Things I wished someone had told me before I gave birth...

That it would hurt to go to the toilet after birthing and tearing. 
I had an epidural for my first birth, but the catheter came out during the last stages of labour, and they didn't bother putting it back in. Soo...once the numbness in my lower half wore off, I began to be aware of the need to go to the bathroom and quickly!! I was much too shy to ask the nurses for help to get there, so I half limped/half dragged myself to the toilets. I tell ya...I almost hit the roof with the pain of passing urine. I had no idea what was wrong, just that it hurt REAL bad, and I decided then and there to just hold on. And so I did. For at least a day. I didn't drink any water because I knew that it would make me need to go more, and I didn't want to go because the pain was worse than labour! Ohhh I am laughing now at my naivety, but back then it was no laughing matter. ;-) It caused me weeks of pain! Finally, after about 2 weeks of almost passing out everytime I had to go to the toilet (because, ya see... my urine was terribly concentrated because I wouldn't drink. The trick is to drink LOTS so that it dilutes, and therefore doesn't sting as much), I caught onto the tricks of the trade, and was a right as rain within a couple of days. I wish someone had told me!!

What "milk coming in" really means.
When my body produces milk, it produces it in abundance. Like, I could single-handedly keep a dairy farm in business. On my second night in the hospital, I woke up completely drenched. My sheets were drenched, I was soaking wet, and I had NO idea what had happened. I remember feeling completely embarrassed and ashamed of myself. Jimmy was very fussy that night (and no small wonder! But I had no idea why...) so I took him to the nurses, to see if maybe bathing him would help. (We weren't allowed to bath our babies by ourselves, until they had shown us "how". Infaaact, they even had "bathing babies" sessions during the day!!) She asked me at some point if my milk had come in yet. I went all red (still not sure why I was so embarrassed about it!) and showed her the front of my gown. She merely clicked her tongue, and sent me back to bed. She kept Jimmy with her for a few hours, so I could catch some shut eye. There was no educating me, no helping me, no showing me what in the world a breast pad was, no helping me get some dry clothes, or dry sheets. I went back to the cold and damp bed, and slept restlessly. I ended up walking Jimmy up and down the hallways, after she couldn't get him to settle either. Poor baby just had a sore tummy. :-( It took me quite a few days to figure out how to manage this milk business. I wish someone had told me.

That it's ok to breastfeed and be pregnant at the same time.
When I got pregnant with Olivia, Jimmy was just 5 months old. We'd gotten over the first few rough days of nursing, and had established a wonderful relationship together. He loved breastfeeding, and I loved feeding him. But, with the well-meaning advice (and it was well-meaning! It just wasn't right...) of friends and family, I was told that my body just couldn't cope with both feeding and pregnancy. So I (still not confident enough in my Mummyness to know that I was doing the right thing) force weaned the little fella. He screamed and screamed for days. It breaks my heart to think about it!! My little sister came to stay with us, and tried to help. We thought it was a great plan to get HER to feed him during the nights with a bottle, and that way he wouldn't smell the milk and just want me. (How ridiculous is that!!). So, after having 5 months of me attending his needs and the comfort of my milk, he was thrust into a new routine of someone else coming to him in the dark of the night and trying to shove this plastic THING into his mouth. He cried and cried, and I cried and cried. It was awful!! I wish I had kept nourishing him from my own body, instead of putting formula into his little body. I missed those close breastfeeding times, and have regretted that decision often. It is possible to breastfeed and be pregnant, and quite frankly... God designed our bodies to be able to cope with it. Infact, I wouldn't be surprised if it was good for the pregnancy! It took about 3 days (or was it 5?? It felt like eternity!!) before he would feed from a bottle. There's a part of me that still aches about that decision, and I wish someone had told me.

That it's GOOD to pick up your baby and just snuggle them and breathe in their sweetness.
Need I say more? Their baby moments are fleeting, and a hug never hurt no-one. I wish someone had told me.

...And I could probably go on forever about this, but the night is getting late and the battery on the lap-top is getting low. :-) I hope I haven't offended anyone with my posts. My intention is not to offend. In a way, it's a cleansing path that I feel I need to take with this pregnancy... I need to say it, and then let go of the baggage that's been weighing me down. And then again, I hope that something I say can be either a help or a warning to other young mums, who may also not have someone around to tell them the nitty-gritties about birth. Next post should be about Livvy's birth, all going well. ;-)

I must say, today I've been feeling every single bit of my 30 weeks pregnancy. With the temperatures in the high 30s, no aircon (except in the master bedroom), and four children to chase around... well, it was a blessed relief to crawl into bed (in the airconditioning!!) and rest my poor aching body. With my children asleep beside me, I was able to catch over an hours sleep. Glorious!!

