of action, in light of the fact that in the weeks to come my body would not only be breastfeeding but also trying to mend a substantial C-section belly scar. So, here I am typing this with SOMEONE ELSE’S BLOOD SWIRLING AROUND INSIDE ME.

Peculiar, indeed. Someone, somewhere, lay on a sun lounger in one of those blood-donation sessions and gave some blood so I could have it dripped into my left arm over the course of an hour so I could have a bit of colour back in my cheeks and have a good shot at feeding my baby. Thanks, Anonymous Person-Less-Selfish-Than-Me. Really, totally mean that.

I was spoiled rotten by the night-time midwives during my convalescence; because I was Very Serious Terrible Delivery Girl, I had a lot of help (and consequently, a lot of sleep!) during those first few nights. Jude was quite mucousy, and I couldn’t close my eyes for fear of him choking and gagging on little globs of snot/throat-gunge, etc., during the night. Poor little bugger really suffered with it, but my tummy was really sore and I couldn’t get myself in an upright position quick enough to pick him up so he wouldn’t choke. So the midwives looked after him through the night for me. Oh, love the lovely midwives! Lovely Lynnette’s Ashington sister-midwives are a bunch worth their weight in gold. We were both discharged on the Friday afternoon (after a stern talking-to about CONTRACEPTION by a very matronly nurse... but that’s a separate blog entry in itself, watch this space).

A few days later, the Lovely Lynnette came to remove the staples in my belly and here I am 8 weeks post delivery and I feel a million bucks. Belly totally healed, everything back to normal. I am even in my pre-Jude jeans. Wha-hoo!

Lashings of apologies, dear Internet, for taking 8 weeks to finish my labour story, but it really has been a whirlwind “summer”. I say “summer” because it has been distinctly autumnal for the majority, but that’s the way things are on this side of The Pond. But I hope you have enjoyed reading How I Fell In Love Again in July of 2009, as I have enjoyed recalling and reliving it all to write it down.

So I guess this is officially the last pregnancy-related post I will write! What began as my online pregnancy journal has morphed into an official blog – you’ll notice I changed the URL – but I hope you will continue to visit my little corner of the web to read about how we are all doing here on Canterbury Avenue in the coming months. Thanks for reading.

xoxox

Labour Story, Part Two

My water had not yet broken, and upon closer inspection the midwife discovered that the baby’s umbilical cord was across the top of his head. This meant that as soon as my water broke, the cord would become trapped against the cervix. With everrything being tangled up in there, I wouldn’t be able to push the baby out normally.

The midwife explained that I’d need a C-section. I wasn’t really bothered about facing the section – to be completely honest, I was almost a bit relieved, in a way. I knew I was going to have a big baby, and as you know the thought of going down the scary episiotomy route was something I didn’t want to do. I knew that I didn’t have to wait much longer to meet my baby, and I was excited that I wouldn’t be sitting on any stitches! The midwife started making arrangements for a visit from the anaesthetist who would give me an epidural, ready for the operating theatre. As I was being prepared for the epidural, my water broke! Now THAT was a weird sensation! I was sitting down on the bed, yawping like Chewbacca from a contraction, and I remember my voice rising with a bit of panic as I said, “Um... something’s coming OUT OF MEEEEEEEEEEE!” and it felt just like I was trying to pass a water balloon. All over the floor, and my cute zebra-print furry bough-especially-to-be-in-labour-in socks! (Jason said it really did look like a water balloon.)

Not long after that I got my epidural but something wasn’t right -- it wasn’t working. I remember asking Jason and the midwife what seemed like a million times, “When is it going to start working?!” but it seemed hours and hours and I could still feel everything. I moved from the floor to the bed and over the next little while, my left side was quite numb but I still felt every contraction down my right side. I felt a bit irritable by this point; the pain was getting more and more severe. I was still permanently attached to the Entinox nozzle – the time while I was waiting to go to theatre was a swirling psychedelic trippy dream: music coming out of my iPod speakers like floating soupy balloons around the room; Jason’s strong hands on my back; his gentle voice encouraging me and cheering me on.

They wheeled me down to theatre. Jason went to get changed into hospital gear, and they made him wait outside while they got me ready. They decided to abandon the (literally!) half-arsed epidural and give me a total spinal block. After a bit of difficulty getting things in the right place, the spinal block was in place and hello? That was so funky! I was completely without feeling from just below my boobs all the way down. I kept thinking of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill – you know the scene where she’s in the back of that car, just after she’s escaped from the hospital? The one where she’s laying there saying to herself, “Wiggle your big toe. Go on, you can do it, just wiggle your big toe.” I was trying to wiggle my big toe, too, and it was just completely dead!

Jason came back in and the surgeons started to do their business. I felt about a minute of gentle pulling and tugging, and then all of a sudden Jude was here! I was really surprised at how quick everything went! The midwives rushed him off to clean him up and do their weighing and measuring.

Jason was almost giggling with adrenaline, and I lay there on my back, heart fit to bursting at the thought of having another son – two boys! Imagine! Two wee fellas! I had a few tears and Jason did too, and then they showed us the baby and things while I was getting stitched up. Jude Alan Proctor was born at 12.09pm on Tuesday 7th July, weighing in at a colossal ten pounds, on the nose. They weren’t kidding when they said second babies are bigger than first babies – Ben was only 8lb 10oz.

It took absolutely AGES to stitch me up, though. Having no basis of comparison I assumed things were going as they should but Jason says it took about 30 minutes to put me back to normal.

