Barren Mare

Birth Story Part III: Epidural

Tuesday, 9.30 pm-  The contractions have started!  The contractions have really started!  The contractions are...oh holy bajaysus, that hurts. Breathe, breathe.  OK.  Good.  The contractions have started!  I am in labour!  Whoo hoo!  Finally and...oh fuckadoodle, here's another one after three minutes. Oweeeee. OK. Where was I?

And so it goes on for about an hour or so.  My mother stays by the bed, making coachy-coachy breaaaathe comments and rubbing my back.  I love my mother. 

It is at this point Two talks me into an epidural.

[I should preface all this by saying I didn't know, exactly, that I didn't want an epidual before labour started.  After all, my birth plan consisted of one main theme- "wait and see".  So theoretically, I was open to the idea. However, when faced with the prospect, I found myself balking.  I am not sure why. In hindsight- DUH!  Of course I was going to have an epidural. But at the time all I could think is that I wanted to hold on to some semblence of doing this "normally".  That I could be a hard case when it comes to pain, and could somehow superhumanly handle endless contractions. That I didn't want to be completely tethered to the bed for the next however many hours. That I didn't relish the notion of having a needle stuck in my back. That these things are not absolutely risk free, there could be hideous side effects. That why did it have to be a given that I would have one when I didn't necessarily....

oh wait, another contraction.  Aieeeeeeee.]   

Two convincing me to shut up and have the epidural at the start of the induction is so skilfully done, she makes me think it was my idea. The rationale which she plants in my head in the space of that first hour of pain goes something like this:

1. If I have to have a C-section at the end of this, or at any point during, we'll be all set and it will not mean a frantic emergency procedure and indeed lessen the possibility I might have to be knocked out entirely for the birth.

2. This labour is likely to go on for way over 12 hours. Over the whole night.  And it's going to hurt like fuckaree and I am going to be exhausted as it is.  So I can either have the epidural now, while I am relatively fresh and together; or I can have it later, when I am screaming in agony, gone to pieces and completely unable to hold still. Either way, it is pretty much inevitable.   

3. Why be in pain when I don't have to be?  Because this hurts like billy-o already and it's only been an hour.

As it happens, this will absolutely, unquestionably be the best and sanest decision I make.

So I give Two the go-ahead, and she calls the epidural person. [By the way, I am too lazy to type anesthesiologist over and over- I am almost too lazy to even say it.  Let's just call her the Drug Doc.]  We wait for awhile for her to appear.  My mother, who is somewhat squicked out at the idea of watching the procedure, goes off to lie down for a quick rest in the lounge (on the uncomfy sofas, remember them?). Meanwhile, Two talks me through what will happen- how I will sit hunched over on the bed with my back bared and my feet braced on a chair as the procedure is carried out. I try to turn my mind off the latent fear.-I don't like needles, don't like things being stuck in my back, don't like having to do this, don't know if I will be able to hold still.  Instead I concentrate on the next contraaaaaaaction.

By the time the Drug Doc shows up about 11.30 pm, I am beginning to be really glad that there is some pain relief on the way. The contractions are coming, intensely, every couple of minutes. There is no way I can do this for hours on end and survive. The Drug Doc talks me through some of the potential side effects- I squirm a bit at hearing about how there could be a slight chance of a migraine which can last two weeks, but at this point? I'll roll the dice.

And as for the epidural itself?  No problem.  The Drug Doc is very, very good. I have had flu jabs that hurt more. I feel nothing, just some very slight pressure as the needle goes in.

Tthen...ahhhh...sweet sweet nothing. No more contractions. Ahhhh. 

Well done, says Two. Good decision.  I smile at her. She smiles back and adjusts the monitor.  Beep beep beep says Botany's heartbeat. My legs are a little numb but I can still wriggle my toes. Two dims the lights.  And so the long, long night begins on this peaceful note.

      

Birth Story Part II: The Next Room

Botany and I had a chat the other day. It went like this:

I said, "Botany, why will you not nap?" 

And she replied, "Nap? What is this "nap" you speak of, Mummy?"

