A baby is born

Birthing is a very odd experience. no amount of classes, videos or stories from other people can quite prepare you for it. So when I went into labour at midnight, Friday 14th October the reality of the journey was only starting to unfold.

Labour is happening, here comes Tiny Human
When the contractions started it took me about an hour to really recognise what happening. I downloaded an app to clarify my suspicions. It showed that I was having contractions every 6-7 minutes lasting for up to a minute. At about 5:30 when I heard Chris stir, I let him know the happenings. We both got a bit giddy. I was nervous laughing at everything! We called both our parents in our nervous excitement and arranged for Chris' parents to come over in a few hours to take care of the little ones.

Then is fabuloous thing happened... it all kind of stopped. Turns out this super normal ladies. Not only will labour start and stop as it pleases, but it is not unusual for women to be in labour for three days or so with their first bub (I don't remember hearing this at by baby school classes.

I managed to help things progress by going for a walk with Chrissy. I got things moving again... then it stopped. Chris' parents came, the girls went to gymnastics... we had brunch... and things stopped and started as they pleased to make my day super wonderful. The girls went off to stay the night with Grandma Lorraine and Grandpa Joe with dreams of having a little brother today or tomorrow.

Wonderfully, by about 3 in the afternoon - after another walk with Chrissy - my contractions were as close as 2 minutes and intensifying. Alright, we were on! This baby was coming... We did go into the hospital to get checked over and on the way my waters broke! Cooking with fire! Tiny Human was planning his entrance.

False alarm.

Not only was my "waters breaking" me having a large mucus discharge, but when we got to the hospital everything stopped. No more baby coming. Tiny Human was playing jokes on us. We were sent home to "rest". I can only guess the number of women who have been sent home to "rest" whilst in the early stages of labour did just that... 0! How you rest in between irregular contracts, nervous excitement and that annoying feeling that this is never going to happen? Well Restavit was the only way it was happening for me!

Waters are breaking, here comes Tiny Human
... until I woke up in a pool of clear liquid that was not sweat. EW! I woke Chris up to get me a towel so I could grab some of the fluid before it flooded the bed. Now, because I could not remember anything the midwife had told me about when to come back in, we called the hospital to check if waters actually breaking was something we should be interested in...

Come in, they said. At least so we check you out and send you back home. So after i ad a wonderful shower for half an hour and continued to spill clear, weird liquid from my vagina, we groggily wandered back into Royal Hospital for Women with the belief that we would not be there for long. As you read on you will see that all of my thoughts and guestimations were wrong!

Rest up
This time, I was right. My waters had gone. Woohoo. We were getting this show on the road... nope. My contractions were now about 10 minutes apart. This is of no interest to people in the world of getting babies out of vaginas. Suddenly water breaking meant very little. Except that I was already a week overdue and it would be useful to get the party started. My options a) start syntocion drip now to get the body thinking it really was in labour or b) get some rest and start it in the morning.

We chose option b in order to give me some time to rest before the show went on and I pushed a baby out!

My pregnancy is all about things going to plan
Chris slept peacefully and uncomfortably on the plastic mattress on the floor whilst I slept for ten minute intervals between my contractions. No, they were not too intense, but I do find it weird that I was able to doze off until the next one came. They grew stronger and stronger but not closer and closer. By about 6:30am I was ready for some of that lovely codeine I had been offered earlier. 

I was checked to see how far I had dilated - 2cm - and they inserted what looked like a bone coloured knitting needle into my vagina to break some of the residue membranes around bubba's head. These procedures are mighty fun and all part of the birthing experience that no one else really mentions to you before they happen but all the nurses and midwifes assume you know exactly what they mean when they start talking about it.

Side note: I've never been told so many times by so many different people how well I am doing or what a trooper I am. When they are about to stick their fingers in my vagina to poke until they find what they are looking for, and ask me if I am ready, do they expect me to start to cry and halt the procedure? Nope, might as well nervously laugh and get the damn thing over and done with!

Within the next hour, I had no codeine, but I did get my syntocin and that meant it was time for Tiny Human right? Wrong! Of course I was wrong. This post is all about how things went wrong! Or maybe this blog is all about those things... Anyways the drip went in and I was told everyone reacts differently. Some people go into active labour right away whilst other people need a much greater dose to get the ball rolling. Can you guess which category I fell into? 

