Dear lord, I have a one year old

Hey bloggerverse! Its hard to imagine that I have a one year old kicking around. It doesn't really seem like that long ago I was laying in a hospital bed, utterly covered in tubes and devices recovering from a traumatic labour and c section. It doesnt feel like a year ago that I was wheeled down to NICU to hold my baby for the very first time.

I remember feeling utter awe and just how wonderful he was.

I remember when I was finally allowed to get out of that hell hole which was hospital and go home with my boys. It was such a lovely couple of weeks and when someone described it as a 'babymoon', I couldn't agree more. I was smitten, my partner was smitten and god we were just so happy. Everything fell into place and my baby thrived.

A now here he is...a year old! Its a such a joy to see him change and grow each day and turn into a little person.

♥

For those who never got to read my baby's birth story which I wrote back in February 2009, here it is....
It was about 2am Wednesday morning when i woke up with some braxton hicks, nothing much worth writing home about but uncomfortable enough to make it so i was unable to sleep. I timed them for a while and they were actually regular, about every 10 minutes, but after about 40 minutes they spread out and disappeared. I ended up getting up because my hips and back were really sore and for some reason my brain wouldn’t switch off. I decided to just get up and surf the internet for a while to try and make myself sleepy but it just didn’t end happening so I stayed up. Simon went off to work and i went to hang out with Mum who was up here for a few days. Since it was unlikely i was going into labour she came up to go to the ultrasound that day with me so after we had some breakfast at Sylvia Park (all the while me complaining it felt like i had been horse riding all night and yawning away and mum saying ‘you are in early labour!’) we went to the scan and i got to see my crunched up little baby on the screen, I honestly thought that was the most mum was going to see of the baby for a while so I was a little sad he was hiding his face so much! After that we went off to the midwife for a checkup and it turned out i was 3cm dilated so that was awesome. It gave me hope i might actually start labouring BEFORE my induction date.

That afternoon/evening the contractions started properly and were coming every 3-4 minutes and were fairly painful. Thinking about it now I was probably actually having them every 15-20 minutes all day but I didn’t think to time them, I really didn’t want to believe I was in labour like mum kept going on about in case they stopped and went away!

I would describe the pain as period cramps mixed with that feeling you get when you have an upset stomach…x 20.

By about 8:30pm when mum went back to the motel for the night they were every 3 minutes and stepping up in the pain department. I decided to try and get some sleep so Simon and I went upstairs and lay down. I was surprised I managed to doze off between contractions but lets face it, 2 minute naps are not that productive and by midnight I had given up that. I left Simon sleeping and tried walking about a bit but that hurt like crazy and I was starting to get panicky. My sister Alex called me at 1am and as we talked she timed my contractions over the phone. They were 30seconds long but coming every 2 minutes. She said I really should call my midwife and go to hospital but I adamant that I would follow the instructions given and not call until they were at least 60 seconds long. I didn’t want to be one of those women who woke their midwives up at 2am for absolutely nothing.
By 2am I was in too much pain though. I woke Simon up and he helped me as best as he could and nagged me to call Hilary the midwife. Eventually I relented and she heard me speak for about 10 seconds before saying ‘yep go to hospital I will be there in half an hour’.

So we packed up (didn’t even wake Dave up, although I don’t know how because I was practically screaming in pain) and got in the car, picked mum up and trotted off to hospital. Once we got into our room and settled Hilary did an examination and I was only 4cm. I couldn’t believe it – how was it possible that I got to 3cm without feeling it really at all and that 1cm basically was killing me?

I laboured for about an hour or so using the gas but it was getting clear that going two nights without any decent sleep and the pain was just going over my head. Hilary put in a IV so I could get some fluids into me (as I was also very dehydrated) and gave me some pethidine. I totally recommend this stuff for anyone who doesn’t want to go for an epidural but needs a little something to help them. It doesn’t take the pain away by any means but it removes you enough from the situation that you can relax between contractions.

So we went on like that for another hour or so before that just wasn’t cutting the mustard either and I wasn't progressing that fast event hough the contractions were still so close together. There was no way I was going to hold out with that level of pain, contractions so close together for long enough to dilate fully so Hilary then suggested an epidural. I hadn’t wanted one of these for many reasons. I didn’t want to be bed ridden for one, I didn’t want a cathadar, I didn’t want to have a needle in my back …etc etc, but by that point I needed help and I knew it. So I got that put in, which was lots of fun, and I actually managed to doze off for an hour or two. Then my epidural stopped working. My legs were incredibly numb, and even my butt, but my left side of my stomach was killing me. My midwife put another dosage into my epidural line…and then another one…and another one but nothing would work. She got more signed off from a doctor but that didn’t work either and then the anesthesiologist came in to put more in but that didn’t work either.