Anyway, she's asleep- for now. So:

Tuesday about 7pm:  The gel has not worked. One summons another doctor. He introduces himself, saying we spoke last night on the phone.  Ah. Yes. You were the one who told me I couldn't come in.  I'm sure you had your reasons at the time. Well, here we are now.  He says that he thinks there is not much point in doing another round of gel- that enough time has elapsed that we should move on to the next stage- that being the Syntocin IV drip (otherwise known as pitocin).  I agree.  I don't really fancy waiting around another six hours for nothing to happen.

Several things occur at once. My mother arrives to take over from E., who heads home for a short rest.  I am also to be moved to the room next door. As usual, this takes awhile. This room is not a whole lot different to the other one, except it has some very peculiar wall decorations which I feel sure will distract me during the labour. 

Then we are just about into the staff shift change, so there is another wait for the next midwife to take over. 

Meanwhile, I have an IV shunt inserted into my right hand. Can I just say here how much I loathe having this done. It completely squicks me out, and I can't bear the sight of the plastic contraption shoved into the slightly bulging vein in my hand.  Too bad I am going to be looking at it for the next thirty six hours or so.

Shift change complete, Midwife Two appears. I am slightly nervous about who I am going to get, as I liked One so much (she pops her head in on the way out to say she'll check up on me tomorrow).  As it happens, Two is a godsend, a veritable angel, a heaven sent shepherd here to guide me through the valley of induction- you get the idea. She has an immensely soothing presence and immediately sets both my mother and myself at ease by bringing us a pot of tea. Ahhhh.

Another doctor arrives to prescribe the induction. She is very blond and young and seemingly more interested in her clipboard than looking at me.  She explains the drip should start the labour pretty much straight away, though it may take a short time. We will then give it 12 hours or so to see how things progress.

Fine by me, I say lightly (and in a mildly joking fashion). Perhaps I can even get a quick catnap before the festivities commence. Dr Blonde looks up from the clipboard and gives me a stern stare.

"I really think we need to get on with this. You don't have time to sleep before we start. You're here to have this baby so that's what you need to do now," she says cuttingly.

I am too gobsmacked to issue the scathing reply that this so clearly deserves. Instead, I mutter something about how, in short:  I was not meaning to delay the induction, what I meant was maybe I would be able to have a quick snooze before the medication kicked in, if in fact there happened to be a delay and given that in any event it was I who was desperate to be admitted 24 hours ago to get things started, your admonition is out of order, Doctor.  P.S. You are a complete bitch.

But I don't get a chance, because she swans out before I can say anything. I hope her hair gets fatally tangled in her stupid clipboard.   

I use the bathroom one more time before the fetal monitor strapped on. The drip commences. Two tells me she will stay with me the whole time, that the induction has to be monitored quite closely to ensure the baby is not in distress, and so she will be scribbling on the chart quite a lot. Also, do I want to schedule the epidural now- it will take about an hour or so to get someone round to do it.

Epidural?  Wait. Am I having an epidural?  Um. I was not planning on having an epidural.  No, no, no, I say, pass on that, thanks, for now. I think I'd like to try things without for awhile. Cheers. [Ed's note: much more on this insane strategy later].

My mother and Two exchange knowing glances. But they leave it for now. 

And lo, five minutes later, the contractions begin. 

Birth Story Part I: Admission

Due the demands of my sweet but frequently difficult daughter, I may have to take the telling of her birth story in relatively brief spurts- so here we go. 

[Recap:  When I left off back on August 20, you may recall, we had just been sent home from the hospital for the third time, having been told there was no room at the inn- no beds available at either hospital so that I could be induced that night. I did end up phoning the ward to check if that was still the case at 8.30 pm, and the situation was the same- we were told to come back in the morning.]

Monday night: I am already tired from repeated trips across town to the hospital, from the anticipation of being overdue, from the long weeks of insomnia, and now- (same as the past two nights), from contractions that start up at bedtime, wake me up every hour or so with pain strong enough to rouse me out of sleep.  I get up each time and wander downstairs thinking this is surely it. I get out my watch and time the pain for awhile- every twenty minutes, every fifteen- and then it peters out until I fall asleep on the sofa. I wake up, breathless with discomfort an hour or two later and we do the whole thing again. Until it's time to make the fourth trip up to the hospital at 8am. 

In short, by this point I have not really slept for about three days.  This will become important- nay, crucial- later.

