There were several things that weren't ideal about Harry's arrival, and whilst I'm being a bit self indulgent writing about it here I get rather teary when I think about it so I'm hoping that the process of writing down will be somewhat cathartic for me.
08:00 - Tully had been sent home from nursery yesterday as she'd been vomiting, and I'd been up and down with her all night. So despite being really tired and only having had a couple of hours sleep when I woke at 8 noticing mild contractions I decided to get up and make sure they were real and didn't fade away to give Mum and Dad maximum notice to start driving over as they'd been called in to help.
11:00 - The contractions are relatively mild in terms of pain, but coming regularly every 3-4 minutes so we decide to head to hospital as we know a couple of people that have been caught short with their second for being too complacent. Luckily as it's half term Alicia (our baby sitter) and her Mum Maria are around and Tully happily goes to play with them for an hour or so as Mum and Dad are still a little way away.
12:00 - We arrive as Wythenshawe and are sent to triage where I am assessed. I am about 2-3cm dilated, but apparently 'not in established labour' yet despite still getting contractions every 3 minutes or so. The head is still a little high and the cervix is still too thick. Also, I think that I am generally to calm in my appearance which was incidentally my downfall when I went in with Tully - the midwives never seem to believe that it's for real. On the very (very) off chance I have another I must learn to be more histrionic about things as it's clearly the only way to get taken seriously. Anyway, more on that later. I am told to keep mobile, given a bed in a little room off the ward by triage and the midwife agreed with Mark that I may be in established labour in a couple of hours or so. We decided to go for a wander to the shop to buy some snacks and to phone Mum and Dad and make sure they've arrived safely etc.
13:15 - We get back from our walk. The contractions are much much stronger now and getting really very painful. I get a birthing ball and bounce a bit but am still just about coping with the pain using my TENS machine.
13:45 - I am now struggling to cope with the pain, Mark suggests getting someone in to assess me and I suggest we wait til 2 because then it's 2 hours from my first assessment, grit my teeth and get on with it.
14:00 - Mark goes outside to see if someone can come and see how we are getting on. He is told they are just starting a shift change and someone will be in soon.
14:15 - I am in a lot of pain now, and the midwife that did my first assessment spots that I'm leaning over the bed in tears and pops in. She brings me a canister of gas and air but as with Tully it makes me feel quite nauseous so I only use it sporadically. It's about 14:30 by the time she examines me and I'm gutted to discover I'm still only 3cm dilated. I think this is where it all starts to go wrong as I'm sure this midwife now believes me to be a drama queen rather than being the opposite and hating making any kind of fuss or putting anyone out. I could be wrong but I assume that she passes this belief on to the new midwife at the same time as passing on the medical information that nothing much has happened for a couple of hours so I'll be quite a while yet. She does at least concede I'm in established labour and also says that now I'm getting stronger contractions things should start to happen more in the next couple hours.
15:00 - Each contraction is complete agony and I think it's fair to say I am no longer even close to coping with the pain and screaming out with each one, partly because it hurts so much but I don't try and hold it in as I normally would in the hope that someone will move me to a delivery room soon, if only so that the other people on the ward can't hear me. Mark goes to ask if someone can come to see me and is told by the new midwife on duty, after confirmed his wife "is the one she can hear" that she'll be there in a couple of minutes. I've since learnt she was just sat at the desk doing paperwork which adds to me being convinction that my assumptions on my handover were correct. At this point I am assuming I'll still only be 4/5/6?cm dilated and have to put up with this for some time yet and know I will not manage with the TENS machine alone which is still my main pain relief, although I am using the gas and air more - nausea being more preferable to the pain...
15:25 - I now feel that I have to push and that nothing anybody can say to me will be able to stop me. I've still no pain relief and still not had anyone come to see me. I am also really trying not to push as I think I still have a long way to go. Mark again goes out to ask for someone to come in, and she again says she'll be in soon. Mark tells her I am saying I have to push and she does at least decide to get up to come in, although still with no urgency. She tells me that I need to calm down (I really far from calm or coping) and says after the current contraction she will get me to turn over (since about 14:30 have been on my knees and leaning onto the pillows) so she can examine me. I remember thinking there's no chance of that and scream out that I HAVE to push... I am still wearing my pants so she tries to slide them down and I am still desperately trying not to push as I've read so many takes of people thinking they need to long before they are really ready. At this point it's a bit of a blur, but I remember her saying she can see my baby's head; me shouting out that "it's not good" and refusing to listen to anyone telling me anything different; Mark telling me to listen to her, that it's ok and that she says I can push (but still in my head think he must be wrong as I've heard no such thing so desperately trying not to); her asking for a delivery trolley and to listen to my body and do what it tells me.
15:41 - Harry is born!
The whole thing happens in 15 contractions from the point where I get assessed by the initial midwife - I know because as a way to get me to cope Mark suggests we deal with them in small blocks and I just need to worry about getting through the next block of contractions. His head comes out on the 14th, and his body on the 15th.
It doesn't get much better from here either - I can't complain that my care at this point was left as she made sure I didn't need stitches and completed everything she needed to for safety's sake, but we had to wait almost 3 hours for him to be weighed / measured etc as she had to go to attend to someone else on the ward. It was a bit embarrassing that people kept coming in saying things like 'Blimey - we don't normally have babies up here!' and asking and we had to say we didn't know. Eventually a more mature healthcare assistant came in to say hello and see how we were and somehow she seemed to realise this was a bit rubbish and went off to find somebody to get things moving. As was explained to me later, in a delivery room you have the dedicated focus of a midwife to you and your baby, but as I was still on the ward there was just the one for everyone there. I asked how often babies were delivered in this ward and was told 'not never but not very often'. I later pushed this again and eventually got told about 1 every 4 months (i.e. about 3 a year). This in a maternity unit that delivers well over 500 babies a month...
I still feel like I'm making a fuss by writing all this down as I am well aware I'm not the first person to give birth with practically no pain relief. I think the thing that upsets me is that I feel like I was ignored / dismissed and that someone should have come to check on me earlier. If I'd known I was so close my state of mind would have been much better. Part of the problem is that anyone that knows either Mark or I know that we communicate urgency etc by the vocabulary we use, rather than by tone. Neither of us likes to be thought of as demanding, and we are amateurs at this so didn't know that we ought to be more insistent, but I genuinely don't know what we would have needed to have done to get someone to pay us attention either.
Anyway, it's done; both of us survived and are healthy etc which is the most important thing. But I also know I'll always feel slightly aggrieved and disappointed by the experience and whereas I thought everything about my care with Tully was wonderful, I have definitely been left with a sour taste in my mouth this time.
Since Harry was ill I have been a little obsessive with monitoring his temperature. The thermometer I'd bought when Tully was a baby had stopped working so having decided I needed to buy a new one I decided to get a better one this time. After some research I decided on the Brother Max 3-in-1 thermometer.
