Paige’s birth story
As Paige’s second birthday gets closer I've found myself thinking about her birth and realised that I have never actually shared the full story. I have decided to share it with you all because I want to raise awareness but also I want to be able to tell Paige the story of her birth one day, so I thought I'd write it down so that she can read all about it.
Please note, this is my recollection of events, do I agree with everything that happened? Not necessarily. Would I change things next time? Possibly. We learn, we grow, we evolve.
I guess it all started on Friday 26th February at my doctor's appointment. I was 40 + 2 and my doctor was looking to induce me, I said no I wanted to wait for it to all happen naturally. At this stage he was ok with this but said that if I wasn't in labour by Friday I would need to be induced. He sent me for an ultrasound that afternoon to check to see how things were progressing. He told me to call maternity on Monday morning as he was the doctor working that day to see what time I should go in to check on the results.
The next day we did a massive grocery shop in preparation because we knew that we would be definitely welcoming a little bundle of joy sometime that week. Following that I got a massage. It was definitely these events that made me feel relaxed and prepared and therefore triggered my labour.
It all started at around 1:30 am on Sunday the 28th of February. I woke up with contractions, I knew I needed to try and rest during these early stages so I rolled over and tried to sleep. In the morning I told Josh that I had been experiencing contractions but was feeling ok, they were about 20 minutes apart. We got up, had breakfast and went for a walk. During the walk they increased dramatically, they were coming every 5-10 minutes, I kept needing to stop for a rest. When I got home I discovered that my mucus plug was starting to come away. I called maternity to let them know what was happening, I was told to rest as much as I could and to come in the next day as planned unless the contractions got too bad that I couldn't handle them anymore.
From then I made myself a little cocoon inside, I closed the blinds sat on my exercise ball and watched funny movies all day, Bad Moms 1 and 2, Bring It On, The Other Woman etc I sent Josh outside to mow the lawn because I didn't want him hovering over me all day haha the contraction remained steady at around 5-10 minutes apart all day. I called the hospital at about 8pm before I went to bed to check in, they said to try and sleep unless I couldn't handle the pain and to call in the morning to organize a time to come in as planned.
That night I tried to go to sleep as much as I could but from 4am I was up, the contractions were too strong. I was up pacing around the house. Contractions were 5-7 minutes apart at this stage. Josh got up at 6am, I sent him to take our dog for a walk while I called maternity to find out what time I should come in, they said 8am.
The car ride was absolutely horrible. It was only a 15 minute drive but it was excruciating. When we got to the hospital at 8am my doctor came in to tell me that the results of my ultrasound were that there seemed to be reduced blood flow getting to the baby, and after monitoring Paige’s heart rate they noticed that it was a little fast, and because of this he’d like to try and hurry things along. By this stage I was starting to get a little bit over waiting and the contractions were getting stronger, so I agreed to let them break my waters. But they were a midwife down so they told us to come back in an hour when the other midwife would arrive.
We left and got a smoothie (I sat in the car) and went back to the hospital at about 10am. They broke my water and found that it was full of meconium, and straight away I knew that wasn't good. They admitted me into a room and left us there to see if things would progress. Josh and I watched TV, I paced around the room and tried to have some lunch but by this stage I wasn't up for eating.
At 1pm they came to check on my progress, my contractions were 5 minutes apart, though Paige’s heart rate was rising so they took me to the birth suit and induced me with syntocinon. Straight away the contractions increased and I was having 3 every 10 minutes which is what they wanted.
At about 5pm they were getting more concerned with Paige’s heart rate and wanted to get a better picture of where it was, so they put the little clip on her head to monitor this. Though this became my undoing. To put the clip on they had to do it via the vaginal opening, I agreed to let the student doctor do it. While she was doing it she turned to the doctor and said “she's at 9cm” instantly I was like “shit yeah it's almost over!” I'd been in labour for about 40 hours by this stage, I was done and over it. But when the doctor checked to see if she’d put the clip on properly he said “ no she's at about 4cm”. It was this conversation between the doctors that f**ked me up! Mentally I was done! I couldn't do it anymore, I was on the verge of giving up, I was crying and needed Josh to calm me down. I eventually got into the shower where I stayed for about 45 minutes. When I got out I was feeling calmer and had regained some of my mental strength. I got comfy sitting on an exercise ball, I had my head resting on the bed holding Josh’s hand, the midwife was massaging my back, the lights were dimmed and the diffuser was going. I felt better, not great but better.
