The birth 'Experience'

 Hey guys Jess here, 

Currently sat 12 post birth at home in the midst of the post birth life of having a new born, that's a story for another day though, today I want to chat bout the birth 'experience' a better term than birth 'Trauma', this was a phrase I picked up from 'How to raise a viking' by Helen Russell that I have started reading. 

My birthing story started on the 26th March, about 2 am my water broke, or so I thought, they didn't really gush or trickle but blobbed, which wasn't what I expected, no contractions or anything like that just the waters breaking, so contacted the MAU and popped in to be check, and was advised to go home, check temp every 4 hours and if we got any changes, contractions or concerns come back, and if we didn't we would be called in. 

The next 24 hours felt like the longest wait of my life! I don't do well with waiting at the best of times, I got occasional twinges but nothing huge, spent the day trying to move them along with hot baths, birthing ball, distracting myself by playing games, eating food, having a dance, listening to music, anything to get baby moving! 

27th March more than 24 hours had passed, we finally got the call around 11 ish to come in, so we grabbed the bags and bits and headed into the delivery room where I was met by a lovely midwife and training midwife, we discussed what would happen and after one slightly failed attempt a cannula was fitted for the Oxytocin drip, on investigation by waters hadn't fully broken and they needed to be manually broken, that's when the gush happened! OMG it felt like it was never going to end, the midwife tasked hubby with making me giggle to get it flowing more. 

Waters broken and drip put in we now just waited, the next few hours went by with lots of chats, music, and spending time with each other, contractions started reasonably quickly and we made some good progress, we had a change of midwife for a lunch break and then by the evening we had another change for the night shift, not long after the night shift came in things started to really ramp up, I went the first several hours without any pain relief but as the evening came things got harder and I started dosing up on the gas and air, the relief once it hit was amazing, think back to those drunk nights where you are still fully aware of everything but you just feel a nice amount of numb. 

Gas and air on and the contractions were more manageable but then they ramped up again, They hit harder and it hurt so much! It was late, I was tired, I was in pain, and little man was engaged but not in a position to come out without assistance, another person came in and had a chat, they wanted to give me the options, I could continue pushing as I was to try and get him out, I was dilated enough but he wasn't quite right to push easily, or I could opt for a forceps delivery and an epidural, they said due to how long we had been in a second stage and how long it had been since my water broke they would be back in half an hour to have the same conversation, I was tired and in pain and just wanted my little boy, so I went for the forceps, they got called up, organised and before we knew it we were making our way to theatre, in between contractions where I was huffing on as much gas an air as I could they prepped me for the forceps got the epidural in and they hubby told me I was like a different person, everything was numb, they pain wasn't there any more and a team of people around me guided me on when to push and got little man twisted to the right position. By being pulled/pushed out, an episiostomy was needed and ended up in a second degree tear, 'little' man was 9 lb 9 ounces, he was handed straight to me for skin to skin and I just remember crying, relieved it was over and he was safe, and just so full of love for this tiny fragile human that was resting on me, the smile on hubbies face said the same. 

The placenta also large as I managed to hear through waves of tears, had some issues and I ended up with a loss of about a litre and a half of blood in the process, stitched up, some anti sickness meds love from hubby and baby boy and then I started the transfer up to observation. 

The biggest thing I took from the whole experience at the beginning was just how wrong everything seemed to go, but also just how glad I was to be where I was so that the options were there. I was under observation for the next 24 hours due to the blood loss and because of the epidural I was fitted with a catheter, that was something new, but after weeks of peeing every 2 minutes not having to get up and go for a pee was a nice bit of a break. 

24 hours later they gave us the option to stay in another night just to be sure, it also meant I could leave the catheter in a bit longer and give myself more chance to heal up. I took time in those first few days to focus on getting up and walking, eat some food, try unsuccessfully to nurse, counting down till the next log of pain killers and attempting to change my post birth pads. All of which was a challenge, I eventually got moved to the midwife ward late in the evening, Chris came to meet me the following day and we had the hope of going home, that was until during little mans checks we noticed he was looking a bit jaundice, we got him checked and his levels seemed high, not high enough for treatment but not low enough they were comfortable to let us go, so we stayed in over night and check them again several hours later, I had been struggling with feeding and although he had been latching he wasn't latching well and between that and the jaundice we got some additional support. The next 24 hours were just a flood of tears as I felt like a complete failure, I cant remember how many midwives I cried in front of, or how many times the guilt washed over me but after a late night discussion and topping up on pain meds whilst crying again I got support so swap to formula, the next few days were a roller coaster of a spike and drop in jaundice levels, managing pain levels trying to feed and getting rest whilst hubby was there then trying to survive the nights when he wasn't. 

We hit a point in the jaundice checks where he was still spiking but he never went about the line, after a call to the doctor they decided to start treatment and the next 24-36 hours gave us a bit more stability, we knew what the potential plan was and we weren't just waiting from day to day hoping to be able to go home. 

We got him under the lights and the midwife talked me through the process, when we first put him under I just sat and cried, i felt helpless for this little man, i know it was helping him but any time he cried I wanted to hold him close and protect him, but I needed to do what was best for him by leaving him under the lights for as long as possible, and that was hard, it was hard because it was night time and I was alone, hubby was at home and I really just needed someone to hold me and tell me it was okay, after a bit of time I settled into a routine of change him, feed him, cuddle him and put him under lights, I got the whole process down to about 30 minutes max and was able to keep my hand on his chest if he needed it whilst he was under the lights, 6  hours passed and he had his checks, he had dropped but still had some to go so he was back under for another 12 but at least during this one I had hubby with me, following the 12 hours his numbers had dropped enough he could come out he needed 12 hours out and another test to check he stayed down before we could get discharged. The final test was due at 4 am, I didn't really sleep that night, I was just waiting, expressing milk, and calculating the best timing split for my pain meds, the 4 am test came in and his levels were low enough, that hopefully meant we could be discharged that day, we just needed to wait for a chat with the doctor in the morning. 

As the morning routine came and went I got chatting to one of the midwives,  got some ongoing support for breast feeding and we looked at what would be needed to get us out of here, I was hopeful we could leave, and potentially other than any other reasons I was in for myself she couldn't see why we couldn't be on our way out of there, 6 days in hospital, 6 nights with no husband and I was emotional, fragile and wanting to get home to my bed. 

As he was on day 5 he had his day 5 checks, he lost about 9% of his birth weight so we needed a chat around his feeding but once a plan was in place and they were happy with his jaundice he got discharged, it turns out I had been discharged about 2 days prior to this, final things done and just waiting for the all okay I packed my bags showered and got myself ready to bolt! It's not to say i wasn't grateful for the support I had, because everyone was wonderful and clearly understood the emotional roller coaster I was on,  but you reach a limit and i had surpassed that limit a while ago.  

About mid day we were released, little one snug in his car seat, me packed up with mass of pain killers, iron tablets, blood thinners, laxatives and instructions for what I needed to do, the list seemed endless.  we swung by the grandparents who were keen to see him but we finally made it home and in that moment everything after the birth experience seemed more at peace. 

Now the real adventure begins! 

That was a bit of a longer one, so if you made it this far thank you for reading! 

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Lots of love 

Jessie 

xxx