Upon arrival at the hospital, we sit in the dreadful waiting room for another hour before finally being ushered upstairs to the labour ward. The accompanying nurse has the air of a friendly bouncer letting us in the velvet ropes- we tell her of our saga and how we really, really don't want to have to go home again. She smiles and says, "Nah, once you're in, you should be in."  And so we're in. We go up in the lift and are buzzed through into the ward.

In, that is, to yet another waiting room, although this one with two rather uncomfy sofas and a bouncy gym ball for me to sit on.  We are told the shift change is taking place and someone will be with us shortly. E immediately falls asleep on the couch, while I restlessly bounce up & down, up & down.

Midwife One, hereinafter referred to as "One" makes an appearance sometime later.  She is friendly, chatty and smiling, which lifts our spirits a little. We are told that a room will be open soon, that someone is about to be discharged and it will be a short wait. Meanwhile, she hooks me up to the fetal monitor to have a peep at how Botany is faring. I sit on the gym ball during all this. Beep beep beep bounce bounce bounce. We do this for about an hour- Botany falls asleep and we have to wait for her to wake up and spike the graph a little before we can stop the monitor. Beep, beep, beep. E. snores.

One comes back and apologises for the long wait. It is now about 11am, and we are nearly ready to go in. They are cleaning the floors and changing the sheets. One checks my blood pressure and my temperature.  We chat about the reading material I have brought- the last instalment of the tale of a certain boy wizard, which I have been saving for this occasion.  She urges me not to sneak a look at the ending.  Hah.  Too late.  Hasn't there been enough suspense for one week?

Finally, she nips out and back in to tell us we can go to our room. It's a large, bright space (albeit with the shades pulled down) with a huge bathroom, two uncomfy chairs and another bouncy gym ball. Oh, and a bed.  I lie down, the steady trickle of amniotic fluid unabated. 

The plan is that they will insert a gel near my cervix and wait six hours to see if this brings on labour. They may then try a second round of gel if this does not work. I ask about the risk of infection and assured it will be OK. It's either this or straight to the drip, so on balance I am all for it. 

About noon, One goes away to get the doctor in order to perform the gel insertion, which is simple and painless (although, as always, an odd sensation having someone's fingers rammed up around the back of your cervix.)   It takes awhile for the doctor to show up, so we finally get things going about 1pm. I lie for half an hour. There is a flood of amniotic fluid. I get cleaned up, and then am told to get up and go walk around for awhile. We go out, negotiating the labryinth of the hospital maze to the courtyard outside so I can phone my mother with an update. 

I report back within an hour so that One can cheerfully strap me to the monitor again. We're going to do this a lot over the next six hours. Beep beep beep. I have to try to sit in a certain position so as not to dislodge the monitor or knock it on to my own heartbeat.  I watch the graph slowly spiralling out of the machine. At least I can sit on the bouncy ball and read my book while all this takes place. And I like One a lot- she is the right mix of attentiveness and good humour, keeping things optimistic without being cloying.

I am offered lunch (a large, slightly stale cheese baguette) and place my order for dinner as well. E. wanders off to find a cup of tea and a newspaper.  When he comes back, we talk about the plan of having my mother come up to the hospital later on to give him a break. I phone her back to tell her which bus to take.

And meanwhile, still no contractions. 

Around four o'clock, I fall asleep on the bed for an hour and a half. This will be the last time I will sleep for over twenty four hours.

About five thirty, dinner is served- omelette and greasy limp fries, yum yum.  I guzzle it down much to E.'s amusement. It is disgusting, but I suspect I am going to want all the nourishment I can get. It will be the last time I eat for the next twenty eight hours.

The six hours are up.  No contractions.   

Consolable

I am probably tempting fate and calling down the wrath of the Furies upon myself- but things are, I dare say, going a little bit better.  I don't know for sure if I can attribute the strategic campaign for improvement in the Colic Wars to the probiotic drops; however, after a week or so, Botany does seem to be experiencing a lot less digestive discomfort.  Accordingly, over the last few days, we have been having only garden variety mad baby grizzling, rather than the extendo-nightmare colic scenario.  The difference being consolable wailing, rather than inconsolable- and let me tell you, it is such a difference indeed.

