I'm going to write down my experiences, from the other side, so to speak. In some detail, because it's already fading. I've had to write this a paragraph at a time over several days, so sorry if it doesn't 'flow'.
So, Christine's waters broke sun morning and having escaped induction the day before we were waiting, hoping that contractions would start. I don't remember much about the wait, except that we played star wars monopoly.
Dates and times are all a bit blurry, but I think it was late evening of the 31st Oct that C started contractions. We thought at first that Leon had taken his nickname, pumpkin, a bit too seriously! I think we must have been in bed because when we got out the tens machine Sarah the goth had lent us and I blearily attached them, I remember trying to work out the instructions through squinting eyes. C thought the tens machine was excellent, they really helped with the contraction pains.
The contractions built up until around 12.15am, when C asked me to fill the pool. I'd put the final sterile cover on earlier in the evening, and the hose was already attached to the hot watter in the downstairs loo, so it was all systems go. By 1am it was filling up nicely, but when I took the temperature it was over 50deg C! oops. So I got a bucket and started filling the pool with cold water from the kitchen tap. By about 2am C was getting impatient to get in. She phoned the midwife, who said she could, and luckily the temperature was just right by then, 36deg, so she got in. She thought it was excellent, and it was a relief to get into the water.C stayed in the pool from 2-6am, wed morning. Her contractions were regular, every 5-8 mins, but not very long, most 20sec, a few longer. The water was good, however, as it allowed C to stretch out on her front. The midwife arrived, along with a student, as she thought that although C sounded like she was in control and the contractions weren't bad yet, she knew C was a strong lady and she was afraid that the contractions were actually more advanced than they seemed on the phone! Alas they weren't. C did try walking up and down the stairs, and I topped up the hot water, but the contractions died down. I'd read that after 4h the pool wasn't going to help, and the midwife also suggested that we get some rest. We managed to sleep for a few hours.
When we woke, C discovered that there were signs of meconium in her waters. This meant that the baby had had his first poo. On its own, this is not necessarily the end of a home birth, but the fact that C's contractions weren't going anywhere meant we decided to go into hospital.
I drove C down to the Rosie in Cambridge, and we arrived about 10am. On arrival we were shown into the only room left, a fairly clinical room with quite a lot of equipment. I wasn't too worried, just disappointed that there wasn't a nice curvy bed like we'd seen in other rooms. Then we were introduced to our midwife there, Mary. We were pretty sure this was the midwife Christine's friend Sarah had had problems with. I was suddenly very protective "we'll change her, we can you know" etc. But Christine didn't want to, not without giving her a chance. Christine told Mary that we knew quite a bit (and said I knew more than she did, which made me proud), and we knew what we wanted, but we would work with her and we wanted to keep good communications going. And they got on fine. Mary went through the birth plan with us, seeing what had to be changed - on some points she wanted us to go a different way, but we stuck to what we wanted, and once we'd explained our choices, she agreed to what we wanted.
What happened next? Well Mary examined Christine and found that although her membranes had burst, they hadn't uncovered the baby's head. This was stopping him moving down, which would have triggered deeper contractions. Ah, right. She recommended augmenting C's contractions with syntocinon - this is a drip that makes the contractions stronger. Christine's veins were wobbly and Mary's first attempt at putting in the needle failed, she wasn't sure about trying the other hand, which was even more wobbly, and as Christine said, she only had two, so she got someone else to do it.
After that we had the opportunity to move to a different room, which we took. This wasn't much less clinical, and in fact it was slightly smaller, but it had less medical equipment so it was a bit less intimidating. And they brought in a birthing ball and a mat in case they were useful.
Unfortunately this all took ages. Lunch consisted of me wandering down to the food court and trying to find something for us both. Luckily I passed on the sandwiches and found a cafe doing ciabatta. I got a motz one for C and I had chicken tikka. It was gorgeous, though that was possibly due to only having had a glass of smoothie in the last 14h or so!