Neither!

I got more contractions that was right, but they were irregular in length, strength and distance from one another. Again in the world of people getting babies out of vaginas, this did not mean very much. Until they started to get really intense! Ow! Those mother fucking contractions hurt! I squirmed around on the bed, pushed on Chris and said "ow" many many times before it was time for me ask for the all mighty epidural.

They said, go to the toilet before they stab me. I did what I was told and whilst I was there, notices that I was feeling quite nervous about the procedure. I walked out of the bathroom in my gown, feeling exposed and noted to Chris that my heart rate was up. I felt it and my Fitbit confirmed it. I didn't mention it to any of the busy workers, they were setting my pain relieving needle.

Epidural time!
So getting an Epidural is a process. First you get all naked and then dressed in a fancy hospital gown. Second you have to sit in a position with your back (and butt) sticking out at the anesthetist. They prod you to find the right place. Paint you with really cold antiseptic a few times and then you get a jab of local anesthetic. Which is cold and hurts a tad more than expected. Followed by the big needle. Lastly they tape the tubes to your back and you are now bed-bound. Oh, bed-bound means no toileting. So... that means catheter. When I had my leg operation, I probably had one of these fun things inserted, but it may have been after being put to sleep. 

Essentially they stick a big tube into your urethra, blow up a balloon in your bladder and bibbity bobbity boo, all your pee goes into the bag and doesn't form a nice yellow pool around your body. But then this one time when someone doesn't shut the valve and the pee goes all over the floor and makes everyone's shoes sticky! Hehe.

Things get racy
The next thing that results from an Epidural is that you need to be hooked up to machines to make sure you are still okay despite this weird drug pulsing through your body and putting a block to feelings of pain and temperature. With me, this meant shining a light on my rapid heart rate. It was going mental. Super fast, super irregular and enough to scare a whole heap of trained professionals into talking fast and bringing in more and more people who's paychecks are greater and greater.

My heart was in AF - Atrial Fibrillation. This is the kind of thing old people get. But yippee I got it and no one knew why. There were specialists in the room and Professors on the phone. Why was this happening and what should we do?

Thankfully despite the strong observable (yep if you watched closely you could see the movements!) palpitations in my chest and numbers on the monitors (HR higher than 160bpm at times), my blood pressure was normal and sable and Tiny Human's heart rate was perfectly normal. My heart was having no impact on the little guy.

Finally a very special cardiologist who gets paid the big bucks recommended some medication to stabilise my heart. It would take 2 hours to make an impact... but it never did. The epidural and syntocin was turned off so there was no more labour progression and no pain relief :( 

A c-section after all
The obstetrician on the ward came and chatted with me and said that given my heart issues and in general the size of my baby, they are offering c-section. The pros of this being that we cannot re-start labour until my heart rate is under control and we have no idea how long this might take. Also, once we do re-start labour we don't know how long that will take to get a baby out or what will happen to my heart through the process. We took the option of the operation but this didn't mean the little guy was coming out anytime soon.

First we needed to somewhat even out my heart rate. This took a few medications a quite a bit of time. Second we needed a cardiac specialist for a bedside cardiac ultrasound. Which seems easy enough but like with any specialist, takes time. 

When all was said and done, my heart rate didn't stabilise but stopped hitting numbers like 160 and hovered around 130 instead - in my case this was a win. The ultrasound showed I had a perfectly unremarkable heart. Eventually this meant that the little guy was born.

What a scary situation
I hadn't been scared before,  definitely was now. This was a full-on operation AND I WAS GOING TO BE AWAKE FOR IT!!!!! Between the drugs, the nerves and the cold, I was a shivering mess using humour and laughter to manage my emotions and fears. Thankfully many of the people in the operating theatre had spent much of the day with Chris and I and our unique sense of humour was not too off-putting by this stage.

So at 1617 on 16 October 2016, Kingsley Peter Kolenko was lifted from my belly just in time for him to wee on me and the operating bed. Chris watched on as the not so little guy weighed in at 4.56kg (almost a full kilo heavier than the average Australian baby) and measured 56cm long.

Oh and my heart rate... it went down as soon as the chubba was lifted out of me. Like a switch I was fixed.