He's here!

Well, after waiting for so long, my son finally arrived a month ago.  For our eagle-eyed readers, you will no doubt notice this meant he arrived five weeks early, at 35 wks gestation.  So, before we get down to the nitty-gritty of my life with a newborn, here's a no-holds barred guide to my astonishing labour.

All FIFTY-FIVE hours of it, so strap in...

I woke up early on Friday morning (the 15th of May) and my hips were hurting really badly. I managed to get a few more hours sleep but when I struggled awake around 10am the pain was getting worse and it seemed to be coming and going. Idiot that I am, I started researching "pregnancy hip pain" on the internet and honestly thought that's all it was. It wasn't until about 12pm I realised that the pain was starting in my back, not my hips, so I researched "early labour signs" instead. It seemed to make sense but I still wasn't convinced, so I sent a message to my friend on Facebook asking her what HER contractions had felt like. She called me immediately from Seattle and ordered me to call my doctor. Which I did. And they told me to go to labour and delivery. So I called my husband at work and started timing my contractions. By the time he got home it was about 3pm and I'd been in labor for about five hours. The pain wasn't too bad but I was definitely uncomfortable so we zoomed up there and I got settled in at 5pm.

Except I didn't. Because around 10pm they sent me home with Tylenol 3 and told me to try and rest. I wasn't dilating but I was around 75% effaced. I duly went home, wasn't able to sleep, and phoned them in the morning to say the pain meds hadn't done anything and I wanted to come back in. So we went back around 9am and I was 1cm dilated and 100% effaced. They told me to go home again and gave me sleeping tablets, which knocked me out for about three hours but in the last hour I was waking up during the most painful part of the contraction then falling immediately asleep again!  My husband said he had to talk me back to sleep each time, but I don't remember any of it.

Around 8pm on Saturday I was starting to REALLY hurt. I called the doctor and she told me to come back in, if only so they could help me get some rest. I'd now been in labor for around 34 hours and I was getting really tired. Because I was 35 weeks along they wouldn't stop my labour (too late for that) or speed it up (too early for that), so I basically had to go it alone. When I went back in I was about 2-3cm and 100% dilated, so they let me stay. I laboured all bloody night and demanded IV meds three times. I also got into the jacuzzi water tub, tried a birthing ball (didn't help AT ALL, completely overrated) and walked around a lot with my husband. Finally, some time around noon on Sunday I was dilated enough for an epidural, so they hooked me up and I slept a little bit. However, it only took properly on my right side, which meant I had to stay slanted to my left to assist gravity. This hurt my hip a lot and I was really uncomfortable, but at least the majority of the pain went away.

At around 2pm I was 7-8cm dilated so the LOVELY LOVELY doctor broke my waters. Almost immediately I began contracting like mad and opened up to 10cm in an hour. It hurt like a son of a bitch, to be frank, and I panicked quite a lot. However, at 4.25pm I was allowed to start pushing, and that was great because it gave me a focus again. My husband told me later that I went all Earth-Mother on them at this point because I rested quietly in between contractions and then focused hard on pushing instead of yelling like a banshee (which was my own, personal approach to labour pain prior to this). I pushed for almost an hour and Owen Henri was born at 5.12pm on Sunday, 17th May, weighing 5lb 14oz and measuring 19". Including pushing I was in labor for 55 hours. During pushing I breathlessly told the doctor that under no circumstances was she to give me an episiotomy, and she told me that she never does those anyway, which was so wonderful to hear. To be graphic, she "lubed" me up down there and massaged the area to give Owen's head more room. I pushed him out without a tear or a cut, which I attribute to both me AND her. She and the nurses were just great, and the atmosphere stayed so calm. I also didn't poo! Hurrah!

When he came out he didn't breathe for about five seconds so they suctioned him, but after that he was okay and put in the little bed warmer. He was born with hernias in his groin so after a little cuddle he was taken to the NICU and the rest of the story is far too long to type up here now...

I think the things I'll remember the most are the pain... ouchee... the duration... sigh... and my body's amazing abilities. I am still astounded I was able to labour for three days, and for most of it I was without pain relief because it was either too early, or it kept wearing off because everything took so long. I'll also remember the first time I saw Owen, and thinking how much he looked like his 3D ultrasound pictures!  My husband was a rock during the entire event, and I didn't feel alone.  It was lovely, however, to be in an environment surrounded by women helping other women.  My normal doctor is a man, but as he wasn't on call that weekend it ended up being his female colleague who helped me deliver.  All the nurses were female, as were the NICU staff.  Now, normally I'm very anti- this type of thing and would have said something about destroying the walls surrounding birth by having male members of staff there, but you know what?  I loved it.  I loved being surrounded by other mothers and a doctor who didn't do episiotomies because she believes women don't need them.  It felt really warm and comforting to be with all these other women, enjoying a shared experience with them.

