The Birth

At about 8.30am on Thursday morning the midwife told me that I would soon be able to see my baby and I thought "it had better hurry up, I'm fed up with pushing for nothing!"

After several more minutes of intensive pushing, the baby still wouldn't shift so it was suggested that I would need further assistance to get the baby out.  They would need to get me to theatre in order to perform a ventouse delivery and if that failed they would progress to using forceps.  And if that failed then they would have to perform an emergency caesarean.  I was not prepared to let things go that far because the baby was so low down that pulling it back up the other way sounded horrendous.

In my lethargic state the obstetrician who was going to perform all those possible procedures tried to explain to me the various options and the worse case scenario and all I could do was just agree to go along with it all and let them do whatever was needed to get the baby out.  At the end of the day, I'd been in there for over 24 hours, was tired and fed up and had just about had enough.  I just wanted the whole experience to be over.  With that I signed the papers agreeing for the procedures to be taken place.

The midwife told me that if I felt my stomach muscles tightening on the way to theatre I should tell them so they would stop the trolley to allow me to push through the contractions.  I thought "no way am I going to stop in the middle of a corridor to give birth!"

They took my husband away to get some theatre robes on whilst they wheeled me in the bed with all the equipment into theatre.

Once in there I could see at least 5 more people in there with all the commotion of an emergency - they were all rushing around trying to get everything prepared for every possible scenario.

They wheeled me into position and put my legs up in stirrups - not an attractive pose - and everyone got themselves into their designated places.  My husband took so long I thought he was never going to come to witness the birth.

I felt the contractions coming again and I let them know.  They advised me to push as hard as I could and did exactly as I was told.  Still the baby would not emerge sufficiently and I was given and injection for the episiotomy.  I could feel the needle going in to inject me and then I felt the surgical knife make a cut.  I was told it was time for the ventouse to be used on the baby.  I could hear a lot of squelching noises when the ventouse was being out onto the baby's head, it was not pleasant.

The next few minutes felt like forever when everyone urged with encouragement for me to push as long and as hard as I could.  I was getting weary but I was determined to get the baby out once and for all.  I did not want the forceps or the caesarean, I did not want to there any more.

At last the baby came out and was whisked off to be rubbed down and weighed.  It was a while before I could hear it cry and when it did, it was such a relief.  The midwife brought it to my husband's arms and he shed a little tear.  It was a baby girl.  As soon as he held her she stopped crying and we knew then she was going to be a daddy's girl.  She was so alert and immediately opened her eyes to look at the world around.

As soon as I saw her the first thing I thought wasn't "what a beautiful baby", which is what most people think.    The first thing I thought was in fact "what a big head she's got.  No wonder I had trouble getting her out!"

Everyone in the theatre room came to congratulate us.  I also think that they were relieved it turned out be as simple a delivery as it was and not as complicated as it could have been.

They wheeled me off the maternity ward into a room of my own to recouperate for a couple of hours before I was transferred onto the main ward to be with the other mums and their babies.

All I wanted to do now was sleep.  My husband can hold the baby for long as he wanted, I just want to he left alone in peace ...

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