After lunch, C was hooked up to the drip. It was a shift change, and so this was done by another midwife, Myrna. It seemed unfortunate to loose Mary at the time and I was a bit worried at first. Myrna's English wasn't perfect and I was afraid there would be misunderstandings, but that wasn't the case. And she proved to be perfect for this part of the labour as she was efficient but kind. But I'm jumping ahead a little - as Mary left, the drugs started to kick in. C started having real strong contractions and she started to cry. I was kneeling at her side at this point, pressing the small of her back as she arched it or writhed. I stopped Mary and asked "Is this right?" or something like that - to me this other midwife had given C drugs and now she was in pain and crying! But Mary was excellent, she knelt with me, told me that this was completely normal and said "Don't forget some pain is good pain". That was really good - I knew this was all ok.
So... Back to Myrna . My last doubt about her was when she said to C, "I'll just turn this up a bit" - meaning that she was increasing the flow rate of the Syntocinon. Now, I knew that there was a guideline on when and how much the increases should be - the table I'd seen increased the dosage every 1/2h, and it was only 1/4h after the last time she'd upped the dosage. I was worried. I checked the display on the machine and was hugely relieved to find that yes, she'd put it up after only 1/4h, but she'd only upped it half way to the next flow rate - ie she was smoothing out the jumps in dosage. This was, contrary to my fears, really good for Christine as one of the problems with Syntocinon is that if there is a surge, it can really be unpleasant and painful. That convinced me that we were in good hands.
Oh yes, about C's ciabatta... well that came up again after a while. Luckily I was there with a 'kidney', a disposable cardboard tray, for just this sort of thing. C reassured me that this was a good sign as it showed she was in transition and labour was progressing.
The delivery itself was pretty quick. Christine started crying out in pain and trying to push, and Myrna said 'no, no, don't push yet' and C tried not to. It turned out that in the back room, the midwives were betting that C would be a long labour, she wouldn't get strong enough contractions and she'd end up with a c-section. So Myrna wasn't prepared for what had happened - C asked her to check how dilated she was, and she'd gone from 5cm to 10cm in 1h! So it *was* time to push!!!
All this time, I'd been helping Christine with her contractions, pushing on the small of her back, which really helped her. This meant I was kneeling on the floor (with a folded up yoga mat, thanks to Mary) with my whole body weight going through my stretched out arms. It was hard work! And the next day I was puzzled why my knees ached and my legs complained when I got up!
Anyway, back to the labour. The contractions were getting bad and Myrna asked C if she wanted Etonox (gas and air). C really didn't know whether she was coming or going at this point and said she didn't know. I just caught Myrna's attention and said yes, nodding emphatically. C found Etonox fantastic. As contractions started, she'd start panting and I'd speak to her, softly but commandingly: "slooow... deeep breaths... in..... out...." and we're such a good team, she'd hear me and do it :) The other thing was that at the peaks, she'd often arch her neck and cry out, but I had my hand on the back of her neck and when she did that, I told her to relax her neck and push it (the contraction) out her bottom - this also worked very well :)Have I mentioned that we had Kraftwerk on in the background? "Tour de France". It was an excellent CD to have on, really made it into an endurance event. In fact towards the end of labour I was saying to C that this was the uphill finish, she was on the path, keep going - just like it was a spin class :)
And then the midwife said to me "Did you see that? The baby's head!". I looked but he'd obviously gone back inside, but on the next push I saw it. To be honest, I couldn't quite work it out: I suppose I was expecting a face, but he was face down, so all I could see was a dark bulge covered with something matted... was it a coconut? C had to do some serious pushing to get his head out, while the midwife checked for the cord etc. She was fab - she told us he had a bump on his head from the previous night's exertions even before he crowned! (it's almost gone already, couple of days later)
Eventually, smoothly, he was out. The midwife put him straight on C's chest and I cut the cord. Bit strange that. I'd said I'd do it, 'cos I thought "well it's not exactly very important, it's just a snip, but I only get one opportunity (per baby) so I might as well". But it wasn't what I expected at all. For one thing, it's rubbery. It took a few good chomps of the scissors to get through it. But also it was strangely really gratifying. Maybe it was just confirmation that I took part in the labour too, or maybe I was just caught up with the emotion of seeing and being so close to the baby. I don't know, but I'd recommend saying "yes" if you get the chance.
