He’s finally here!

My goodness, it’s been a tough few days, and obviously the family comes first so I’vè not been able to tell you all about the new arrival.

Joshua William was born on Saturday 29th July 2006 at 07:08am, weighing in at 3.2kgs (7lbs1oz). It was a gruelling labour, and that was just my impression of it! Rachel started contracting around Tuesday, but irregularly. They started becoming regular (6 mins apart) at dinnertime on Wednesday, and we kept a close eye on timings overnight. I rang in to work in the morning on Thursday, and they very kindly said I could stay at home - the real problem for them was that I was about to embark on a week of night shifts, so they ended up having to get an external agency locum (I’m feeling a bit bad about that, but as I say, family comes first!)

The community midwife came to see us in the afternoon and confirmed we were in labour, with good progression for a first-timer especially two weeks early! We continued to monitor the contractions, but they didn’t really change much until dinnertime, when they upped to 5mins apart. I got very excited, and thought we ought to be contacting the hospital and going in. Rachel on the other hand, suggested home would be more comfortable for the time being, and so we rightly stayed at home. It proved to be the right decision, because they slowed down after tea to 7mins apart. Getting a little fed up and confused with it all, we tried to retire to bed. It was a humid night, and the heat was uncomfortable to say the least, but luckily the air conditioning unit I’d bought the day before cooled things down.

By next morning we’d had enough and rang delivery suite. We went in and were re-assessed. Amazingly (I thought), we’d gone from 1cm dilated to 3-4cms. From the midwifes’ point of view though, this wasn’t good enough and we were turfed out to the ward. After spending much of the day rubbing Rachel’s back, and going for short walks to get things moving, we were examined again, and we were at... 4cms. Although this was disappointing news, they considered it a step in the right direction, and we were admitted to Delivery Suite. Of course I already know the place inside out, and am friends with most of the midwives, so it was a nice place to come for me - obviously Rachel had little experience of the place, and coped very well.

Things went from slow to slower. During the next 6 hours we tried Entonox, different positions, and more back rubbing, but the pain continued to get unbearableDuring the next 6 hours we tried Entonox, different positions, and more back rubbing, but the pain continued to get unbearable. Looking at the clock, considereing that the latent phase of labour had been going for 6 hours, I reckoned one shot of pethidine should tide us over before the second stage and all that pushing. We were reexamined later in the evening, and we were ready to hear that progress had finally been made... 4cms.

Rachel looked ready to cry, but I reassured her that at least now the pethidine would be kicking in and she could get some sleep. Just as she was about to nod off, our midwife looked at the CTG trace, and made a mad dash for the door. Seconds later, the senior midwife came in and they examined the tiny piece of paper intently. Rachel was wide awake again, and the midwives told us that the baby was probably sleepy from the pethidine. They told us not to worry, after the trace became a bit more reactive with some cold water and prodding (Rachel drinking and the bump prodded that is, we weren’t doing that to the trace.) but Rachel wouldn’t settle until the trace improved - not surprisingly, it got better at the same time as the pethidine wearing off.

We had an ARM (artificial rupture of membranes) to get things moving, and settled down to wait for another two hours. Had there been no change by then, there was to be a Sintocinon drip to encourage the contractions to be stronger and more regular. I was aware of course that this was all straightforward and normal, but there was no convincing Rachel that more intervention was a good thing (mind you, I bearly believe that myself). We waited for the all important reexamination, with baited breath. Our midwife asked me where we had been at the previous one. “4 cms” I said. She looked confused and I could see it coming. “I make it 2” she said. The world collapsed. Rachel was inconsolable, and I couldn’t believe it. The drip was to be started. However, I was in a position to know that Sinto = even more painful contractionsSinto = even more painful contractions, so I insisted on an epidural before the drip started. Earlier in the day, my consultant had introduced herself to Rachel and told us that no matter what time we requested an epidural, she would come in and do it, which was immensely generous. She came in at around 23:00, and it worked like a charm. The block was good, and Rachel lost even the sense that the contractions were happening on just 10mls of 0.25% Levobupivacaine. Finally, she could get some rest while the sinto did its thing.

However, our night midwife had a different ethos to the day one, and stayed with us constantly - probably because of all the interventions we’d had, and all the monitoring we had to have now. There was so much fiddling and adjusting and reviewing that there was no chance either of us could rest. Four hours after the sinto was up and three epidural top-ups later, we were due another examination. Our midwife looked at us with the same confused face, and we could feel the bad news on the tip of her tongue. “Guess” she said. ‘Toying with us, how cruel’ I thought. We suggested that at least we might be back to 4cms, but she smiled at us. “9cms, almost fully dilated”. It was like someone had given us a breath of fresh life. OK, well perhaps not fresh, maybe a breath of life that had been hanging around in a gym locker for a day or two, but we felt a hundred times better.

We tried a bit of pushing after a further hour, but the midwife quickly spotted blood being discharged. The Senior Registrar came in and agreed it was unascertainable where the blood was coming from. He decided we needed a Ventouse delivery in theatre, in case there was the need for a Cesearean section. We had an epidural top-up that would give most elephants cardio-accelerator block, and she started to complain of tingling in her fingers and drowsiness - OMG, not this as well I thought, as I raised her head end!

The powers that be must have been smiling on us after all, because to contractions later we had a baby boy on Rachel’s tummy, and we couldn’t believe it. “It’s a boy!” shouted all my day-to-day colleagues - “It’s a baby” I thought bewildered. After a quick clean up, and check over, he was in my arms, and opened his eyes. Absolute perfection in my hands. I never really felt the empathy towards Dads and Mums during that moment of first meeting, but I had tears in my eyes. It was a good while before all the madness calmed down, and the weighing and measuring, monitoring, etc. was gone. We’vè had no end of visitors and presents and photos since, which has been wonderful. I’ll keep you all posted.