Tuesday 30 April 2013

Jake Xavier




Well everyone, I am sorry that I disappeared completely. I see there are so many of you who are still reading my posts and I thank you for it.    I now have a five month old son, he is three months old in the picture above.  His name is Jake Xavier.  :)  He is wonderful, so if you are going through some terrible pregnancy dramas now, just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you will be delighted in the end.

 I was actually afraid that I wouldn't love my baby because I was so miserable and in so much pain during pregnancy.  It was to the point that when I was 9 months and 3 days pregnant, one day before I gave birth, I remember having words with my bump and saying "You have to come now, or I might just hate you."   I look back at that now and can't believe I even thought that.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  He is my sunshine in this mediocre place that I live in.

Pregnancy was no picnic for me, I hope it is better for you.  Now looking back on it, I think several things were at play.  Firstly, I was super ill and had no energy, Secondly, I had moved to a country that I really didn't like and had none of my close friends around for support and Thirdly there is a general lack of beauty and nature here, the landscape is bleak, flat and uninspiring.

 If there is one bit of advice I can give to pregnant women.  Unless you know that you love the country or locale you are moving to, and have a support network already there, for God's sake do not move to somewhere unfamiliar when you are pregnant.  You feel hormonal and vulnerable.  It's just not the time.  Stay somewhere safe and warm and nurturing.

This is my 12th country, so I am sort of a seasoned veteran when it comes to moving country, but this one knocked me for ten.  I was alone, miserable and in what felt to me to be a totally hostile environment.  It didn't help that I had no energy to go and meet people ( in particular expats).  I am only now meeting people and starting to enjoy it a little bit.  However when I was pregnant I really wish that I had been  at home where a bunch of my friends have just had kids,and are fun, warm and  charming. I am finding a group here now but it has been really hard work.




The Birth

The Birth


Ok ladies, so here it is in all it's gruesome glory.  The birth.  You never know what you are in for until it happens.  The questions like What does a contractions feel like?  How long will labour last?  Will sex be good again?  Well I will do my best to answer all this.

I went into labour on a Friday night at around 8 o clock.  I was staying with my mother in her lovely house in the country side and had a week of false labour.  A week you ask?  Yes.  Combined with dreadful heartburn, haemorroids and painful kicks to the ribs, I think I didn't get more than two to three hours sleep that whole week and was absolutely miserable.  I couldn't do much at all.  Walking had become painful, when driving in my mother's car ( which is a horrible sportscar)  I could feel literally every single twig that we passed over.  It was desperately uncomfortable. The haemmoroids were inches long and  exacerbated the pain that seemed to coarse continually through my body.  I was terrified of having to push with haemmoroids that were already agonising.  However, the one bonus was that I knew I was going to have an epidural and that I hopefully wouldn't feel it.

I had three hours worth of, what I thought were, contractions  every night for a week.  I now laugh at thinking that they were anything like contractions.  They were very mild period pain like cramps.  I thought at the time,' This isn't so bad.'' Well, let me tell you, I had no idea what I was in for.

So here we are at 8 oçlock in the evening and it starts to kick off.  My mother thought that I would have labours like she had.  She had a four hour labour with me and a 2 hour labour with my sister so she was adament that I hot- tail it to the hospital.  We went at about midnight and were told that it was my choice whether I stayed or left, but heard all these women moaning in the labour ward, and thought, it was the last place I wanted to be, so I went home.

Twenty minutes after I got home, I lost the mucous plug and then the actual pain started to kick in.  It is so sharp, unlike what I was expecting.  It feels like something blunt is punching your soft squishy internal organs.    When you think of it though, you have the delicate tissue of your uterous contracting against the bones of your baby to push him out.

2 a. m Saturday We went back to the hospital.  Ron was sent home until it was time.  I was having contractions every 3 minutes.  In the beginning I used the TENS machine.  It was ok for about two hours.  Then it just became annoying. On the low settings I think it was helpful, on the higher settings I think it exacerbated the pain.  It got to a point that all I wanted to do was throw it against a wall.

There was one woman in the ward that just said "'Shit' every time her contraction started.  I understood.  There is no way you can't make a noise. I found myself almost mooing like a cow.  It was much more painful than I had expected. Any of these classes you go to where someone says that it's like a pressure that slowly gets stronger, bollocks, it's like someone whipping a baseball bat around your lower intestines.  Why the planet is so overpopulated is beyond me. Labour is no fun.

6 a.m. I asked for an epidural.  The midwife told me the baby was back to back, which apparently is the most difficult and painful position.  The midwives took me to a room and put me in a birthpool, the weightlessness helped a bit and they gave me some gas and air.  Now I have always been a massive fan of gas and air, I had used it when I had a bad kidney infection and it worked wonders.  Now, it helped a bit, but after a while I may as well have been biting down on a spoon.  This panicked me a bit, I thought, if this is not working and I have been in labour for 10 hours already, how am I going to make it through?

