It’s been quite a while since I last blogged and it would be fair to say that a lot has happened in these 9 months.
I have often thought about starting to write again but I haven’t felt comfortable enough to put finger to keyboard until now. Maybe it has something to do with coming up to my birthday and being unconsciously forced to reflect on the last year but also to appreciate the very different place I am in now.
So, the last time I blogged I was a few days from being induced at 37 weeks and 4 days into my pregnancy. I was so happy to have got to this point as I was more than aware that every extra day he was cooking in the baby oven it gave him a better chance once he was introduced to this big bad world.
The day that I was being induced coincided with the first proper school trip for my 5 year old twins and this sent me into an irrational whirlwind, imagining everything that could possibly go wrong on said trip. They were going on a coach (do all coaches have seatbelts?), miles away from me (how will I get to them if they need me?) and I was going to be in hospital, not able to take them to school and remind them for the umpteenth time to do exactly as they were told and to stay with their teachers at all times.
The hubster and I had to be at the hospital at 8.30am, so my boys stayed at their Nana’s house the night before. As I left them there I felt like my heart was being ripped out. In my mind, not only was the thought of them being on a school trip scaring the life out of me, but also my unborn baby and I had a big job ahead of us and I was genuinely scared that I was never going to see my beautiful boys again. Completely irrational thoughts, and I was aware of this, but I could not shake the feelings of fear for love nor sanity.
I left my Mum with strict instructions to let me know how the boys were in the morning and to let me know as soon as she picked them up in the afternoon that they were home with her, safe and sound. I was probably the most wound up I have ever been all day until I got the message that they were home, not the best conditions for being induced. Obviously, to my great relief, nothing horrible happened, they were safe and happy all day long and were bursting with excitement to tell Mummy and Daddy all their news.
During this ridiculous, irrational time I had been induced and the hubster and I waited with baited breath for things to start. We both had the words of all the health professionals we had spoken to over the past few months ringing in our ears. I had previously had a straightforward twin delivery so therefore I would be delivered of this baby in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I didn’t need a planned caesarean as I would be able to deliver my baby with the help of an epidural which would be placed higher up my spine than in usual, non-prolapsed disc cases, of labour. I didn’t need to take my evening dose of morphine as the epidural would wrap me up in a pain free duvet of loveliness and it would work and be manageable.
Yeah…you’ve probably guessed that it didn’t quite work out that way.
Nothing happened for what seemed like forever. I had three lots of gels applied to soften my cervix and get things moving and if nothing happened after the third one I would have to wait a full 24 hours before I could have another one. I had everything pinned on this third gel. And it worked! A few hours after it was applied, and I was 37 weeks and 6 days pregnant, I started to notice the familiar tightening feelings of contractions. It was confirmed that I was in labour and then it all went a bit crazy. Within a few hours things progressed quite quickly. I was moved to the delivery suite and given my epidural. There was a TV in my room and ‘One Born Every Minute’ was about to come on, needless to say that got switched off pretty quick smart!
The epidural worked for about an hour and it was bliss. I sat smugly watching the numbers climb on the monitor, aware that something was happening but feeling no real pain. It was heaven and I began to think that maybe this would be okay. But then it stopped working and for the first time in 7 months I had absolutely no pain relief in my body. It had to be re-sited. That one didn’t work either. I could feel everything that was in the wrong place in my body screaming out that it was in the wrong place. My back and my leg and my left hip, not a problem before but joining the party now, felt like they were being ripped out of my body, each being pulled in a different direction. It was the most extreme pain I have ever experienced. It wasn’t just labour pains, I don’t want to freak out any expectant mothers out there, it was labour pains intensified by having a prolapsed disc and my body being weak from not being able to move properly for 8 months.
This went on for 3 hours and just as I was telling my midwife that I couldn’t cope anymore and she asked if I was wearing nail varnish (I wasn’t, I was fully caesarean ready), it changed and I knew that my baby boy was at the point of no return and I was going to have to push. I honestly cannot put into words the pain I felt and how scared I was. I had been prepared for him to possibly struggle when he was born because of the effects of the morphine I had to take throughout my pregnancy. I didn’t feel physically strong enough to do what I knew I had to do. I felt alone. I was supported by my husband and the medical staff, but no one in that room could know what I was going through and I clearly remember telling myself that I was going to die. I am aware that this sounds really dramatic and over the top, but this is the reason that I haven’t been able to write about it until now. I still can’t really think about it without getting a lump in my throat and tears forming. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.
Amazingly, 20 agonising minutes later, he was born and he was perfect. The midwife put him on my chest and I held him, something I had secretly prepared myself for not being able to do straight away. And there he stayed, on my chest, for hours. I kept expecting them to take him away, to tell me that the morphine withdrawal was starting and he needed to be taken to special care. But that didn’t happen. I didn’t know whether to be happy or concerned that something had been missed. Here I was after delivering my baby naturally, holding him while he slept off the ordeal of being born. We’d done it, he was okay and, although I couldn’t move much, my spine had not completely fallen apart. How the bloody hell had we managed to pull this one off?
The next few days were spent in hospital in our side room that had been deep cleaned in preparation for my spinal surgery so I that I definitely didn’t pick up any infections before my operation.
My beautiful baby boy was coping amazingly well. I was back on morphine and breastfeeding him, which was helping him to wean off the drug as he was getting a reduced dose through my milk. He made a funny little singing noise with every breath which the professionals were keeping an eye on in case this was the start of withdrawal but other than this he showed no signs of struggle. His breathing was fine and he was behaving as any newborn baby would.
After 5 days we were discharged and I took my baby home to our gorgeous family for the first time. His big brothers, who were so proud and happy to meet their brother on the day he was born, were smitten and so excited to have him and Mummy home with them.
The next day, the midwife came out to see us and weighed him. He had lost 15% of his birth weight (way too much) and was showing signs of jaundice so back into hospital we went. They had kept an eye on his bilirubin levels (a build up of this in the blood causes jaundice) on the maternity ward but over night at home they had shot up and the whites of his eyes were not white anymore, they were noticeably yellow. He was admitted into the children’s ward and put on double light therapy, as his bilirubin levels were extremely high, just off him needing to have an exchange transfusion. So my baby had lots of blood tests, had a mask put on him so he couldn’t see and was placed under the blue lights that I had seen so many times when watching hospital programmes featuring ill babies. I was devastated. I’m sure a lot of people shrugged it off as jaundice is so common (6 out of every 10 newborn babies will develop it but only 1 in every 20 babies have high enough levels of bilirubin in their blood to warrant treatment), but when it’s your baby who can’t see you or anything else and is lying under imposing, industrial style lights, so tiny and helpless, it’s heartbreaking.
There was talk of having to give him a nasal feeding tube to help him put on weight but I opted to try him on top up formula feeds after every breastfeed. My twins had needed these too so I was not averse to this method of feeding.
Fortunately, the double light therapy had the desired effect, as had the top up feeds, and after 24 hours under the lights and 3 days in the children’s ward in total, his bilirubin levels were normal, he’d started to put on weight and we were home.
He was here, in our home and everything was all right.
I wanted to make the most of every moment with him as, in two weeks, with him at just three weeks old, I was having spinal surgery that meant I would not being able to pick him up for 6 weeks. I struggled to do things for him but I made damn sure that I could with the help of the hubster and visiting friends and family.
Those first couple of weeks at home were lovely, and I tried to keep the looming shadow of the upcoming surgery at bay. This was my time with my beautiful family, now complete, and we bloody deserved it!
Letty Mack 