As Easter heralds birth and new beginnings, sharing her two birth stories with us this week is Jo Craig from Love Mini Mine. They say that no matter how many children you have each birthing experience will be different and Jo’s stories prove that very point. Here she tells us about the births of daughter Jenna, now 8 and son Adam, now 6:
I had a great pregnancy with Jenna, didn’t know what I was expecting but was absolutely convinced I was going to have a boy. My husband, who is in the Navy, was due to go away about a month after my due date, so I was quite worried about me going over and him not having as much time with baby as he could do. To cut a long story short, 1 x vindaloo, 1 x box of raspberry leaf tea, 1 x spoonful of caster oil (so disgusting) and two sweeps, I was booked in to be induced on term +11.
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I was given drugs about 10.30am to start me off, but didn’t show any signs of labour until about 6pm. Even then, it was only mild pains and slightly dilated. I was given more drugs to get me going, after that it’s all a bit of a blur until the small hours of the next morning. Here’s what I do remember. The pains gradually increased, so I had a tens machine which was really quite good until I realised that it was on full blast all the time! At that point, the pain was much increased and I was having contractions every couple of minutes. I was offered gas and air, which I found absolutely horrible (although hubby liked it!). I was feeling sick and had some anti-nausea drug too. Towards midnight, the pain was so intense that I couldn’t even catch my breath and my contractions were lasting up to a minute each time with approximately 10 seconds between them. I remember being so out of breath, sweating and being incredibly thirsty but not able to get a drink as I didn’t have time to do anything before the next contraction kicked in. Needless to say, the nurses had called the anaesthetist to give me an epidural. I don’t really remember the anaesthetist coming in, but I do remember that he was so calm. He told me to lie on my side with my knees touching my chest, I laughed at him considering I was the size of a bus. Still managed to do it though! He was talking away whilst putting the epidural in, so I asked him how long it was going to be – he told me it had been done 5 minutes earlier! I didn’t feel it going in at all and I had been a bit nervous about it. Needless to say, all pain went immediately. I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night though, I needed full time monitoring and so I spent the rest of the night chatting to the nurses whilst my hubby got his head down on the floor beside me!
The next morning I had dilated enough, so I had to start pushing. I couldn’t really feel what I was doing because of the epidural, so I had to rely on the midwives telling me when to push. After a good hour, nothing was really happening, baby was not coming out. The midwife had a rummage around and felt that the head was facing the wrong direction and baby was being pushed into my pelvic bone and not down the birth canal. They couldn’t get baby to face the right way, so it was decided that I would have to be taken into the surgery to get it out. I was wheeled into the operating room, put into stirrups and was told that they were going to try and get baby out naturally first and if that didn’t work were going to do a Ventouse, basically to pull baby out by putting a suction pad on the head. According to my husband, the room was filled with all sorts of people but I only noticed my midwife who was on my left, my husband on my right and the doctor who was in front of me. I was given strict instructions by my midwife to ‘push as if my life depends on it’! She looked very young, but she gave orders like a headmistress! Baby was getting tired and stressed by now, so I had an episiotomy and the Ventouse. After over 18 hours in labour, the doctor told us we had a little girl. ‘What?’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’, still adamant that I was going to have a boy! She had to be put straight onto the resuscitation as she wasn’t breathing and my husband and I just watched all these doctors and nurses work on her. She was given five pumps of air and then started crying! She was brought straight over to me and put on my chest for a cuddle. She wasn’t interested in any boob, so we just had a cuddle and marvelled at her. My placenta didn’t come out on its own, so I had to go and get it taken out manually, so I left her with her Dad for a couple of hours. He had a bit of a shock trying to get a newborn baby dressed! All breast feeding was going well, so we went home after a couple of days.
Adam’s story:
Adam was a completely different birth experience, the exact opposite of his sister Jenna. The day before Jenna’s second birthday, I went into labour. I was 3 days overdue at this point. Hubby had gone to a friends’ house to help decorate it, so I was on my own. The best way to tell this story is by timings:
3.30pm – Had a show. Phoned the midwife unit and was told that it could take up to 48 hours for anything else to happen.
5.00pm – Had first mild contractions, phoned my friend (who had just given birth to her 4th) and was told not to lie down under any circumstances! I bowed to her superior knowledge and didn’t lie down at all. Phoned hubby but told him not to rush home.
6.00pm – Phoned my other friend and tentatively asked if she thought that contractions 15 minutes apart meant anything much. She had a mild panic and insisted that I phoned hubby to get him home NOW. Couldn’t really see what she was worried about as I thought that nothing happened until the contractions were about 5 – 10 seconds apart (as per first labour).
6.30pm - Hubby got home and contractions still about 15 minutes apart. Decided we should have some tea, so we cooked but I decided in the end I wasn’t really hungry.
7.15pm – Contractions now about 10 minutes apart. Hubby and I decided we still had loads of time to go as the contractions were still so long apart. Got Jenna to bed.
7.45pm – Went for a shower, but decided against washing my hair. Contractions about 5 minutes apart.
7.55pm – Hubby phoned my friend to let her know I was having contractions and we might call her to look after Jenna later on at some point. Contractions at about 3 minutes apart. She sent her husband round immediately.
8.10pm – Friends hubby came to pick up Jenna. Contractions were about 2 minutes apart and I had started hanging onto things in my efforts not to sit down and had started to moo like a cow.
8.25pm – Left for hospital. Contractions at about 1 minute apart. Remember the trip in the back of the car as the single most uncomfortable journey I have ever made before or since. I screamed at hubby to slow down constantly, as contractions seemed to time themselves with every single bump on the road.
8.38pm – Arrived at hospital. Refused to sit on the wheelchair and was wheeled standing up to a room.
8.40pm- Waters broke. Most of the pain stopped at this point, which was surprisingly nice.
8.42pm – Started pushing. Husband still parking the car. He came in a couple of minutes later wondering what all the fuss was about. Still refused to lie down on my back and pretended to have a contraction so that I wouldn’t have to! Was hanging onto the headboard on my hands and knees and was definitely mooing. I didn’t really feel any pain, just a large bowling ball obstruction between my legs.
8.50pm – Nearly 4 hours after the first contractions, our baby boy was born. Apparently he came out smoothly and very straight, like a calf being born. It was such an easy birth, no worries at all. The midwives said it was all so quick we had given them no time to write any notes down!
As it was my daughters’ birthday the next day, we discharged ourselves in the morning.”
Sounds to me as Jo had go it down to a fine art by the time Adam came along – thank you for sharing your stories with us! To follow Jo on Twitter click here, and to show your support on Facebook, it’s here.
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