Baby Glitter's Birth

Aloha Sprinklerinos,

It's 8.30am on Monday morning and I've been up since 5am, having cuddles, feeds and nappy changes with Baby Glitter (her name is Darcy but on the Blog and YouTube, she'll be Baby Glitter I've decided).

I thought since she is having a little snooze next to me on the sofa, I would take a few minutes to start my Birth Story post. Chances of being able to write this all in one go before she wakes are slim to none, but I'm getting used to never being able to finish anything these days! My life seems to work in 3 hourly chunks, and this one's up at 9am!

So Bloggerinos, I'm going to tell you the whole shibang. If you don't like details about yukky stuff or feel weird hearing about lady parts, probably best to stop reading now. For the record, I now have zero qualms about talking about my lady bits. I used to be very reserved and veering on the side of prudish even, but once you've had a baby, you seriously, seriously don't give a monkeys. I never used to believe people when they said that, but it is la facte.

I woke up at home on Tuesday 5th April, super early and super nervous. I had a VERY thorough shower (after all, if I was going to have a gaggle of people rooting around my ladyzone, I wanted to be extra fresh!) and then proceeded to put on so much makeup, I looked a little bit like a woman-of-ze-night. I think it was nerves that made me overcompensate somewhat.

We got to the hospital for 9am and by the time we got there, I was a total bag of nerves. We were ushered into a little ward with four beds (separated by curtains) and a really nice midwife came in and told us how induction worked and what I could expect. I was sooooo glad of this midwife because I'm a believer in the 'knowledge is power' idea, and by knowing what I was walking into, I felt a whole load calmer.

I was put on the monitor for a couple of hours and had my obs taken and at 11am it was time for the first of many internals. Mmmmmm lovely undignified fingers-up-fanny internals. The midwife said I was about 2-3cm dilated and she 'popped up' a pessary that would kind of seep hormones into my cervix and 'ripen' it to stimulate labour. Now I don't know about you, but the thought of having my cervix ripened is really gross. You ripen fruit, not your downstairs department.

Within a couple of hours contractions had begun. They were really irregular and manageable, so we basically just waited it out for the afternoon, playing Toy Story Top Trumps, reading magazines, eating and I even managed a little snooze.

By the evening I was in a lot more discomfort. They offered my cocodomol which helped but I would have liked something stronger. Matt went out and bought a dominoes pizza because I didn't want the hospital food, but by the time he got back (about 7pm) I was only able to chew between regular contractions and hardly ate anything.

By about 8.30pm I was pretty distressed. The pain was bad, Matt was being sent home at 10pm (partners aren't allowed to stay on the ward past 10pm unless you are in 'established labour') and I didn't want to be on my own. The midwife suggested a deep bath to sooth the pain which did take the edge off but only slightly.

10pm saw Matt reluctantly leave and I spent the ENTIRE night awake and having contractions every 5-6 minutes. I begged for more than cocodomol (the lady came round to do her checks and I asked for more and she said "I'm sorry but you're not due another dose until 3am I'm afraid" and I desperately whispered "Plleeaassee, I won't tell anyone!!" hahaha.) but it only alleviated the pain for about 40 minutes before I was wanting more.

By 9am on Wednesday morning, Matt was back and I was delirious with tiredness and pain because there had been no rest.

I was put on the monitor to check Baby Glitter's heartbeat and my contractions and the midwife said I was 'contracting nicely'. It didn't feel nice I can tell you. At 11am they removed the pessary (which by the way was not the 'small tampon' I was promised but more like a slimy tapeworm ribbony thing (urgh) and told me I was ready to labour and they would go and sort out a delivery suite.

This is when things started to go downhill.

The midwife came back an hour later and I thought 'great, delivery suites ready, let's get this show on the road'. Errr no. She told me they were fully booked so I would have to 'hang on' til one became available. Basically, there was no room at the inn. So I sat, I contracted, I huffed and puffed and three entire hours later at 3pm, we were told there was a suite available.

This is where things get hazy for me but Matt has filled me in on most of the details.

As soon as we got in there I was asking for an epidural and practically threw myself at the gas and air sucky thingy. I want to get gas and air installed in my lounge, brilliant stuff. Then the first crap thing happened. Due to the busyness of the labour ward, the epidural man/woman was busy in theatre and the wait for it would be 2-3 hours. Well 2-3 hours was not doable. No way, hose. I had previously said I didn't want anything that made me feel 'out of it' or 'spaced out', but by this point I would've taken a punch in the teeth if it would take the pain away from my bump/back/ladyzone. So I had meptip. Beautiful, wonderful meptid.

Meptid made me feel all woozy and sleepy and underwatery and not-in-the-room. I'm pretty glad of that to be quite honest. Then the sickness set in. It was pukeville. I think I filled at least 10 of those cardboard bowl things. Matt was helping me sip water (my arms barely worked, except to hold the gas and air jobby) and I was just puking, I even got his hand mwahaha! Unfortunately, because of all the puking, the nurses had to put a drip in my hand to get some fluids into me.