Heard a story today about a woman who gave birth (yes, in a hospital...) and once the head was out, the baby's cord snapped. Like, clear through. Apparently the doctor's "threw her on the bed", and got the baby out immediately. There was no heartbeat, no breathing, and a huuuge lose of blood. Panic button was hit, and about 20 doctors and nurses rushed in. Eventually they got a pulse, and he's in NICU now, I do believe. How scary is that?! I've never heard of a cord snapping before, and I'm pretty sure it's not all that common! Apparently (one of the lady's friend's Mum (who is a nurrse) said...) that it has nothing to do with postdates, or anything... it just sometimes happens. Hmm. Something for me to ponder. :-) Because I like pondering stuff like that.
In New Zealand, my midwife carried all the necessary equipment for baby resuscation (oxygen tanks and all!!), so I'm guessing that if it happened at home, the "rememdy" for the problem would probably be along the same lines... just with a fast ambulance trip after establishing a pulse.
Poor little Bubby. And poor Mummy. She didn't get to touch him till 11 hours (!!!) after the birth. Unavoidable in the circumstances, but still so sad.
I'm so grateful for God's mercies towards me in all of my births. Other than Jimmy's problems breathing (which I believe had to do with the drugs given to me, and also cutting his cord straight away. He didn't have time to establish his own breathing before they cut off his oxygen supply!) I still got to see and hold all my babies pretty much straight after their births. Infact, I got to "catch" both Rachel and Christian! I'm looking forward to writing up their birth stories... they're a real treat!!

The Birth. :-)

Jimmy's induction was booked for a Thursday morning. I was advised to get a good sleep the night before (did my midwife know something that I didn't!? hmm), which was virtually impossible. I wasn't nervous, afterall...what could go wrong? I'm in a hospital, the midwives will look after me!! But I was excited.  :-) Very excited!

So I packed my bags, and we were at the hospital around 8am, at which time we were shown to one of the rooms in L&D. I remember thinking how horrible the maternity area looked. Seriously, that place needed a face-life!
My midwife arrived, and the first lot of gel was placed into my cervix. I was told to lay on the bed for an hour, and then go for a walk. Not long after I got up from the bed, I looked out the window and there was my Mum, little Sis, and big Sis arriving for the big day. I didn't expect them to be there, but it was a great distraction for me! I was so glad to have their support too.
So, not surprisingly, the first lot of gel didn't work (Hellloooo, baby wasn't ready!!), so the next lot was inserted by 3:30pm. And after this lot, my mum made me walk up and down the hallways, pretty much constantly. Apparently this is how she went into labour. :-) Sigh. Anyway, we were having some great bonding times with each other, and pretty much disturbing the whole ward with our laughter.

Reality soon sunk in though, when Nurse Gertrude (seriously. That was her name. She suited it too!!) came in at 6pm and said that everyone had to go home, including my husband. This terrified me! Contractions still hadn't started, although I was beginning to feel a tad uncomfortable, and I really really didn't want to spend the night there on my own. However, I had foolishly placed myself in the nurses hands, and from now on, they were ruling the roost. So, off my family went. Later I learned that James (my husband) went and sat in his car in the carpark. Such a sweet guy! His wife was inside, in tears, and in the early stages of labour, and he was forced to leave her side. Around 8pm I started to feel mild contractions, and went to tell Nurse Gertrude. She, very rudely, told me that it was just an irritable uterus (Hah! I agree! I'd be irritable too if I had that gel stuffed into me to make me "ripen" when I wasn't ready to be ripe!!), gave me some sleeping tablets, and sent me to bed. Literally. I was sobbing, as I tried to go to sleep with these pains, and the dread of what was to come. The pains started to get stronger, and harder to ignore, but I was so frightened of Gertrude, that nothing in the world would convince me to let her know. So I lay there writhing in pain in my bed. Around 10:30, I figured that the change of nurses had happened, so I timidly stepped into the hallway to see who was at the desk. A lovely nurse spied me and asked how I was doing. When I mentioned the contractions, she offered to run me a warm bath, which was so gratefully accepted. The bath didn't help much with the pains though (my body was so tense with fear!!) and once I told her that I'd also had a bloody show, she rang my midwife and I got to text my husband to commme baacckkk. I was so pleased to see him walk through those doors! But how terrible that I had to "perform" in order to have him by my side!

We were quickly ushered into the L&D rooms again (it was a quiet night on the ward, my one blessing!!) and I was given the "gas" to try and work out on my own. The pains really weren't too bad at that point, so we had a bit of fun playing with the gas...even my family had a go on it! Ahh... we managed to make our own fun, amidst the hospital regulations!

