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Early in the morning of Tuesday 14th October 2003
I had a show. Knowing that the birth could still be a week or so away, I didn't think all that much of it - especially
as I expected Katherine to be a bit later than her due date of 17th October.
However, by the evening I was starting to feel slightly
peculiar and just after supper, at 8.30, my waters suddenly broke. Contractions started and for the first hour were
quite gentle. I wasn't in any pain when I rang the hospital and was told to come in when the contractions were stronger
and more regular. The contractions quickly became much stronger and more painful - by about 2.00am I felt I couldn't
bear it any longer and we drove to the hospital.
The birthing centre where I was due to be
delivered wasn't open at that time of night and we went to the normal delivery ward. We waited for about 20 minutes
and to my surprise the contractions seemed to be coming less often while we waited. I was examined and found to
be 1-2cm dilated. We were offered the choice of staying or going home and I was so put off by the place that I decided
that I would be happier at home. The birth still seemed some way off and I wasn't planning to have any pain relief,
and as we lived just round the corner we could make it back quickly. So we returned - Mark went to sleep (snarl) and
I tried to sleep on the sofa in between contractions (not very successfully).
By 7.00am ish the contractions were so strong
I felt we had to go back to the hospital - I was again examined and found to be 7cm dilated. Luckily the birthing
centre was now open and I was taken there - the whole atmosphere was very different, more homely - with pretty curtains, a
radio and a lamp. The midwife, Rachel, was fantastic and stayed with us the whole time, right through til the birth.
We also had a student midwife, Helen, who was due to deliver Katherine as part of her training.
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| This is the very first picture of Katherine, taken when she was half an hour old |
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| Gorgeous as you are, I'm never doing that again... |
Rachel burnt some aromatherapy oils and used other
oils to rub my back to try and ease the pain, which were soothing. I had a bath and was sick with yellow
bile....ugh....I wouldn't record it, but this is supposed to be accurate so I remember what it was like...
I had to get out of the bath because I couldn't stop shivering (I had been shivering uncontrollably
earlier too, before we went to the hospital and had taken a fleecy grey blanket along with me for warmth). Rachel began
asking em about midday if I was getting the urge to push - and I had to say no! So about 1.00pm she examined me
again and found that I seemed to be very nearly fully dilated - she thought that the strength of the contractions might be
pushing Katherine 'round' into her birth position, rather than out! So the contractions continued at their strongest
for hours...
I rocked on the exercise ball to try and ease the contractions and kept walking about,
which always seem to bring them on. It was getting late, and I was getting exhausted, so I had some gas and air to try
and relieve some of the pain, but it didn't seem to work at all, plaster on a shark bite, so really I may as well not have
had it, escept it was something to grab, apart from Mark...
About 4.00pm Helen left - rather annoyed, she'd spent the whole day with us
and had expected to deliver Katherine before her shift ended...no such luck! She considered staying, but decided
against it - wisely, as she'd have ended up staying another 3 and a half hours! We had another student midwife, Melanie,
in her place, who was lovely - and who got to deliver Katherine.
About 6.00pm Rachel said that if Katherine didn't start to make her appearance soon, I'd have
to be transferred to the delivery suite, where pain relief could be provided, and she mentioned the possibility of a forceps
delivery. Mark thought this made me more determined to get her out, but by that time I really felt I couldn't care less
- about anything, and couldn't imagine the pain ever stopping anyway.
Rachel suggested that I try to start pushing, even though I didn't want to - and I tried on
the next contraction. For a while it seemed as if nothing was happening, then Rachel examined me and said that she could
see the head - that was what really helped!
KATHERINE'S BIRTH STORY
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| Rachel, the midwife who delivered Katherine |
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| Daddy's little girl..Mark got to hold her first |
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| I was not keen on being weighed.... |
I was starving by this time so Melanie went
away and came back with a slice of melon. I think it helped...
The contractions seemed weak and dying away
if I sat or lay down, so I had to keep walking about to bring them on again - even when her head was half delivered.
At last I really wanted to push and eventually, after an hour and a half of pushing, her
head was delivered, and Melanie pulled the rest of her body out. All was quiet for a second and I remember thinking
in a weirdly detached way that she hadn't survived the delivery, but the next second she took her first breath and cry and
Mark said that that instant she completely changed colour as the oxygen entered her lungs - sadly I didn't see it!
Melanie cut the cord, cleaned Katherine up and gave her to Mark to
hold while Rachel gave me an injection of syntometrine to deliver the placenta - strangely I felt greater relief when that came
out than when Katherine was born. It was brilliant, feeling suddenly empty again!
Katherine was checked over and scored 10 on both Apgar scores. Mark held her
while I was stitched up and I stared over at her - she was very alert, looking all around her for ages. At last I got
her, and she fell asleep in my arms - I put her in the Moses basket and Mark stayed for a while. After he had left
we were transferred to the ward for the night and the longest day of my life was over at last...
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| But was allowed to sleep for a decent chunk of the first night |
Katherine woke up in the night and I tried to feed her, with
not much success. She went back to sleep only when I took her into bed with me (although luckily she only needed to
sleep with me a couple of times after that - she's been happy in her own cot from very early on! I made her be...).
In the morning I left her sleeping by my bed in the ward while I
went to have breakfast. The following day I took her with me and wondered how I could possibly have left her!
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