I don't really know what happened because, to be blunt, I was off my face, but the putting in of the drip went wrong and blood spurted everywhere! All on the floor, all up the chair, all down my arm, everywhere! Eventually they got it in right but some of the fluids kind of seeped into my hand flesh (as opposed to a vein or something) and it made my hand and fingers swell so much that Matt described it as 'fingers like a bunch of bananas'! Thing weren't going well.

At 5.10pm the midwife checked me, broke my waters and put a tiny monitor on Baby Glitter's head to monitor her heart rate as they couldn't find it on the external monitor- naughty little baby!

Before I knew it, and a cathaterisation (mmm lovely), later, it was 8pm and I was being told I was 9cm dilated. Worryingly, Baby Glitter's heart rate dropped into the 80's (very low for a fetal rate) and my legs were whipped up into stirrups and I was being told to push.

Pushing was AGONY! I've honestly never felt anything like it. It was like being on fire and ripped in two all at once. I actually feel light headed just thinking about it. The midwife then told me that we needed to get her out quicker and that she was going to give me a numbing injection and then cut me. Shudder.

She needn't have bothered cutting me though because on her exit, Baby Glitter ripped me to smithereens. I tore internally and externally and even round my tinklehole, so you can only imagine how much it hurt to tinkle afterwards. Imagine weeing acid. That's what it was like. To make matters worse, because I was so spaced out, I couldn't do a wee, so they re catheterised me but because I was torn, it really bloomin' hurt.

So, 8.25pm and Baby Glitter was out. They put her on me and the first thing I said was "She's so soft". She was so lovely and warm and wet (I thought I would be grossed out by this but wasn't) and Matt was welling up beside me saying "oh my god we've got a daughter, we've had a baby" and smiling and it was just so lovely.

Then all of a sudden there were lots more midwives and nurses and one was standing at the door to the corridor shouting "Dr! We need a Dr!!" and a Dr came rushing in and they were saying things about blood loss and '40 units' and my stomach was being massaged and there was blood everywhere. I was layed back, Baby Glitter was given to Matt and I was crying because I was so scared. I (somewhat dramatically I suppose but I was all drugged up!) asked if I was going to die and the lady just kept saying "Look at your baby Louise, just keep looking at your baby", which actually freaked me out more because I thought 'Are you just saying that because I'm not going to see her again?!'.

They stopped the blood and put another drip in me and sewed up my poor torn vajayjay. By now, I was feeling very, very woozy. Baby Glitter was on my boobie sucking away and Matt was feeding me some toast that appeared from somewhere!

By about 9.30pm I was all stitched up and such and a lovely nurse called Natalie came in to kind of do some aftercare. This is the bit that I don't want to go into because it was the worst. In a nutshell, I was in that same room til 4am, was faint, had crazily low blood pressure, felt horrid and sweaty and dirty, was catheterised, couldn't move properly, couldn't pick up my baby because my hands were so swollen and all in all a total mess.

At about 4am, they took me in a wheelchair (which the porter drove like some kind of deranged boy-racer! I wanted to say "excuse me mr, but if you had more stitches than you care to imagine in your crack or down your willy, would you want to be wizzed about like you're on the waltzers?!?!", but my British politeness wouldn't allow it dagnamit) to the ward and Matt had to go home.

I couldn't move because of my lady parts and I couldn't use my banana hands so I had to keep ringing the buzzer and annoying the nurses until Matt came back at 10am on Thursday.

Thursday was spent in hospital but I HATED the ward. It hurt so much to tinkle, they wouldn't take the cannula thingy out of my hand in case I needed a blood transfusion because I had lost 20% of my body's blood (waaayyy way too much!), I didn't feel like there was much privacy and breast feeding helper type people kept coming and manhandling me. I asked them to let me go home and they were reluctant but could see that if they didn't, I would've discharged myself.

The next week was a blur of sore bits, trying to breast feed, no sleep, visitors, cards, nappies and midwife visits. I had lost so much blood that I wasn't making enough milk but I didn't realise. Poor Baby Glitter was hungry and grizzling but I didn't realise she was hungry. When I found out, I felt AWFUL. I felt like I had been starving my baby, but now know that I couldn't have known (the midwife weighed her and she had lost too much weight you see and so we spent 2 days back in hospital) and that I was doing my best to be a good Mummy. After 2 days in hospital, discovering breast feeding wasn't for me, switching to the bottle and doing strict 3 hourly feeds (or sooner if she is wanting it), she had gained weight, was re hydrated and a much, much more happy and content baby.

So that brings us to now. Baby Glitter is recovered, feeds well on formula, sleeps soundly, is alert and loves to follow your fingers with her eyes or look at your face and we are getting a bit more sleep. I still feel sore and am on iron tablets because of all the blood loss but each day gets a little bit better and each day I fall more and more in love with her. She is such a joy, a big bundle of sparkly goodness. Matt is besotted too. We love giving her snuggles and making faces at her. I do the 6am feed and I love it because she is usually awake by about 5.30am and we have a lovely 30 minutes of quiet snuggles in bed, bliss. Worth it.

Jeepers that was a long post!

Hope I haven't bored your socks off and now I feel I can get back to normal on here and will be blogging as regularly as possible :)

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Toodlepip!

xx

PS- It's now 8.30am on Tuesday morning, told you I wouldn't get all this done in one go!