Apart from the drops, the other thing that seems to be helping a lot (at least when she is a consolable frame of mind) is white noise. The hoover not being an option, I tried turning the radio onto "static" and placing it by the cot/pack n'play/bouncy chair.  And it seems to calm her down- not send her to sleep as such, but it quells some of the crying.  I've ordered a white noise CD with such grooving tracks as hair dryer, washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and we will see how it goes.  Unfortunately, she absolutely loathes full swaddling, so I've pretty much given up on that one.

I should probably compile all your comments over the last several posts into some sort of primer for colic-reflux- first time mother newborn shock.  Because they are invaluable.  I think what I mostly needed to hear at this point is that all the emotions I was feeling are totally normal.  How the old expression "Your life will change" is bandied about so much prior to birth- but does not remotely begin to cover the total sense of upheaval and disorientation, even loss.  One commenter very aptly described it as "otherworldly''- and it is. It really is. It's taken nearly a month to even begin to recalibrate, and there are still some ropey moments- not helped of course by things like colic bouts

In terms of getting another doctor- the way it works here is that I attend a NHS (that's National Health Service for those of you who don't speak UK acronym) health practice staffed by about 8 different GPs. So when I phone to get an appointment, it just depends who is available- luck of the draw, as it were.  I could request someone but that would mean having to wait longer for a slot; perhaps not what I want to do if my baby needs immediate care.  But I found out today that Dr Bitchslap is leaving, so chances are I won't have to encounter her again. Whoo hoo.

Also the health visitor came today and weighed Botany.  [Aside: a health visitor is a qualified nurse who specialises in "community care".  Basically a nurse who comes round to my house at regular intervals over the coming months to check on the baby's general well-being (and mine, too, I suppose).]   Botany pooed all over me just before I put her on the scales- a lovely dribble of mustard all down my front- but even with the lightening of the load, she weighed in at 9.5lbs.  9.5lbs!!! That's up from 7lbs 12 oz two weeks ago.  Good grief, this child has evidently been eating for Britain. Delicious fat tummy.   

I will get round to writing the birth story one of these naps, I will, I will.  They have been running a jackhammer outside for the last week, so napping myself is sort of off the cards for the moment.

Newsflash- all babies cry!

On Wednesday, Botany screamed & cried on and off from late afternoon until about 10pm- including an earsplitting, non-stop 3 hour marathon session. I was so frazzled that I had to hand her to E. and leave the house for 15 minutes, weeping as I walked around the block.  When I came back, she was still crying. 

Since during these bouts she is so clearly in some sort of digestive discomfort, and because I can't really rule out reflux (of which she does have some symptoms, albeit not the really obvious ones), I called the health visitor on Thursday morning. She gave me more or less the same chat as last time- was I making sure Botany wasn't getting too much foremilk?  Was I winding her properly?  Had I tried gas drops? Blah blah blah.  Finally, she told me to make an appointment to see the GP, which I duly did for that afternoon.  Heart thumping at the scariness of leaving the house with a shrieking infant, I loaded Botany into her pram and headed out.  And she slept, angelically, the entire time.

Cue a consultation with the most condescending bitch of a doctor I have come across in several years.  She was running late, and although Botany was still asleep, I was getting twitchy about running into feeding time.  When you only have an hour and half or so between feeds, it limits the amount of time you want to spend, say, hanging around a doctor's waiting room.  So when I went in, I kept gently rocking the pram back and forth in hopes the baby would stay asleep.  After a few minutes, Dr. Bitchslap leaned over and actually pushed the pram away from me, out of my reach.

Oh, I am sorry, was my attempt to soothe my child interrupting your finely honed concentration, Doc?

What she basically said was this:  some babies cry a lot.  They call it colic but they don't know what causes it and there is nothing to be done about it except wait for her to grow out of it.

What about reflux, I asked?  Nah, she said with a dismissive flick, that's really not very common. And she didn't want to prescribe anything at this stage. To back up this comprehensive diagnosis, she listened to Botany's heartbeat and looked in her nappy.  Yes, she has a pulse and yes, she poos.  Bingo!  No reflux.

