Well the last time I blogged it was 5 days to my due date. So you can guess what comes next...
My baby boy arrived, I'd like to say in style but on the hospital communal toilet floor on the ward isn't very stylish at all. What happened leading up to this moment was not what I had planned or wanted, so let me fill in some gaps. As you know I wanted a water birth at the midwifery led unit, as you also know my blood pressure was borderline high. On the 10th February I went into the hospital for a routine blood pressure check due to mine being borderline high. When I sat in the cold plastic chair in agony I saw the midwife's face screw up looking at the blood pressure device. She called another midwife over to "double check" the reading. My heart sank "it's high isn't it?" I asked. "Yes, very, if you go into the waiting room I need to discuss something with the Dr". I sat back down in the waiting room, on my own, and waited for the midwife or Dr to call me back in. Deep down I knew this birth wasn't going to go as I wanted, but I rang my mum told her my bloody pressure reading and tried to convince myself that they would let me home saying "it's fine, I feel fine, they'll let me go home I'm sure and probably ask me to go back to the hospital tomorrow". My mum wasn't convinced and insisted she left work right then to come meet me at the antenatal clinic. The Dr called me in, and in no less words said "we need to get this baby out now, we'll double dose you on blood pressure medication and will have to blue light you to the labour ward". I tried to digest this and not freak out as that would not help my blood pressure. My dream of a midwifery led birth desolved in my mind. I cried my eyes out, and my mum walked in. My mum spoke to the Dr for me and convinced her to let my mum take me to the labour ward so I could go home and gather my overnight bag, the only agreed to this because the double dose of meds had kicked in and my blood pressure was lowering. I rang my husband who sped down the M4 to ensure he was at his sons birth.
At the hospital the delivery suite was shut, but I was assigned a bed on the induction ward, and would be induced as soon as space on the delivery ward became available. My husband arrived and stayed with me overnight, and I was then induced the following morning around 9am. My bishops score wasn't the best but as he was my third child the midwife had her hopes up that we would have our new baby boy that day. As my induction first time around (first baby) worked rapidly I was hoping this would also do the same. Waiting was a killer. I bathed, I waddled around the hospital (husband holding me up), praying something, anything would kick start this baby's arrival. The agony of my SPD landed me back in my bay at the ward, laying in my bed watching movies on the iPad. Moaning women surrounded me, an angry husband shouting at the midwife was in the bay next door. He was so rude, I lay there with my husband tutting as he angrily shouted "my wife is agony, this is not good enough where's the nearest private hospital? I'll bloody pay, you midwives here are hopeless". The midwives on the ward were amazing in my opinion, overworked maybe, but stretched themselves to ensure all ladies on the ward were seen to and not left in pain. This gentleman (and his wife) were stuck up and pushy. Midwives deserve respect! As I was listening to their muttering, and gathering of belongings (the poor midwives were, it seemed, forced to transfer his wife to the delivery suite for pain relieve), my "Braxton Hicks" became stronger, and I actually had to start breathing through the pain. Excitedly I said to my husband "Oh I think something is finally happening, could you find the midwife and ask if I could have some paracetamol please" - just to take the edge off the pain. My husband scurried off and came back with a birthing ball and said the midwife won't be long with meds for me, she was in handover. I purched myself on the ball, that was too painful, so I got up on the bed on all fours. To my delight a midwife came up to my bed, but she didn't have any paracetamol. She wanted to check my progress before giving me paracetamol. With great difficulty I lay on my back and found to be 3cm, and she said I could go up on the delivery suite and could have the birthing pool as my blood pressure had come bad down. I was delighted. Delighted until I realised I was like a turtle on his back and completely stuck because of my SPD pain. And then I needed the toilet. I tried explaining the midwife that I needed the toilet but couldn't move and she explained that I either get up and go to the toilet or they'll have to give me a catheter. Sheer horror made me move, and my husband carried me to the toilet. He said he'd go pack up all our stuff ready to move up to the delivery suite. Although before my butt hit the seat I was screaming. In my head I kept thinking "You're only 3cm Kirsty, stop screaming, you're being ridiculous, you've got hours of this pain yet. Man up". Three midwives came rushing in. One with a bedpan in her hand, sliding it behind me onto the seat she said to me "You are not giving birth to this baby into the toilet Kirsty come on". My head was all over the place. I couldn't move, I dropped to the floor in the toilet cubicle. I didn't know what was going on but I knew my body was telling me this baby was coming. My husband still outside on the ward packing up our stuff, the cleaner turned to him and said "I think you need to get in there love". He replied "no, we're going up to the delivery suite now", she said "no love I think she's going to have the baby in there". "Do you think?" He said dropping our stuff and legging it back to the toilet. When he came in the scene that welcomed him was not what he was expecting. Two midwives trying to get me to crawl out of the cubicle, and another contacting the resus team. I had a contraction, my waters went. "HES COMING" I screamed. One of the midwives and my husband helped me crawl out of the cubicle. I had another contraction "HIS HEADS COMING OUT, HIS HEADS COMING OUT", as I screamed these words I delivered his head into my hand, whilst still on all fours on the toilet floor. I have never been so scared in my life. The midwives started discussing the plan of action "as soon as he is out, you rush him out to the resus team and we'll sort Kirsty to take her to the emergency ward". My head was all over the place, I stared and focused on the tap under the sinks, "focus Kirsty, focus". Another contraction, I screamed "HES COMING" and the midwife who was sat behind me caught his limp, blue body. The midwife cut his cord, bundled him in a towel ready to rush him out to the resus team. "HES NOT CRYING. HES NOT MOVING. MY BABY" I screeched. My body had locked into position and I was now stuck on the toilet floor on all fours, without my baby. My husband said it was only a matter of seconds but it felt a lifetime, and then my beautiful baby boy took his first gasp of air. He was breathing. My world came back together, he was alive. They passed our beautiful boy to my husband and one of the midwives helped him tickle his feet to help baby cry. That cry was the most wonderful sound in the world at that moment in time. The midwives helped me up off the floor slowly and I was laid on the hospital bed right outside the toilet door to be wheeled down to my bay on the ward. I think I put fear into a lot of first time mummies on that induction ward that day. I delivered the placenta in my bay on the ward with the curtains pulled.
He was here. Well and healthy. My fear of a big baby didn't matter, my bundle weighed 7lb 11oz and was perfect.
Me and Baby Boy H, first picture together!
The plan was to call him Dylan, but whilst my husband had been away to Belize I completely went off that name and couldn't imagine naming my child it. So for now he was Baby Boy H!! I had a name up my sleeve but worried it was too unusual and people would comment on it, as they do when you like a name society isn't used to! So I pondered on that during our first night together, alone as my husband had to get home to James and Tomas. Baby Boy H wasn't a fan of sleep, the midwives had him for me for an hour but all he wanted was me and my boobs.
The next day my husband was in first thing and we both decided the name up my sleeve fitted him perfectly (my husband had suggested it when I went off Dylan, so he did have his input)! Osian Francis it was! My perfect little Oshi-Monster!
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