At about 7pm the midwife rushed out and suddenly the room was filled with what felt like 20 people (it was probably more like 5). They told me they needed to check on the baby and that I needed to get back on the bed, I remember thinking “f**k off, you have got to be kidding me”. Next minute I was being told that Paige was in a lot of distress and my heart rate too was getting very high, and because I was still only 5 cm dilated further intervention would be required. The doctor left to go and get the head obstetrician for further instructions. After a lot of tears from me, a hormonal phone call to my mum and a brief chat with the obstetrician (THB I don't really remember this, Josh was really good at taking control here and asking all of the right questions) we all decided a cesarean would be the best option. The relief that the pain would soon be over was all that I cared about now. The contractions were still coming in hard and I had lost all of my mental strength to get through them. I became extremely anxious and started telling everyone to hurry up and make the contractions stop.
I was rushed down to surgery and at 8:34pm Paige was born. But this isn't where the fun ended. I laid there in tears, waiting, expecting her to be placed onto my chest yet nothing happened. No crying, no "here is your baby” just silence as we waited. I asked Josh “is it a boy or a girl?” he had to stand up and look over the midwife's shoulders to find out Paige was a girl. Josh cut the cord and I still laid there having no idea what was happening. Then in a blink of an eye they were wheeling her away, telling us she was having some breathing complications. I told Josh to stay with her while they wheeled me into recovery.
Sometime later the doctor came down and told me that Paige was going to have to be flown to Canberra hospital, and that I would have to stay here.
At 10:30pm they took me up to my room in maternity, where Josh and the midwife came in to tell me that the helicopter had been delayed and that they were still waiting. Josh also said she was being fed the colostrum we had bought via a tube and that he was going home to get the rest out of the freezer (I had a massive stockpile and didn't think I'd need to take it all to the hospital). Fast forward to about 1am, while they were waiting for the helicopter Paige had not gotten any worse and actually seemed a little better so they decided they were going to keep her there, but she would stay in the nursery overnight so that the midwives could keep an eye on her. At 1:30am they brought her in and Josh and I held her for the first time.
After that, because she wasn't going to be in the room with me I told Josh to go home and get some sleep in a proper bed. At 6:30am the midwife woke me up, said that they had just given her the last of the colostrum and that they thought she was strong enough to try and breastfeed her. The little legend took to it like a duck to water even though it was 10 hours after she had been born. Thank God for that! Afterwards they took her back to the nursery and I went back to sleep. Josh returned at 8:30am, he went straight to the nursery and got to do skin to skin for the first time with Paige.
At 9:30am they brought Paige back to me for a feed and told me that she could stay with us for the day. I had a shower and was feeling great, no pain, no issues. By that afternoon the paediatrician came in to assess Paige and said that “she was perfectly healthy and that if he wasn't there last night he would have never known that she had had such complications” . My little legend had pulled through and beaten the odds!
From then on everything went pretty smoothly, we stayed in hospital one more night before going home. Paige continued to grow and thrive and my wound healed without an issue. Upon reflection the cesarean was the right thing to do. I was told later on that Paige wasn't getting enough nutrients due to my placenta calcifying and looking like a smoker's placenta even though I was a young, healthy, non-smoker who looked after her body and was only 40 + 5 weeks along. I have my theories as to why this happened but that's a story for another day. I honestly loved my cesarean experience because for me it symbolized the end of the pain. I had absolutely no pain after it and no complications. Being in labour for that long and going through such highs and lows, for me was worse than the cesarean. And now, I am actually very fond of my scar.