Dr Bitchslap also gave me a ticking off for expressing milk at this stage- saying it was "too early".  I don't know what the hell that is supposed to mean. It's not as if I am pumping vast quantities a day- maybe a couple of ounces so as to give E. a chance to give her a bottle once a day (which the health visitor recommended we do before Botany becomes too in love with the boob to ever switch). And given that my right side in particular seems to have a more than abundant flow, I don't see why that would be a problem. If nothing else, I think we can safely say that the issue is not that the baby is hungry.

The doctor also pooh-poohed the notion of foremilk and hindmilk (which again, the health visitor had suggested I try to avoid giving Botany too much of the former, as it may cause excessive gas). Accordingly to Dr Bitchslap, it's all one big happy milky mix inside my breasts- and hadn't I been reading a bit too much on the internet, she asked with one eyebrow raised.  Maybe I just needed to "talk to some other mothers" so as to understand that their babies cry, too.

And that was it- we were summarily dismissed. She didn't bother to ask how I might be doing- for example, whether the hours of crying might be affecting my mental health just a little, etc.  It's probably just as well, because I think I might have burst into tears at that point and I have a rule about trying not to cry in front of complete assholes like her.   

So, onwards. Some days are a little better than others, and I hang in for those times.  Even on the bad days there can be bright spots- for example, I received a first series of gummy smiles in celebration of my birthday yesterday (even if it was maybe just wind- but nice wind, in that case.)  I'm continuing to try various things to soothe my darling though grizzly baby in the evening when she howls- but the vacuum cleaner is unfortunately out of the question, as it makes Little Guy go ballistic with barking.

Pity, since the stairs are in a shocking state and could desperately do with a hoover. 

Remember the sun will keep rising and setting

Wow. You are all amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your supportive comments and understanding.  I didn't even have to say very much, and you get it.  I heart the internets.

In reply to a few of the suggestions and recommendations so as to fill you in further as to our circumstances:

Reflux- I think, thank god, that this is probably not the cause of Botany's woes. I may be proved wrong on that yet, but I did some quick research and I am guessing that is not quite it. The gurning & wailing does come in the classic colic hour rather than after every meal.  Mornings are generally pretty good. And she does seem to eat well & be gaining weight- so I don't know. I will ask the doctor/health visitor, but my instinct is that it's more along the lines of traditional colic.  Whoo hoo. Who would have thought I would actually be glad about figuring it's "just colic". 

Probiotic drops- check. Having looked this up, I sent my not-in-laws scurrying off to buy these yesterday and we've started her on them. Fingers crossed it helps- it does sound like the Holy Grail of colic relief. 

Gina Ford- Gaaaah. I could write a whole blog post on this but won't, for now.  I have the "CLB" book which I bought not long after the birth. In a nutshell- I think there are some good ideas in there and I can see the idea of having Botany on some sort of routine is a good one.  But for the moment, it totally does not work. She won't eat & sleep at the scheduled times and it was starting to give me a nervous breakdown to read that she was supposed to be napping for 45 minutes and then eating at 5pm, etc.  All of which makes me feel more like a failure when she would not. I mean, she's asleep right now in her sling as of 8.30 am- was I really meant to try to joggle her awake until 9 am with the aim of a strict 45- 1 hour snooze until 10am? And what about the fact that she rarely if ever wants to have more than 20 minutes of sleep in the late afternoon before eating and crying some more- missing out the whole concept of getting refreshed for evening feeding then sleep. Also, this baby likes to be held- a lot- and putting her down on her own for a nap in a dark room simply isn't on the cards right now.

Especially with the feeding schedule so erratic, I don't think we have a hope in hell of complying with Ms Ford.  Maybe later.   

Vibrating chair- check. I have a great one. Works short term as a place to park her in but won't soothe her during a crying jag.

Pacifer aka dummy-  Yesterday was the first time I managed to get her to use one of these for more than 30 seconds. Normally she looks at me as if I have tried to shove a sand covered lollipop in her mouth and spits it out. But I was desperate to have more than an hour between feeds and as she frantically groped at her fingers, I stuck the damn thing in her gob.  And she took it.  I don't want to use it all the time but I do feel that for the sake of my sanity that we have got to have slightly longer gaps between at least some of the feeds and I  do suspect that she may be using me just as a comfort nibble quite a lot. 

