History Repeats.

It all begins at 2.26am the morning of 6th September 2009. My first contraction (that I was aware of) woke me up then and, about an hour after that, pockets of my waters started to trickle out. We phoned the emergency triage number after an hour or so to see what to do & they sent 2 midwives out. My contractions were every 2 minutes & lasted approximately 30 seconds. The first midwife arrived at 4am & the other about 45 minutes later as she had to travel from further away.

Typically, as soon as they arrived my contractions stopped. They were both totally flummoxed that I hadn't been induced and said they'd be much happier if I went to the hospital for a CTG (belt monitoring of baby & uterine activity) later that day as anything over term + 12 is outside of ordinary midwifery apparently - bear in mind at this point I was term + 13! We agreed to this & they left. As soon as they'd gone my contractions started again with much the same timing as before. I was pretty tired by about 6am so went back to bed & the contractions petered out until about 10am when I got up again & got ready to go to the hospital for the CTG which was scheduled for 11.30am. My contractions had started again with the same timing & strength as before & didn't let up this time.

Getting to the hospital was an experience - contracting in the back of a car isn't great. We got to the hospital & realised we'd left my maternity notes at home - D'OH!!! Simon nipped back to get them & I carried on eating my breakfast that we'd brought with us in the bowl (standing up outside - how oppressive is the waiting room on the labour ward??). Simon came back & we went into one of the consultant lead care rooms. I have to say that the midwife support worker that "checked us in" was bloody awful. No people skills at all. The midwife, however, was lovely & couldn't really understand why the other midwives had wanted me to come in!! Anyhoo...1/2 hour on the monitor & everything was fine.

By now I was pretty tired & still having contractions which were getting stronger now. The midwife examined me and found that I was 3 centimetres dilated which was kinda disappointing as I'd been up so long! I thought about what Rebecca (our NCT teacher) told us about labour -  it's like a trip to London on the M1; some days you get there in record time, other times you stop & start all the way & you can even give up, turn around & come back.

We made the decision to stay at hospital as the pool room was free. The awful midwife support worker came to take us down to midwife lead care. She opened the door and said "ready then" as I was obviously in the middle of a contraction. Did I look fecking ready?? Off we went thinking everything would progress &  the Wiggler would be with us soon. How wrong can you be? Got into the midwife lead care room & contractions stopped. I got really, really REALLY upset & wanted to go home. About 3 hours later the midwife suggested a hot bath to see if we could speed things up which I did and was in it (which is called Diana, by the way) for about an hour. When I got out I was only 4 cm!! Crushing. By now I was exhausted and really tearful. Mum had gone home to let the dog out and it was just me & Simon. We talked with the midwife & the doctor who explained that it was what they call an obstructed labour. With great sadness we decided to move back to consultant lead care & go on a drip  of synthetic hormones to get things going.

Back in consultant lead care I'm crying pretty hysterically, or as hysterically as someone who has had 4 hours sleep & been awake  for about 17 hours can cry. We had the loveliest midwife called Steph. I'm eternally grateful to her for being so nice. She put me on a belt monitor. When asked what my thoughts on pain relief were I found the words "I'm not sure I can cope with the pain if I go on the drip so I'd like an epidural" coming out of my mouth. She said it's what they'd recommend as I was so tired. I ended up being on the monitor for a good 2 or 3 hours again when she came in asked if she could put a clip on the Wiggler's head as she was concerned about his heart rate dropping during contractions. Again, grateful for NCT class attendance as we knew what it was for and why it was a good idea. So she did that, all the time still waiting for someone to come & put a cannula in my hand before the epidural could be administered. She suggested that I start using some entonox as the contractions were getting quite strong now. I'd like to say that it's bloody marvellous stuff, although it does loosen your tongue and make you feel drunk :-D

Wiggler didn't like that at all. His heart rate dropped dramatically & Steph came rushing in, told me to get onto my side & then told Simon to pull the red cord behind the bed. The next thing I know is the room is full of people in scrubs all talking medi-speak deciding if I should be prepped for  caesarean. Wiggler's heart rate calmed down, or rather sped up so they backed off a bit, but decided to get a blood sample from his head. Joy. Off came the bottom of the bed & out came the stirrups. Steph tells me to keep sucking on the entonox like there's no tomorrow which I do,  thank goodness for that stuff. I still hadn't had the epidural, or got the cannula. The light wasn't working & I wasn't very dilated so the doctor couldn't get said sample :-(It was like having the mother of all smears, or a lifetime's worth of smears in one go.

It was then the decision was made to deliver him by emergency caesarean section. Finally the cannula went in to the side of my wrist (after some sort of conversation with the anaesthetist about the weedy veins on the back of my hand) & a blood sample taken for whatever reason. I'm still on my side breathing constant entonox. Not really sure what happened, but everybody left & I was told I'd have a spinal instead of the epidural. We waited about 10 minutes for them to take me to theatre. Steph came to get me & allowed me a few massive gulps on the entonox before we left. Once in the operating theatre it took what seemed like forever to get the spinal done & I was still contracting quite heavily. Simon says the noises I was making were awful. Sitting up for the spinal was grim, but mercifully it kicked in quickly. After that the screen went up & the top half of my body was shivering like a thing possessed! I felt OK though, tired, but OK. Simon came in in scrubs (I remember thinking he looked really good in them!) and sat next to my head. Then the pulling about started & the next thing I know I hear a cry. I thought "Oh, there's a baby in here" and then it dawned on me that it was our baby :-) Having waited the duration of my pregnancy for him to be born it was very strange to know that I was going to see him for the first time very soon. Steph took him to do whatever it is they do with newborn babies and then brought him over to Simon. We'd agreed about 1/2 an hour before it all kicked off that we liked Isaac as a boys name, which is good because we'd been undecided until that point.

I was stapled up and wheeled into recovery where Steph put him onto my chest for some skin to skin and to start breastfeeding. It was difficult to hold him so that he could feed properly because I had the cannula with a drip on the side of my wrist & something else on my forefinger measuring something else, plus I couldn't sit upright because of the operation, but we managed a little. We were in there for about an hour and then 2 porters came to wheel me up to the maternity ward.

Nothing had really sunk in and everything was surreal to say the least. Mum & Simon stayed until about 2 and then the midwives asked them to say their goodbyes. I was so wired that I hardly slept all night; I was too busy looking at my beautiful little boy. Plus I was  too awash with hormones and drugs to care!

And so that is how, at 11.42pm, weighing 8lbs exactly, Isaac Andrew came into the world; the same ugly route as his mother. It's not as I'd have liked, but he's alive and healthy - for what more could I ask?

He sleeps next to me in his pram as I type these words. It's taken about 3 days with 5 or 10 minutes snatched here and there between feeds and sleeps. I'm eternally grateful to the powers that be that he's here. I'm gutted that my body seemed to fail so hideously in its performance of such a natural and instinctive task, but it all seems an awfully long time ago now as Simon and I look to the future with our son.