Alyssa's ramblings...

And here she is again. 

posted by Alyssa @ 1:53 PM 4 comments

Here is my beautiful daughter. 

posted by Alyssa @ 1:53 PM 2 comments

The birth story.

At about 10:30pm on Sunday night (the 15th of January), I started having contractions. They weren't painful, but fairly regular. By Tuesday, the morning of my hospital appointment, they had become much stronger. But that was okay, because I thought that Tuesday was the day I would be induced. Nope. They couldn't break my waters, because I was only 1cm dilated. I would have to wait until Wednesday night at 8pm to try a different kind of induction, a Foley catheter. That was hard news to take, because not only would I have to wait at least another 1 1/2 days to meet my baby, but also because I knew that time would be spent in painful contractions. And I was right. The contractions just kept getting stronger and stronger, but also less regular. They would be 7 minutes apart, then 3 minutes, then 9 minutes... almost always under 10 minutes, though. And they all lasted almost one minute.

Finally the time came for my induction (I was still only dilated 1cm). They used a Foley catheter, which is basically a balloon that was blown up inside me, pushing on my cervix. It was attached to a tube that was taped to my inner thigh, with enough pressure to kind of pull the balloon through. They would leave it overnight, and by morning, I should be dilated enough for the balloon to fall out (3cm). After about 10 minutes, I couldn't feel the pulling sensation I should have been feeling, so I asked the midwife if she could tighten it a bit. She pulled on the tube, and the balloon fell out! I had dilated from 1cm to 3cm in less than ten minutes!

The midwife got me up on the bed and broke my waters. Then they put me on a hormone drip to give me regular contractions. They put it on the lowest setting, then they usually turn it up gradually until contractions occur 4-5 times every ten minutes. But with me, the contractions became that frequent as soon as the drip was turned on! And man, they were SO painful. I asked for some gas, and was sucking on that every time a contraction came, but because I had a cold and my nose was blocked, it was really hard to breathe it in. It did take the edge off the contractions, though.

They were monitoring my contractions and the baby's heart rate on CTG, and they found that every time I'd have a contraction, her heart rate would spike downwards. They turned off the drip, and the doctor started to give me an internal examination, so he could get some blood from the baby's head and do some kind of test to find out if she was in distress. That was the most painful thing EVER. I can't even begin to explain how painful it was. Because I was in so much pain, I was subconsciously tensing my muscles, and they couldn't do the examination properly. So they gave me two options - I could have en epidural so they could do the examination and find out if the baby was in distress (if she was, I'd have to have a caesarean), or I could have an epidural in preparation for a caesarean. Either way, I was having an epidural.

Epidurals are heaven. It took a while for them to get it in, because I was having contractions so regularly (even with the hormone drip turned off). But once they did, I couldn't feel a thing. It was so good. We decided to go ahead with the internal examination, just in case there was a chance of having a natural birth. But our baby was in distress, and I was taken in for a caesarean.

One thing I never knew about epidurals is that they can give you the shakes. A small price to pay, really, but I was shaking all over and there was nothing I could do about it. Strange.

But anyway, into the operating theatre. I was given an oxygen mask, and they started to cut me open. I couldn't feel a anything, obviously. Hubby was right there beside me the whole time, wearing scrubs. He was so good. Then Grace came out, and he went off to cut the cord. He said it was very surreal. I was able to have a short hold of baby before the and hubby went into the recovery room while I was being stitched up. I followed shortly after.

After a while, and a couple of tests, they took me up to my room. I wasn't allowed out of bed for the first day (because the effects of the epidural were just wearing off), so every time Grace cried, I had to buzz the nurses, and they would either change her nappy, comfort her, or pass her to me for a feed. I was so glad when I could finally get up to hold her myself, whenever I wanted.

The first two nights, the nurses had to take Grace off my hands for a while so I could get some sleep. She just wasn't settling. They said it was because she'd had a traumatic birth. Sometimes babies can take a couple of days to get over it. By the third night (Friday), she was fine. The nurse gave her a dummy (pacifier), and she settled straight away. I like dummies. So does Grace.

I was in hospital until Saturday night, so almost three days. That's really a short time to stay in hospital when you've had a caesarean, but I was becoming increasingly sick and tired of being away from home, and having to be away from my husband every night. The final straw came on Saturday during visiting hours. My husband, Dad and sister were visiting me, but next door (only separated by a curtain) had about twelve visitors at once. Around seven of them were kids. I could handle that they were noisy (Grace could sleep through anything by that stage), and were swearing all the time, but the kids were also pushing against the curtain at times. Then one of them accidentally hit into Grace's crib. It didn't phase her at all, but I was so frustrated that I started crying. I buzzed the nurse and told her I wanted to go home. Dad, Tarryn and hubby stayed with me until Grace and I had been checked out and given the okay to leave.

So, now I'm home with a beautiful baby girl! She is so gorgeous, and such a good baby. She'll be a month old on Sunday. I wish I could post some pictures, but I'm in the process of figuring out how to transport them from my computer to my Mum's computer. Her new computer doesn't have a floppy disk drive. And my CD burner may not be working. I have to look into it. But I'll definitely work on figuring it out. I want to show my baby off!

posted by Alyssa @ 10:40 AM 2 comments

Finally.

Here I am! Lack of internet access is bad. I promise I'll post the birth story and some pictures very shortly. But I had the baby! Our little Grace. She was born at 3:33am on the 19th January, and was 6 pounds 9 ounces. She's absolutely gorgeous. I'll post more soon, I promise. The end.

posted by Alyssa @ 5:08 PM 2 comments