It all gets hazy around this point . Around the time the last dose was being attempted, I had gone to 9-10cm dilation and I was allowed to push. Tim the doctor and his team of cronies came in to help deliver ZJ but things were going horribly wrong. I don’t know exactly what was going on, I just knew the only thing that stopped the pain was pushing. I know they tried the Vontuse cups on him but they couldn’t get them positioned right. ZJ was in this horrible position where he was kind of on his side but also posterior and he had gotten well and truly stuck. I start panicking a lot I think because I heard everyone murmuring about the baby being in distress and being stuck and in between all this murmuring there were what seemed to be hundreds of people coming in and out of the room. Here i was, legs up in stirrups (a position I NEVER wanted to be in) with Tim and 3 other down the business end prodding and poking and I ended up yelling something like ‘too many people!’ so Hilary and Tim told everyone not needed to go away. I was at a training hospital so I guess they were there to observe or something. They kept encouraging me to push harder and I also remember yelling at Tim that I couldn’t push harder if he kept pushing the baby back up – I don’t know why I thought he was doing that, maybe something wit him trying to get the suction cups on ZJs head or something.

I started loosing the plot big time. I was in so much pain, the wrong half of me was numb, the baby was getting very distressed and the doctors were looking very worried. They couldn’t get him turned right, they couldn’t get him past a certain point. My mother was bawling her eyes out so much my midwife actually asked if she wanted to leave. Simon looked pale and worried. I freaked out.

Tim then announced there was no way this baby was coming out this way (what I think he wanted to add was ‘alive’) and I should have a c section. Everyone go scrubbed up for that, I was moved from place to place before eventually ended up in the theatre. They tried getting my epidural to work but it just wouldn’t, they kept testing the areas with ice and I just kept screaming ‘its cold, I can feel it!!!’. They decided I would have to be put under a general and So Simon couldn’t stay. I was so scared. I remember the last few moments before I went out was letting go of his hand and looking into the eyes of the anaesthesiologist (who incidentally reminds me of that African dude on Shortland street :P).

A few hours later I woke up in recovery. They were tearing all the tape off my back and it hurt like crap. I asked were everyone was, where the baby was and they said he was in NICU. I had another minor freak out. They said he needed help breathing and I had yet another minor freak out. They gave me a picture of him they took when he was all settled into his incubator and I remember laying there going in and out of consciousness while clutching this picture in my hand. I was scared I would loose it and what if he didn’t make it?

I was assigned a nurse as she got me organised to go down to the room I would be staying. I didn’t want to stay in hospital, I hadn’t even wanted to go to birthcare after a normal birth so I was gutted to find out I would be having to stay in there for at least a few days. On the way she stopped off at the NICU ward and wheeled my bed up to ZJs incubator so I could see him. He was so scary looking with all those tubes coming in and out of him. I wont forget the way he looked.

Simon turned up to hold my hand for a few hours, he had taken mum home so they could both have a shower and something to eat. He had seen ZJ and got to hold him and give him a feed so I was really happy about that. While he was there the team came in and told me ZJ was off the CPAP which was awesome but was still having problems with his temperature and a slight infection so they were going to keep him in for a while.

Later that night I was given a sponge bath and some care. My nurse was really lovely. She helped me into a wheelchair, as there was no way I could very far, and wheeled me down to see my little boy. The ped looking after him was worried about his temperature but weighed up that him having a hug was also very important so I got to hold him for the first time. My stomach being cut in half couldn’t take his weight so they had pillows shoved under him and then they covered us in blankets. I don’t think I will ever forget how many mixed emotions pumped through me at that point…. It was all so very overwhelming.

Tim came to see me the next day and explained how damaged my uterus got during the labour and c section. my uterus was torn down the left side (explains that intense pain on my side!). Not only did they run out of time with him and they had to get him out quick but because of the awful position he was in, and the fact he was well and truly stuck in there, they made that tear worse. He said usually he encourages all c section mums to have a natural birth afterwards but in my case it just wouldn’t be an option. Although I will be able to have further pregnancies, my womb just would not handle the pressure of a labour. Sigh.

Hopsital turned out to be a nightmare. The night nurses were absolute bitches. I hated being hooked up to a stupid IV with the morphine which I basically never used. I hated not being able to move properly and tend to my son who was bunked in with me yet I couldn’t get to without help. Being a breastfeeding only hospital, I hate how they never gave us enough formula to feed him and we weren't allowed our own supplies. I hte how I couldn’t sleep AT ALL, including the nights I was labouring I went 5 nights and 6 days without more than an hour of sleep before having a major breakdown. The nurses ended up giving me some sedatives and taking ZJ for the night so I could sleep. They were so stupid about it though, they even asked if I had issues with family violence and couldn’t seem to understand I just was exhausted and fed-up with their crap. They ended up calling one of my midwives (Alison, the backup) because they wanted to get me a social worker! Stupid idiots. She came in to see me the next day, saw how frustrated I was being in hospital and with the fact they were not giving us enough formula for ZJ so not only did she organise our early discharge and we were able to go home the next day but she stole a few bottle of premix formula and hid it in my bags. She was fantastic.

So that’s it. It was traumatic for everyone involved
But hey… ZJ and I were ok and we both got there in the end.