Birthing Toby Indigo

I am writing this down as a method of processing the event, of making sense of an extreme and wonderful day. Every time I lie down for a nap my thoughts go here and frequently they bring tears, my hope is writing the story will help with healing the story.

I had envisaged throughout my pregnancy that I would go into labour early, so to find myself still pregnant at 41 weeks I was unexpected. The doctors at the Womens were fretting over a couple of slightly high blood pressure readings, I'd spent two days being monitored and it always went down. However at my 41 week appointment the decision was made to induce... the next day!

What a strange feeling to try and sleep knowing I had to get up at 6am to go to the hospital to be induced, knowing I should sleep as I would need the energy, of course I didn't sleep well at all.

As Pete and I drove through the early morning I was fairly sure that things were slowly starting of their own accord, I had had a small show and I was getting mild aching in my back that was coming in rhythmic waves. Arriving at the hospital it was clear we weren't the only ones booked for induction that day, five couples in total were taken up to pregnancy daycare at 7am.

Eventually it was our turn and it was into a cubicle, I was 2cm dilated, prostalgin was applied and onto a CTG machine. I should have know then how frustrating CTG's would become, since the previous day the baby had moved and getting the thing to give a clear, uninterrupted graph of the heartbeat was difficult, the slightest move from me or bubs and we had to start again!

They got the reading after about an hour and that is where the waiting began. The plan was that in six hours a second dose of prostalgin would be applied. Till then we had naught to do but wait, I love how they tell you to go for a walk, not a lot of places to walk in a hospital! I wish they'd include gardens to walk through when they designed hospitals. So anyways we waited and waited, got something to eat and waited some more. Mostly we stayed in the daycare room as at least there comfortable chairs were provided for pregnant women, Pete spent hours sitting on a not so comfortable chair.

Around mid-day the contractions started kicking in, it was all in my lower back but it was definitely contraction, they were mild but slowly increasing in intensity and coming quite close together, about 5mins.

At some stage the midwife came over and explained that because this was my second baby they couldn't give me more prostalgin until I was in the birthing suite and the birthing suite was full! So we waited.

Around 5pm we were finally shown upstairs, but not to the birthing suite, that was still full and the beds that were freed up were going to women coming in through emergency, closer to birthing than me. I was given a bed to try and rest in whilst waiting for our turn. At least it was a little more private, although a curtain doesn't provide heaps of privacy!

I was placed on a CTG again because the baby kept dodging the doppler, every time I moved again it came off, but the babies heart rate was lovely. All this time I was having contractions and at some point had a large show. Around 9pm I felt leaky and told the midwife my waters had broken, I then had to go back on the CTG and this is when the frustrations began.

I was having a backache labour, contractions were most painful lying on my back, the CTG was only working lying on my back! The next few hours seemed to be spent fighting with that machine, it would start beeping whenever it lost signal which it seemed to do constantly. This situation didn't improve when we did eventually get a room in the birthing suite, at around 1am.

When I was eventually examined, I was only 3cms dilated and a doctor came and said I was to be started on the oxytocin drip. Five minutes later she came back apologising because they didn't have enough staff and I would have to wait some more.

I was feeling the pain intensely and when I was offered Pethadine I agreed, I think because  Iwas already so tired I had little left in reserve. After I had the Pethadine I was pretty spacey for quite a while, details of when things happened get vague. I think the next few hours was mostly just me and Pete in the room, I was still hooked up that that darn machine and couldn't move much, I think I was stuck sitting up in the bed. Pete was holding my hand and strangely that was all I needed from him, I needed to withdraw into the pain.

Around 6am the midwife came and took me off the machine so I could have a shower which was bliss, if only I had been able to spend more time in water with the labour! I tried to eat something, knowing what was still to come. I then got to spend some time leaning over the birth ball which was so much better than the bed. But before long I was back on the machines and after a new shift had started finally the induction was started with the drip.

Not long after the new midwife Lily started I was at a point where I really didn't feel I could go on, the pain was so different than it had been with Xander and I really felt I couldn't take it. I asked if it was to late for an epidural. I am very thankful to Lily for talking me through that time and not going down that route. Even though by the end I'd had two doses of Pethadine and Nitrous Oxide and I felt very incapable for much of the time I did it.

After the drip was started things speeded up, the CTG was still awful and not accurate so I agreed to the clip being directly applied to the babies head. I feel guilty for trauma this may have caused to baby and the marks are still present a month later, but it really was the only way to go at the time. Allowing monitoring which is crucial in an induction and affording me a little more movement. Most of the labour I sat on the edge of the bed or stood leaning over it but didn't work for long as my legs were quivering like jelly in an earthquake.

After many hours of this I felt the urge to be on all fours, for a short time this eased the pain a little, but before long I was in the most intense pain I have ever experienced, I was transitioning. I suddenly couldn't stand being on all fours and I felt pushy, I knew it was close. Somehow in all this the clip was pulled off the babies head and I was on my back again with more midwifes re-attaching. I heard one say the head's right there but that there was still a bit of cervix at the back. I was so ready to push but somehow I felt I couldn't move and was still on my back when the time came.

All of a sudden it was action stations and three midwives were talking me through, each woman so different but exactly what I needed in that moment. It was time to push and I really needed that urging to keep pushing past what I felt I could. The next few minutes felt so long, crowning was so clear to me,  could feel the baby so much more intently than I ever did last time. The midwives were now telling me to just keep pushing, I feel they were slightly worried at this point. It felt to me like I wasn't getting anywhere and then I felt myself being cut and suddenly the head was out and another push and I heard Pete say "Its a boy" and then the baby was on my chest.

He didn't cry much and almost immediately started bobbing and sucking looking to feed.

After the first feed he was weighed in at a hefty 4.148 kilos.

Then dressed and Pete got to cuddle his son.

As Toby sleeps restfully now on my chest a month after his birth a lot of the trauma is gone (it took me weeks to finish this post) I know that the midwives that helped me through were doing their jobs but it was extraordinary how the energy I needed arrived at the right time. I also know the long wait was no ones fault, births happen according to no ones schedule. But I also know that CTG machines must have been invented by men and if a piece of medical equipment ever needed re-designing it is that!

But what I know most is I need to get healthy if I ever want to have another child, my body coped but it could have been easier had I not been so heavy. Recovering from the birth is going well and mostly Toby is a gem of a baby. Everyone was so certain he was going to be a girl but now that he's here he couldn't be anything but who he is and Toby Indigo has turned out to be the most perfect name for him, even though it was slow in coming. Although I do mourn the idea of the little girl and the fun of skirts and dresses! Hopefully Toby will like to dress creatively!