So the hours ticked by...

At some point in the early hours of the morning, I hopped into a birthing pool, and pretty much went to sleep, waking up for the contractions that were coming about 6 minutes apart.

They were long hours. By about 4 in the morning, nothing was happening (I wasn't "progressing" enough), so my midwife asked me to get out of the pool. I went into the bathrooms (not too sure why I ended up in there, but I did...) and after throwing up many many times, the midwife asked me if I'd like her to break my waters. I was so exhausted by now, that I thought for sure this was a good option. I was in such agony from the contractions, that they got some mats, and laid them down right there on the bathroom floor. Of course, laying down just heightened my pain, and by this time I was almost hitting the ceiling with each contraction. She got out her long loooong crochet hook, and pop went my waters. And Bam Wham went my contractions. It was about this time I was begging for an epidural. I just could not cope with the pain anymore, and I had no one telling me that everything would be ok. I think they were all quite distressed seeing me like that, actually!! So the epidural-fella was called, and he got there about 7:30am. I was told to sit as still as possible on the side of the bed. And interestingly enough, this was the only part of labor where I actually felt in control. I had to reach down inside of myself, and summon up the strength to cope. And I did! First try for the epidural was apparently a success. And off I went to sleep. Along with the rest of my family, haha. However, I was soon woken with terrible contraction pain on just one side of my body. Wonderful. I was stuck in bed, unable to move, hooked up to every medication possible, and told to lie on the side where the pain was. They were hoping the epidural would "float" over to the other side. Didn't work. I could have told them that!! So in came the epidural guy again. Try Two hit a blood vessel. This is where my dear husband started feeling faint. Poor guy. Try Three (and apparently their last chance on me) worked, and I drifted off to sleep again. This was about 10:30 in the morning, and I do believe I was still only 4 centimeters dilated. I don't blame my body in the slightest... I wouldn't dilate under those stressful circumstances either!

So, off went my sisters into town for a coffee, and I even received some visitors! 

Insane. Anyway. At around 2:30 I was given the c-section talk. And yes, I was willing for it. I had been feeling some pushing urges (without the pain, just the pressure) but had been literally trying to hold them back, as I was terrified at having to go through anything else!! My midwife did one more check on me, and lo and behold, there was a head. :-) I hadn't managed to hold him back after all! My sisters were summoned from their coffeeying in town, and I was told to push. And so I did. I was so scared feeling any more pain, but the epidural was still up super strong, so I didn't feel a thing, except the pressure. I thought it was wonderful! (such a strange birth...). Anyway. 30 minutes later, our red-headed Jimmy entered the world. :-) And I didn't care. I felt numb, and didn't even noticed that he was a deathly shade of grey, and that my midwife had pressed the emergency button. This part makes me want to cry so much, because of how unaware I was of my son's peril! I got a quick look at him, and then they whisked him away to do CPR. I just lay there and bleed. I thought it was all normal, and this was how births are. *cry*. A few minutes later I heard him cry, and someone laid him in my arms. I smiled, but inwardly I was thinking "what's the fuss?! I want to sleep and now I have to stay awake for this baby". Bonding did not happen. My poor Jimmy. I love him fiercely now, and cannot believe how much the drugs interferred with our bonding at his birth!

I was not the first to dress him. I was not the first to bathe him. I was not the first to give him his first real cuddle and kiss. I lay there like a zombie and cared only for his immediate needs. Feeding and changing. Oh how I regret the way it happened!!

But I did what I could, and slowly (as the drugs and their effects wore off...) I was able to welcome this little boy into our family.

I am in tears as I write this. It's been so confronting to me to write down what happened and the way I felt about it. To acknowledge that his birth and my reaction to it was far from ideal... that's hard! I wish I could have given him the beginnings that both Rachel and Christian had, but you can't change the past. And as much as it pains me to remember it, it IS a part of the past, and it helped shape and mold me into the woman that I am today. A woman who is confident in birth, and freely able (by God's grace) to birth my babies into a peaceful environment at home. A place where they are loved, protected, and cherished. Where Mummy gets all of her afterbirth hormones, and can't put the baby down for weeks, because of the sheer preciousness of them in our family.
Jimmy and I recovered. I have a strong body that was soon able to shake off the hospital ickiness, and was able to whole-heartedly mother my son in the way I was meant to. The way God created me. Have I mentioned what a darling boy he is? He is SO tender-hearted, it's incredible. He loves his family so much, is such an obedient little fella, and has this thirst for companionship and love that outweighs anything else. He started school this year, and is completely thriving in his classroom. I'm so thankful for him in our lives, and love him to pieces!