After that I was in a recovery room with a couple of lovely midwives and Jason. We chatted about the baby, and about summer holidays, and exchanged pleasantries – I couldn’t really concentrate on the conversation though as I was shivering uncontrollably! It was odd; I wasn’t cold or anything but my teeth were chattering and I was juddering and twitching like a lunatic and I just couldn’t get a hold of myself. The midwives said it was a normal response to the surgery and it subsided after an hour or so.

After a while, they took me back to the room that I laboured in. Jason and me visited with our lovely new son and I dozed on and off. What a day!

The next day, the doctor came to see how we were doing, and to talk to us about a few things.

“Do you know what actually happened, has anyone explained things to you?” he asked us both. When we replied that we hadn’t, he went on to tell us that I had actually suffered from a ruptured uterus; that after he’d made the incision through my skin and my abdominal muscle, Jude actually busted right through my uterine wall before they had a chance to cut through it. He said that the uterus was stretched so thin that Jude quite easily made his own way out.

He went on to explain that we should think very carefully before having any more children, and that in all likelihood, my uterus would not be able to withstand another pregnancy. Not that big a deal, said we – we only ever planned to have two kids and no more.

Part 3 coming soon...

Labour Story - Part 1

Well, here I am and my gorgeous boy was 2 weeks old yesterday. I thought I’d spend a little time writing about how the labour went – in the few moments I have where he is not attached to either one of my boobs.

I tell ya; I am a smitten kitten – I can’t believe how beautiful he is! Every minute on top of the previous one brings a new level of astonishment at how handsome he is. He has us all charmed, to be sure. I look at him and my breath catches in my throat while the boil within my soul’s cup rolls and rolls with the enormity of it all. It’s as if I’m wandering through an extraordinary dream – weird and beautifully I find I’m a mother of two. Is this real? Doesn’t that just blow your head right off?

So it all started not long after we went to bed – as strangeness would have it, we’d stayed up a bit later than normal writing our birth plan, if you can believe it! And in the early morning of Tuesday 7th July 2009 things started happening. About 1am I got out of bed for my 328th visit to the toilet that night, and lo and behold (sorry – gross alert) out plops my mucous plug into the toilet. Hurrah! When I had Ben, the MP (can’t bear to type it again, it’s too yucky!) fell out onto the bathroom floor on the Saturday, and I had Ben on the Monday night. So, excited that things were obviously a-movin’ I came back to bed, told Jason the news and we snuggled down, hoping to drift off to sleep with the happy thought that things would probably start happening within the next couple of days. Happy thoughts mixed with a little bit of smugness – “I totally knew that I would go early,” I mused, and true enough there I was 5 days before my official due date sans the ol’ MP, safe in the knowledge that things could start any day now.

But – would that we had the luxury of a day! Not ten minutes after I returned to bed did I have what I thought was a little contraction. I dismissed it straight away – didn’t even mention it to Jason – as in the last couple of weeks especially I’d experienced all manner of twinges and twangs and tickles and tweaks. But then about ten minutes later another one came.

“Jase, “ I tapped him on the shoulder, “I think I might be having a contraction.”

“Mmphff,” I think was his initial sleepy response. When I had another one in another ten minutes, he was all action stations, leaping out of bed to make coffee for him and tea for me, to sit and wait to see what was going to happen. We assumed we had quite a bit of time to deal with the early labour stuff – I knew that second babies tend to come a bit quicker, but I was 39.5 hours from start to finish with Ben so we were quite relaxed at that point. Jason hooked me up to the TENS machine (borrowed from the lovely and generous Leanne – thanks Leanne!) and I electric-shocked myself through each contraction without too much fuss. It was painful but manageable, and as long as I was upright and walking, I was able to endure them tolerably well.

Incredibly, over the next two hours my contractions increased in intensity and the time between them was dropping and dropping... 7 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 4 minutes. I couldn’t quite believe it!

“Should we go to the hospital do you think?” Jason wondered.

In total disbelief, I said, “Surely not already!” but sure enough, things were getting so painful that I knew we had to get to the hospital. We woke up our friends next door (thanks Tracey & Craig!) and Ben took Jason there, and then we got in the car. To divert myself from worrying that I would deliver our child in the front seat of a Citroen, I timed my contractions with the stopwatch on my iPod. All the way to the hospital, the contractions were lasting about 30-40 seconds and I was only getting about a minute and a half’s break between each one.

Wansbeck General Hospital, incidentally, is 16.5 miles door to door, from our house. Google Maps says the journey takes “around 27 minutes”. I can quite categorically say it was the longest 27 minutes of my life... I was a little frightened in the car as the pains were coming thick and fast, but Jason made good time and soon enough we arrived at the maternity ward. We were quickly installed into a really lovely labour room, popped the iPod on shuffle on some speakers and I changed into my PJ’s.

I laboured mostly on my feet leaning over the bed... I still had the TENS machine on but to be honest I don’t think it was really doing much by this point so I took it off in exchange for the Entinox: my friends the gas and air. Oh, bliss! That stuff is great; I got all the way to about 6cm dilated with it, before I had a shot of Pethadine (Demerol for those of you across The Pond) to help dull the pain. Jason was brilliant – rubbing my back, encouraging me and telling me I was doing really well. Despite the obvious discomfort, it was really good; very relaxed, a really lovely atmosphere with the music on and everything. I felt reassured that I was in really good hands, and safe in the knowledge that Jason was “overseeing” everything to make sure things were going the way we’d discussed. However, not long after that was when things started to veer off plan.