Labour was bloody hard work, but I will look back at it with nothing but proud, happy memories.

Which helps me forget the pain.

:)

Tina

A(nother) visit to the doctor.

I went for my thirty-two week check-up yesterday at the doctor's surgery. Since about a month ago I've been going every two weeks, and from thirty-six weeks I'll be going once a week instead. It's not a hardship now I've started working from home and most of the time I enjoy the visits. I like hearing my baby's little heartbeat and spending time in the waiting room in the company of other pregnant women. (We all check out each other's bumps to see how far along we are. It's competition time, ninja-style.)

Yesterday, however, I wasn't at all impressed with my visit. To start with, since we moved house my journey to the doctor's has been made considerably shorter, which I forgot about completely until I rolled up to the hospital almost an hour early. So I stayed in my car, rolled down the window and read The New Yorker for a bit, then waddled my huge stomach and backside up to the third floor about ten minutes before my appointment. I was then kept waiting for an astonishing FORTY minutes (unheard of in this insurance-driven country) because they've changed the layout a bit and were down to only two clinic rooms. Of course, it wasn't until I went back up to the counter and pouted with an English accent that things started moving, so naturally I was quite put out and needed to have a wee.

Ah, having a wee. Normally I'm quite skilled at this part, having peed into the little cup so many flipping times already. However, yesterday for the first time I realised that I am no longer able to SEE the cup underneath my big belly. In vain I tried scooting myself around on the toilet seat for a better angle, lifting my stomach to see if that would help and finally settled on the only option left to me: blind luck. I ended up weeing on my hand, the cup, the label on the cup and even on the seat (how the hell did it get there?!), but I'm a pro and didn't panic. I had already prepared my clean-up crew for this very event ahead of time and proceded to wipe everything down with what can only be described as one of those little handi-wipes you get from KFC when you order chicken.

Weeing test done? Check.

Blood pressure done? Check.

Listening to the baby's heartbeat? Check.

Doctor running late and nearly out the door...? Hang on a sec!

I'd been at the hospital since 3.10pm and only in to see the doctor for five measly minutes by 4.45pm, so I decided to milk my time with him for as much as possible. I decided to ask him what my options were for contraceptives after the baby is born, although I kinda wish I hadn't...

In his best high school sex-education teacher voice, my doctor lectured me on every single kind of contraceptive imaginable for the next ten minutes. He told me that abstinence was the only fool-proof method (in his words, "to my knowledge there's only been one failure, and that was 2,000 years ago."), explained the difference between progesterone-only hormones and combined hormones (progesterone and estrogen) and even told me the most cost-effective method (a ten-year IUD, provided you leave it in that long). Not once did he ask me whether I wanted any more children after this one and if so, when we planned on conceiving them. I felt like a careless teenager being given one of life's lessons too late.

It also bothered me that my options for contraception after the birth are so limited. My husband and I don't enjoy using condoms and are quite frankly NOT going to abstain from sex, so I wanted a hormonal method instead. Here's the lowdown: progesterone (p) only hormones are available as injections, implants, tablets and patches but they can mess up your periods, leading to heavier, irregular cycles and spotting or bleeding in between. Combined (c) hormones are available as pills, patches and IUDs, but while they give you shorter, lighter periods, they can also seriously limit the amount of breastmilk you produce, which is obviously less than ideal for nursing mothers. Both p- and c-pills leak hormones into breastmilk, which nursing babies then injest. It's not harmful to them, but I can't imagine it's beneficial either. Most new mothers therefore choose a p-only hormone and just put up with the crappy cycles and irregular bleeding, but I want more than that.

Why hasn't the medical industry come up with a better alternative yet? The c-pill has been around since the 1950s and yet we STILL can't offer women a third option? I want to breastfeed but I don't want to bleed. I also want to have sex on MY schedule, not on the whim of a pill that dictates if will be bleeding that night. Is that so hard to figure out? I also want to be able to pee into a little cup using a better method than blind luck. Why hasn't someone come up with a better option for this, too? Honestly, it's as though we're the last ones to take into consideration, even though pregnant women are clearly into sex and probably wee into cups more often than any other human beings in the space of nine months. Where is the medical industry now?

Failing us, that's where.

Tina

The old abortion debate

Oddly enough, I've found myself becoming simultaneously both more pro-choice and more pro-life than I was before. Why is this?

I have always described myself as 'pro-life in theory, pro-choice in practice'. What I mean by this is that whilst, to me, the ending of a child's life before it has begun is theoretically abhorrent, I also live in the real world and recognise that easy access to free, safe, legal abortion is absolutely necessary to ensure women's freedom. In places where this is not available, women live in dreadful circumstances. I am not going to detail those here, it's all been done elsewhere.

