Rufus

 Second time round I still didn’t know what signs to look for as to when labour had started.  I spent weeks wondering if this was it or will it be tonight only to get nearer and nearer my due date.  Being five days early with my first I expected to be early or to at least not go too late, but I had been having subtle back pain for a few days which only the day before did I realise could have been contractions all along.

In the early hours of Thursday 12^th July the subtle pains seemed to become a little bit stronger.  I still can’t pinpoint what made me realise that this was labour but somehow I knew, so I got up, put the hot water and heating on ready for a bath and popped two paracetamol – this was 2am.

I told my husband we weren’t going anywhere until at least 6am as I didn’t want to ring my mum, who was going to look after our eldest, too early in the morning and I also didn’t want to disrupt Elias’s usual day/routine.  He stayed in bed trying to sleep while I got in the bath.

By 4.30am I could no longer lay in the bath.  The contractions were coming every few minutes in a regular pattern but as they weren’t lasting any longer than 45 seconds I presumed they were just more hard core second time round and decided I would definitely need pain relief this time round. 

By about 5.00am I tried to find some pain relief by having a shower – this didn’t help.  I shouted my husband and told him he had to ring my mum and tell her to get here asap.  It was too painful and I wanted to go to hospital.

Whilst waiting for mum to arrive, I could only find some comfort by sitting in a strange position on the toilet, as I felt a constant pressure in my bum.  This in hindsight, was probably the baby moving down the birth canal.

The midwife on the phone advised having some breakfast before making my way to hospital and I asked if the birth pool was free.  Unfortunately it wasn’t, however she said that by the time I was likely to have arrived, the new mother using the birth pool would have left and it would be free for me.  I hadn’t wanted to get hung up on using the birth pool (I had a water birth with my first born) in case it was then not free and I became upset or stressed at a deviation from my birth plan (which simply read ‘Go with the flow’), but I also wanted the birth pool room as it had an en-suite shower – a luxury I hadn’t had last time round!

Elias woke at about 5.45am and found it amusing to watch mummy squirm around on the toilet.  My husband found it difficult to know what to do – torn between trying to sort out a 2 year old still in nappies and needing his breakfast and looking after a labouring wife. 

By the time my mum arrived I was pacing about in just a pair of knickers moaning that it was all just too painful and that I needed drugs.  My mum later told me that when she arrived, she thought she was going to have to rely on her years of training as a nurse to deliver her fourth grandchild as she could see that I was much further on than I realised.

We left after a quick goodbye and ‘mummy is off to the hospital to have the baby’ and every single speed bump and pot hole made me wince.  This time round I demanded my husband park as near as possible to the delivery ward and I had to stop as each contraction hit whilst I managed it.

We arrived at the delivery ward at about 6.45am and were shown to one of the ward rooms to be assessed.  As the midwives were changing shifts in 15 minutes, the outgoing midwife explained that she wouldn’t examine me but I would have to wait until the midwife taking over arrived, so that I wasn’t examined twice and to reduce risk of infection etc.

When my midwife arrived at 7.15am to examine me she commented ‘I can’t feel any cervix’.  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked – ‘you’re fully dilated’ she replied – ‘oh’.  By this point the pain appeared to have subsided.  I managed to find a comfy position laying on my right side and began to feel a slight of a shiver – what I think was actually my body telling me I was ready to push.

The midwife seemed to then panic as to whether there was time to move me to a private room.  I offered to walk the short distance down the corridor but ultimately I was wheeled down on the bed and into the birth pool suite.

She asked if I could manage to hop off the bed and onto the one in the room – I did and then we were left to get ready.  At no point was I offered the use of the pool – there just wasn’t time to get that filled, but I also wasn’t offered any gas and air.  My response to my mum on this (who seems to be appalled that I wasn’t offered) was that I didn’t ask and why offer it to a woman who seems otherwise capable of doing it without?

I felt a sudden gush and asked if my waters had gone, only to be advised that it was only my show and my waters were still intact.  ‘Can you just pop them so we can get pushing?’ I asked and so the midwife did.

At this point I was simply getting over each contraction and not trying to use them to get the baby out.  The midwife told me to stop ‘pushing them away’ and to use them.  I took a moment to get my head into the situation.  It had all happened so fast and now the only way to stop the pain was to get on and get this baby out.  There was only me who could do it.

After probably about 30 minutes maximum of pushing, at 8.12am on Thursday 12^th July the head was born, followed quickly by the rest of the body.  My husband later told me that the umbilical cord was up around the baby’s next, being worn like a scarf.  The midwife quickly cut it and then later on realised that she hadn’t asked if either of us wanted to.  We weren’t fussed!

The midwife asked if we had looked to see what the sex was – for me I couldn’t see past my knees, so it would have been a miracle to have seen any genitalia!  Our second baby boy had arrived – I was a little stunned as I had thought it was going to be a girl!  He was put straight onto my chest, covered in blood and wide awake but not screaming.  He latched on to my breast pretty quickly, whilst the midwife gave me the injection to help deliver my placenta. 

Unfortunately, after a natural birth with nothing more than two paracetamol 6 hours previously, my placenta decided it didn’t want to come out!  I had complained during the labour that I felt the need to wee, so the midwife thought that I may have a full bladder which was stopping the placenta from coming out.  She tried to fit 3 ‘in-out’ catheters before calling for assistance from a second midwife, who tried to fit a further 2.  Strangely the most painful thing about her attempts was the position she had tilted me back too, in order to assist the placenta detaching.  Eventually, after about 30 minutes of pulling at it and no successful catheters being fitted, my placenta came out.  I was relieved.  I didn’t want to have to go to surgery just to have my placenta removed, having had such a straight forward birth.

Once again, having listened to my midwife’s advice about pushing and trying to remain relaxed, I didn’t need any stitches and had no cuts or tears.

The midwife asked if we had a name in mind.  There was only ever one really throughout my whole pregnancy – Rufus Laurence.  We called our families and then I had a shower in the luxury en suite.  I got dressed, put on some make-up and had some toast – I felt completely normal, in good shape and eager to get home.

We were then asked to vacate the birth pool room so it was ready for the next mother to be and we moved back to the ward we had been in on arrival, with three other new mums and their babies and one poor lady still in labour.  One of Rufus’ testicles was slightly swollen, a common occurrence in newborn boys and this was put down to my hormones being in his body by the consultant.  We were discharged and set off home to await the return of the new big brother from nursery and the expected family visitors.