What was it like, seeing him for the first time? Well, I should first say that I was in a 'zone'. I don't know which zone, but I was in it. What I mean is that the whole experience of C's pain, working hard with the labour and seeing the crowning and birth (whilst having only a few hours kip for two nights running) meant that everything was stripped of drama. Seeing him was a mix of relief and love, wonder and calmness. It was as if I was saying to myself "There's our baby and I love him and it's completely normal and feels perfectly right".
So, the 3rd stage: the placenta. Because C had been "induced" (or more accurately 'augmented' - they use a different drug, a gel, for kick-starting contractions), they had to give her an injection to make the placenta come out. Which it did, 30 seconds later, very smoothly. Again, this wasn't a shock, it just looked like a big browny red liver.
After C was stitched up and all had quietened down, the midwife weighed Billybob, then counted his fingers, toes, and eyes, ears and nose! I remember thinking, "of course he's all there!".However, at this point the midwife said that C was bleeding heavily. I took Leon, and moved away from the bed at the midwife's request and, just as she'd foretold, some dozen people bundled though the door. C says there were 20. I don't think there were _quite_ that many, but the flurry of activity was pretty impressive. I did catch glimpses of what was going on, but I shall keep that to myself.
It transpired that we were lucky - they were just about to start a cesarean somewhere nearby so everyone was right there and available. If they had started, there might have been a delay while they found people, but as it happened, we had the whole team. It was quite surreal - we wondered afterwards where they kept them, at the time it seemed like they popped into existence when required, or they had been kept on ice in a cupboard, like a Monty Python sketch.
The consultant in charge was very good. He explained to C that the uterus had relaxed rather than contracting, so it had filled with blood - thus someone was pushing on her stomach, and they gave her something to make it contract. Not only that, but she'd had a tear that needed stitching. Once they'd dealt with that, the midwife also found that a vein had been grazed, and another expert was called in to sew that. Through it all I tried to keep in Christine's vision so she could see the baby and could signal to me if she needed to. But she seemed calm. I was calm too, it was the 'zone' again - I wasn't worried for C because she was being looked after.
BTW What was amazing was that the end of the bed could detach so they could get close enough to do the stitching - very clever!
So, there I was, literally holding the baby while all this was going on, and it was a magical time. At first he seemed dazed, and not really there, then over a short time, maybe 30 secs, he seemed to swim to the surface and come into focus. It was as if he hadn't been there before, but now he was, almost like he was coming alive in my hands. It was a privilege to see that.Then C was wheeled in a chair down to the ward. At first we were told we were getting a side room, but that was only because there was another patient on their way down and they'd got us mixed up. "Doesn't matter", said C, "I've got a baby!"
I don't remember much after that. There was a time when I went out to make the all important calls. It was damn cold, but it was such a good feeling breaking the news. "Hello, it's Toby", "Hi, how are you", "I'm a dad!!!!" :)
The ward staff were good. Partners were supposed to be out at 10, but I think as long as you were quiet, they didn't enforce it... but by midnight, I realised I was dropping off, and I had to go home. Strangely, all I could think about as I left the building was that I really fancied a Burger King! Unfortunately the hospital BK was closed and all that was available was some expensive cheap pizza, so I passed. I did drive into Cambridge in the vague hope that I'd see a BK open, but I quickly realised this was futile and went home. I ended up cooking a pizza, having a beer, and emailing/blogging. I was exhausted though, and after about 1/2h I think I'd managed to write 2 lines.
Around 2am, I think, I collapsed into bed. I thought that I'd be asleep before my head hit the pillow, but actually I remember having time to think, "Oh, I'm not asleep yet" before I went out like a light :) A good day :)
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