I have become more pro-life in that I do not understand how, after seeing scan pictures (as early as 8 weeks) and feeling movements (as early as 16 weeks) any woman could possibly contemplate the ending of that little, helpless life inside her (abortion in this country is legal up to 24 weeks). I suppose that the vast majority of terminations happen much earlier than this and that someone who was going to have one would not have a scan or reach the stage where she felt movements, but the overwhelming urge I have to protect the fetus inside me really makes me question how anyone could choose to terminate a pregnancy.

On the other hand, this pregnancy is the single biggest upheaval I've experienced in my life. I was dreadfully sick in the early stages and am sufferering just as badly in the late stages with heartburn. I've had interrupted sleep throughout the last 7 months, constipation, alarming mood swings, swollen ankles and tiredness at all sorts of strange times. It is no exaggeration that a pregnancy takes over your entire body and by extension your whole life: I no longer play in my music group due to exhaustion, I can't travel easily, various fun activities (e.g. rollercoasters, certain sports) are off-limits and I've had to cut out some of my favourite foods, such as mouldy cheeses (a big deal for a vegetarian!!). This is before we even come to the pain and trauma of the birth, and the trials and responsiblities of being a parent. As strongly as I feel about fetal rights, I now feel more strongly than ever that no woman should ever, ever be forced to go through what I've been going through or am about to experience - and I'm having a fairly straightforward preganancy! So yes, I could say that I'm more pro-choice these days.

And that is how I come to be both more pro-life and more pro-choice as a result of experiencing pregnancy for myself. Thank you and good night.

Anthea

But... aren't you supposed to get fat?

All the medical professionals - midwives, doctors - I've dealt with so far have been women. I've liked some more than others. Some were reassuring, some were rude, some were funny, some were know-it-alls, several had had children of their own. Where I live, one's antenatal care is shared between the hospital (where one is seen by midwives and if necessary a consultant) and your GP. At my GP's surgery, in common with many others, the doctor you actually see will not necessarily be your own registered GP, but whoever can fit you in, so until recently both my antenatal appointments at my doctor's had been with a female GP (and mother, incidently).

This week, I saw my own GP instead. We hadn't met before and I liked him very much. He's in his 40s, I suppose, and I couldn't tell whether he had any children of his own. He carried out a couple of the usual tests and asked the usual questions. Then he asked me to step on the scales - something I hadn't done since my initial booking appointment. The first time I did this, in about th eighth week of my pregnancy, I had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 27 which made me overweight. I am 5'2" and a size 10-12, and I've always known I've weighed a lot. I must just have dense bones or something. The point is, I was, and always have been, in good shape - and I am not the first person to have noticed that shorter people are disadvantaged by BMI calculations. The midwife was surprised at the BMI but looked me up and down and decided there was clearly no problem with my weight. I have never owned a set of scales and have always eaten sensibly but still according to what I want rather than how I look. Besides, I read in my pregnancy book that weight gain is no longer seen as an accurate measure of how a pregnancy is progressing so is not usually monitored these days.

So, this week, for my GP, I got on the scales for the first time since October. I weighed about 11st, which means I've put on about a stone and a quarter. Given that my baby is due in 8 weeks, I think this is a reasonable amount. Added to which, my face has got no fatter than it was and is always the first place to show whenever my weight fluctuates, so I'm confident that the weight gain is temporary and that I'll have little difficulty losing it once the baby's born. Being the liberated woman that I am, I stepped off the scales seeing the weight gain as of little consequence. Mr GP, however, had other ideas. "That's quite a good weight gain," he said. I was pleased. I thought this meant that the weight gain was just right for the health of my baby and me. He and I clearly have different ideas of what the word 'good' means, as he then went on to make it clear that he thought I'd put too much on. "You know, it's OK to diet during late pregnancy," he continued, "I think it's due to hormones. The women in my family tell me they want to eat more during pregnancy and their periods, so they eat too much. Don't cut out just one food group, just cut down generally so you're still getting some of everything."

I was stunned! I nodded and made noises of assent, but all the time I was wondering what the hell he thought he was saying. I simply cannot contemplate eating any less right now. I need vast amounts of energy just to get through the day (I teach small children for a living) and what's more, I eat when I'm hungry - not just for the hell of it but when I'm hungry! Does he expect me to continue being hungry? Why?? Would he go through the day being hungry? Nope, he would eat! I cannot help but wonder if I would have received the same advice from a female professional - particularly one who had been through pregnancy herself. Is this sexist of me? Quite possibly. But I also think there was implicit sexism in his use of the word 'diet', especially as a verb. I have never dieted in my life and I got the feeling that he thought he was asking me to do something which would be no problem for me.