What seems to be sort of working-ish-  Lots of burping during & after the feed.  Keeping her upright for as long as possible after she eats. Changing of the guard whenever possible- if I can't quiet her sometimes E. or his now-visiting mother can do it.  Trying to stop beating myself up over not having a clean, tidy house and a perfect contented baby.

Also, I am telling myself repeatedly that this is my job right now.  This is all I have to do- feed her, change her, soothe her.  I pretend I am on a shift- albeit a very long one- and that all I have to get through so many hours before someone else comes to give me a little respite.  I will keep chanting to myself that I am a super-elite IRONWOMAN (how much did I love that comment- thank you, thank you).

And that by getting through one hour at a time will bring us closer to the day when things are better- when I am not so tired, when she smiles back at me, when we can get through an afternoon without constant crying, when I can have more than an hour between feeding her. To the day- weeks from now or months or however long it takes- when the joy will creep back in and will stay here with us.

Until then, I hope you all stay with me. It feels so much better to know I am not alone.

One foot in front of the other

I wish I could say that everything is going great, that I'm getting into the swing of mothering, that every day holds new excitements and joys of raising this much longed for child. Unfortunately, it would not be wholly true.  I'm forced to acknowledge that I'm struggling much, much more than I bargained for, and I am not sure I am doing well at all.  With my parents' departure yesterday, my mood has hit a new low.

I love this baby, with every fibre of my being, and there are moments of pure delight and joy- but she is not proving to be the world's easiest to care for. I know it has affected millions of parents the world over, but the relentless crying after every feed from about 3pm onwards?   It's hard. It's really really hard.  She wants to eat every hour and half to two and half hours, and the feeds blur into one after the other, without a break.

And then there is the aftermath. 15 minutes or so after she is done nursing, the crying starts.

I've tried everything- rocking, ssshing, singing, feeding her more often, feeding her less often, carrying her in a sling, colic relief drop thingies, positioning, massaging her tummy, swaddling, no swaddling, extra winding during the feed, eliminating certain items from my diet, taking her for a walk in her pram- and still she bunches, knees up, face contorted, fists clenched in pain. Screaming screaming screaming.  We take turns gulping down our dinner so that one of us can go hold her while she cries on and on.

The only saving grace thus far is that she does seem to calm down by about 11pm or so (quite possibly y from total exhaustion) and will mercifully sleep at least several hours at a stretch through the night. She does also nap quite well during the day, at least some of the time. But I feel as if it is a forced march through the days.  I worry it is beginning to grind me down and we have only barely begun.  Even when someone comes round to help, to take her to give me a break, I can't relax. I can't nap when she naps, for I am on hyperalert for the screaming to begin.  When we go out, the anxiety takes me by the throat- will she scream some more and what will I do if she does?  And she usually does, and sometimes I can quieten her and sometimes I cannot.

I know it will get better, I know it will take time, I know I have to take of myself.  But I just wish my mother was still here.

Little Miss Insatiable

I desperately want to get on with writing the birth story.  However, Botany is on, roughly, a two hour feeding schedule.  Except on those frequent occasions when she seems to want to eat every hour. I am managing to fend off total exhaustion but I can tell you, it is kicking my ass just a little bit. I think they must have neglected to tell us during the breastfeeding class that you're meant to time it from the beginning of each feed, not the end- or else maybe they told us and I had my head up my ass in denial-land as to how that works in practice. In any event, given that she can take up to an hour to complete each of her milky meals, it basically means that I have have an infant clamped to my boob more or less permanently.

I had to laugh at the last set of comments- (by the way, thank you all for your encouragement and advice). A week ago or so, the idea of feeding her whilst using the loo seemed an amusing if slightly unreaslistic prospect.  Oh ha ha ha. How things change.  Particularly during the last couple days, during which she seems to want to constantly nibble her way through a growth spurt, I have managed to check email, go downstairs to let the dog out for a poo and eat my dinner with her latched on. At this rate, it seems only a matter of time until I take her into the bathroom with me.

On the upside, she is doing very well- going from her birth weight of 6lbs 15 oz to 7lbs 12 oz in the space of two weeks.  Which is, according to the midwife, yippy skippy hurray. So I guess all that food is being put to good use. She peed all of the scales today when they were weighing her, but I don't imagine that really tipped the balance too much one way or another.

More soon...for now, duty calls.