The midwives at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital  were fabulous, from the time I got into the pool to the time the baby was born, I wasnt left alone for one minute.  The midwife talked me through every breath told me to breath in deep at the start of every contraction which were now every two minutes apart, and told me to drop my shoulders, which helped a lot.  It got rid of a lot of the tension I was holding in.  The pain was incredible, I asked when I could have an epidural. I was informed that the baby hadnt fully engaged and that they couldnt give an epidural until he had or there would be an increased risk of c-section.

 Ron was brought in.  I wan't sure I wanted him to see me in this state.  What if I pooed in the pool? I had heard of this happening. Luckily nothing like that came to pass. But the pain was really getting on top of me.  I put my head on the side of the tub and said to the midwife " Ï dont think I can do this."  It was horrible.

Saturday 10 am. Finally  I had an epidural.  A short Chinese man came in to administer it. Now normally this physicality is not my type, but I challenge you not to fall a little bit for your anaesthetist when he takes your pain away. I said to him 'You are about to become my new best friend.''  He laughed.  When he put it in I felt an electric jolt go up my left side and then slowly the pain started to get less and less, but was not quite gone, I still had a lot of pain in my stomach, he came back to reposition it and I was in heaven.

Sunday 2 am I don't remember a lot about the next few hours, when I finally dilated to ten centimeters at 2 am on the Sunday morning, I started to push, and push I did for two hours.  They said to me, there is nothing wrong with your pushing, but your baby is getting stuck and is getting tired, we are going to have to get a doctor in here to assist you.

Sunday 4.a.m They brought in the doctor.  She said to me, we are going to do this by ventouse and I will most likely have to do an episiotomy.  I said to her, I specifically requested in my birth plan ( which by the way, I don't think any of these people read - Just put in something brief like GIVE ME DRUGS) that i don't want an episiotomy.  She said, well, we are going to try by ventouse, if that doesn't work we will try forceps and then we will use episiotomy.  If all this fails we will go for c-section.

Now this sounded like way too much for me.  I said to her.  I don't want episiotomy  because I know that if you tear it heals better and that episiotomies can often cause more complications.

She said to me 'most women don't argue.'

I said, 'Most women don't do the same amount of research that I do.  You don't sound confident in your own procedure,  If you think c-section is the likely outcome, take me into theatre right now.  I don't want to distress the baby any more than I have to.  What is your track record of success with ventouse  in the room and not in theatre?"

 She said, "What,? Mine or the hospitals?"

 I said," YOUR track record." 

She said "It's very good."

I said "Is it 50%?  60% , 90% ." 

She said, "it's good."

 I said "Good is a relative value.  What is your track record? "

She dodged the question again and said " I  don't know if ventouse will work though  and I want to have all these options."

 I said to her, "'  If you are not confident and don't trust yourself with your own procedure and can't give me a straight answer about what your success rate how can I trust you.  I want a second opinon." There was a sharp intake of breath in the room as I effectively dismissed the doctor.

However to their credit they got the head doctor in.  I asked her the same question and said.  "I don't want an episiotomy I would rather tear and I want to do this by ventouse, do you think this is possible?"

 She said. " This will work by ventouse. We will do it in the room, and I have a 100% success rate.  If  I say it is fine here and not in theatre it will work".

 I said " Fine.  Let's go."  And that my friends is how you fire and rehire a doctor in about three minutes ;)


Sunday 4:30 am Now I had been having a ton of break through pain during the pushing because the baby was so enormous.  I couldn't beleive how much it hurt WITH the drugs.  I felt every bit as I pushed and he came out.  It''s like having your internal organs ripped out of you.  Awful.  And then next thing I knew he was there.  Now  some people say they have this overwelming feeling of love the second the baby is born.  I didn't .  My feeling was just being overwhelmed and concerned. Everything felt so surreal and I was terrified because he didn't scream.  The cord was cut by the doctor quickly without it throbbing which I really wanted to happen to ensure he got all the good stuff from the placenta, and Ron missed out , which I didn't even realise for many weeks after. This is the only thing I'm still upset about it.   He was whisked away to a resuscitaire to make sure he was ok after being born into 2nd degree meconium.  They had to ensure he was breathing ok.

Finally after a few minutes he was handed back to me, and I had this baby handed to me, mewing a bit like a cat and I got it into my head what had happened.  I had a baby.

The hospital stay.  Because after a 32 hour labour he was born into meconium, they were worried about jaundice,  I couldn't feel my legs and was on a catheter, they kept us in the hospital for a couple of days.  I didn't have the baby sleep in his own bed, we cuddled up together in my hospital bed and were inseperable for those next few days.  I actually couldn't sleep for another 24 hours, maybe too much adrenaline. We stared at each other, taking the time to really bond and realised that from this point onwards we would be together forever and it was the nicest feeling in the world.