Needless to say, I am ignoring that particular nugget of advice. As usual, I am eating what I want and keeping it pretty sensible. And to me, eating sensibly means never, ever going hungry if you can avoid it. Which would probably be good advice for everyone.

Anthea

An apology...

So, I feel an apology is due. In an earlier post, I whinged on about the medical industry not seeming to care about morning sickness and other beastly things women have to put up with during pregnancy. Well, apparently they do care. A little bit, at least.

Let me explain.

Up until mid-November, I was feeling quite chuffed that I hadn't thrown up with morning sickness, although I did feel pretty rotten for most of the day, every day. Then I started to be sick occasionally, mainly in the morning and usually if I hadn't eaten enough. It happened about once a week until mid-December, when I started to not get through two days without heaving. It started to wear me out and I had to take two days off work just to recover (only one of which they are paying me for, the bastards. Since April I've worked there and I'm only entitled to one measly sick day!) Anywhoo, a week and a half ago it got very bad. Very bad indeed. I started to not be able to keep food down at all, and began to lose weight. In fact, by the time I made it in to see the doctor, I weighed less than I did before I got pregnant. This, apparently, is not good news.

So, everything came to a head last Monday. I woke up at 4am and proceeded to throw up every fifteen minutes until we left to see the doctor at 10am. I am proud to say I did not throw up at the doctor's office, but as I'd been puking up stomach fluids and whatnot, there was no fluid left in me to pee into a little cup. I saw the nurse, who was lovely lovely lovely (and eight months pregnant herself) and she gave me some water with delicious ice chips in. I am now a fan of this nurse. The doctor came in next, took one look at me and prescribed anti-nausea medication. I am now also a fan of this doctor and the entire medical industry.

Apparently, they DO care! They make lovely little white pills which, when taken correctly and with food (providing, of course, you don't feel so bad you puke them up before they get a chance to work) stop ladies from feeling sick within about an hour. This is like pregnancy crack for me, and I feel wonderful again. I haven't had to take them every day, but the thought they're there is extremely comforting. My official diagnosis was hyperemesis gravidarum (see http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/796564-overview), which is one notch up from "normal" morning sickness and if not treated, can be quite scary. I am therefore extremely happy to have nipped this in the bud. The doctor was also happy, as if I had gone on for any longer he would have sent me straight down to emergency and hooked me up to a fluid drip.

Me and my baby are now getting healthy again. I can keep my prenatal vitamins down and I've gone off junk food completely, which means I'm eating salads and drinking lots of juice. It's good to know things are back on track and I'm now looking forward to January 15th, 2009, when my husband and I find out the sex of the baby and get to explore the maternity ward at the hospital. All exciting stuff, and I can look forward to it knowing I won't be throwing up throughout the experience.

Happy days are here again.

Tina.

In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children

Giving birth and all the physical changes doing so incurs has long been framed as a burden, even a punishment, for women. I mean, from start to finish, the capacity to reproduce gives females grief: periods (Early or late starter? Chronic cramps? Bleeding for 5 days?), pregnancy (Nausea? Vomiting? Exhaustion? Loss of balance? Forgetfulness? Aches and pains? Leaking breasts? etc etc etc), birth (Like, massive amounts of pain...), breastfeeding (tied to someone else for 6 months) and menopause (hot flushes, facial hair etc etc). What a palaver. You'd be forgiven for thinking that nature (or God, depending on your persuasion) really really has dealt the female sex an unfair hand.

And yet, and yet. I can't help but feel honoured that I get to do this. That in order for my husband and me to have a child, I get to be the one that grows it inside me, keeps it close to me at all times, brings it into the world and then nourishes it with my own body. It's incredible and I feel so lucky. This could also be something to do with the fact that I am a natural attention seeker and am really enjoying the fuss people are making of me (!) - but that doesn't explain those joyful, silent moments when I am all alone with my belly, stroking it and thinking peaceful thoughts. I feel slightly sorry for my husband that, although he escapes the nausea, backache etc, he doesn't get to have this primal connection with the baby, or at least, not yet.

I recognise that other people will feel differently about this, and certainly don't expect all women to embrace the notion that giving birth should be their number one achievement in life, but I just can't see this as a burden or a punishment. It's an honour.

Anthea

Just a quickie - although I must say I'm genuinely surprised that I can't find more to add to this blog!

I made a comment recently in front of several people I know about throwing up at certain times of the day. A middle-aged male acquaintence said, "Well, that's self-inflicted though", as if I'd been referring to a bad hangover or something.

Honestly, silly girl, choosing to have a baby on a whim like that and then moaning about it! Women are just so selfish, having children like some sort of hobby. I mean, you never catch a man doing anything stupid like that do you? No, they stick to sensible things like fighting. A load of men, going around fighting.

Disclaimer: the above is a load of sarcasm, mixed with a Father Ted quote, before anyone tries to quote me on it

Anthea