Did you know, I've never written down my birth stories? Oh, I jotted down a few pages after Jimmy's birth (my oldest son), but I've never shared it with anyone, and as for my other three births... well, it's time they were down on "paper". :-) I've been so inspired and encouraged by reading other women's birth stories lately, that I thought maybe you would enjoy hearing mine. And if not... well, just skip the next few entries.

Birth doesn't begin with labour though, does it?

I doubted myself, and my ability to give birth naturally, right from the beginning of Jimmy's pregnancy. Infact, I was so poorly educated about birth, that I didn't even know what a "natural" birth was! I just assumed that the medical system was doing what was best for me and my baby, and any little drama that came along was exciting...! Oh, how I wish I could turn back time, and do that pregnancy and birth again. I knew so very very little. But I know now that I am where I am today because of what happened to me then. It started me out on my quest for "something better" in birth.

We were so dirt poor during my pregnancy. We found out we were pregnant in about week one. Haha. I was so excited, but had no idea of the long journey ahead of me. Nausea and vomiting hit me hard, but because of our lack of finances, I couldn't even afford the "dry crackers" that everyone was recommending. (Not to self: When a woman is super sick in pregnancy, make her up a little care package. You never know what a person's finances are like, and I know it would have meant the WORLD to me!) I spent my days lying in bed, and feeling like I was dying. I was so so lonely. We were living far away from my family, and I didn't have any friends in the town we were in. I remember just crying and crying, and even having suicidal thoughts. I now know that I was probably going through antenatel depression, brought on primarily by the loneliness. But! By the grace of God, He kept us safe, and Baby continued to grow happily in spite of the turmoil outside of the womb. I was the Master at hiding how I was really feeling, and no one, not even my midwife, picked up on anything.
I loved my midwife. After every visit (in New Zealand, you have the same midwife throughout the pregnancy and birth, and mine just happened to do home visits!) I would count the days until she came again. She was my social interaction! She was such a chatterbox, and I remember loving that I could sit there and just listen to her.
My "due date" (Christmas day 2005) came and went without even the slightest twinge. I do believe that was my most miserable Christmas ever! How sad is that. :-( A time when I should have been rejoicing in my pregnancy and loving the last few days, at peace with knowing that my body can birth at the right time...and instead I was grumpy that it wasn't "doing it right" and getting caught up in the "woe is me" song.
The days came and went, and on about the 3rd of January, my midwife did a "stretch and sweep" for me. Nothing happened. Baby wasn't ready to be born. Unfortunately, we thought we knew better than baby, and an induction was booked. I was barely a week overdue!!

...and I'll continue this story a little later. My sleeping babies are due to wake up soon, and then off to school we go to watch Jimmy in his "After School Sports" program. He is SUCH a precious wee soul, and I must say that despite his hard pregnancy and traumatic birth, he was worth every moment. :-)

Birth and all things related

Birth.


It's been going through my mind lately, probably due to the fact that in 10 weeks I'll be journeying down that path again, but also because the desire to become a midwife and my passion for all things "birthy" has become so strong lately. I think people are getting sick of me talking about it, so I'm going to use this blog as my outlet for all those thoughts running rampant through my mind. You'd think (even though I have this uncanny tendancy to...) I wouldn't get into trouble talking about birth of all things, but I know that some of the things I'm going to say will offend people. Birth is such a personal and intimate thing, it's impossible to please everyone, and every man and his dog have their own ideas on it. So pleeease don't take it personally. These are just my ideas and thoughts, dreams and desires, and strong opinions.

I learned a lesson today. I started chatting with someone about "birth" and inducings, and it very quickly developed into a heated debate. Which, at first, I thought was GREAT fun! I love debating issues... iron sharpeneth iron, right? You learn so many interesting things, and well... I guess debating is in my blood, along with the desire to have the last word. ;-)  Anyway. It wasn't long before I noticed that things were getting a little personal, and tried to duck out of the conversation a little. It took an hour for this lady to finish what she was saying. Which was fine. She needed to get it off her chest, and really had had some awful experiences in the hospital. But, it taught me this ... no matter what I believe is true, it doesn't matter one iota when the other person has been through trauma in birth, and is struggling to understand why. And somehow, somewhere, I need to learn the best ways to respond to people like that. I literally couldn't get a word in edgeways (I tried, I really did. Especially when she said "I know, you're a "do it natural person, even at the cost of mother and baby", which is so far from the truth it's not funny. I love natural birth because of the benefits to both mother and baby. But anyway...), maybe I should have acknowledged her trauma more? Sympathised more? I'm not sure. But I'll learn, I know I will. Today I shut up, and let her talk (and talk and talk...) which was the best I could do, with what I knew.