Oscar’s birth story – the day I became a mummy

The main purpose of my blog is to record all those magical moments, so that my kids can one day look through them. Although Oscar was born way before this blog one, his birth was one of the biggest  days of my life and therefore should be here.

Here goes…

I was five days overdue when I went into labour. My mum and dad had been on holiday over Christmas and my mum was so happy that I hadn’t given birth whilst they were away.

I’d spent the day at my parents’ house feeling fed up. I’d had an afternoon nap and Simon had come home from work slightly earlier due to heavy snow. We had a chicken dinner at my parents’, which is when I started to get back ache. 

I didn’t really say much as you get so many aches and pains when pregnant that I just it down to some pregnancy niggle.

In the car on the way home they began to get worse and I mentioned it to Si. The car was low on petrol, so to be safe we filled it up at a local petrol station – good job we did.

The pains started to get more frequent, so when we got home I sat on my gym ball for a bit. I was exciting that something was finally happening!

We watched some TV and tried to pass the time. At about 8.30pm our neighbour, who we were and still are good friends with, called and said that if I went into labour tonight and needed help getting the car out, then to give them a shout. I decided to tell her that I was in labour. We had a chat and both got very excited. Once we hung up, we watched more TV and I decided to pass the time by having a shower and doing my hair and make up (not quite sure why I thought make up was a good idea!). 

We then decided to ring the hospital as the contractions were getting more regular. They gave us the usual line of waiting till they were closer together and lasting longer, they also recommended paracetamol – as if! Me being me, I took the paracetamol, which did nothing at all.

By now it was getting late so we decided to try and get some sleep. That was also a waste of time as I was too excited and in too much pain. After about an hour and Simon moaning about how much his paper cut was hurting (yes, really, although I’m pretty sure he was joking). I went to the loo and there was some blood. It was only a bit but it scared me. That was it, we were going to hospital whether they wanted me there or not!!

We rang the hospital as we left, to ensure they were ready for us when we arrived. We then rang our parents to let them know – it was time!

Luckily the snow didn’t bother us and we were at the hospital pretty quickly. The midwife took us to a delivery suite and hooked me up to a monitor and checked me over. Everything was fine and the bleeding was normal – phew! She announced that I was 3-4 cms dilated, which I was pleased about as they wouldn’t be sending me home!

I had a bit of gas and air and the midwife suggested trying the birthing pool, which I agreed to. I ended up spending about 3 hours in there. It was nice at first but after a while it did little for the pain and my knees began to hurt.

Whilst I was in the pool, the midwife would leave us for quite long periods of time, which Simon wasn’t particularly impressed about. It turns out that she’s been delivering twins! The couple already had a son and they didn’t know the sex of their twins prior to the birth. They a boy first and a girl second. Little did we know that 3 years later that would be us!!

Whilst in the pool the midwife would periodically listen to the babies heartbeat. On one of these checks, she wasn’t happy, so I had to get out of the pool to go on a monitor for 20 minutes. After which I was allowed to get back in the pool. At that point, little did we know that this was the start of things not quite going as smoothly as planned…

By now the pain was unbearable. I remember screaming at Simon to “help me” and him looking at me with tears in his eyes and saying: “this is horrible”. The midwife examined me, as I kept saying I wanted to push, and she declared I was 7-8cm dilated. At that point, which was around 6.30am, I was exhausted and in so much pain that I decided I needed an epidural. I was scared that the pain would get worse and it would be too late.

We were taken back into a more traditional room and I remember Simon going to move the car, whilst I waited for the anthesistist to come. I remember them trying to find a vein in my hand and the midwife not being able to do it. I panicked, thinking I wouldn’t be able to have the epidural, but the anthesistist managed to do it – phew. I don’t remember the epidural being painful, I just remember that within about 5 minutes the pain started to disappear, it was like magic.

As I’d had an epidural, the babies heartbeat was constantly monitored. Within about 20 minutes of having it, the heart rate on the machine dropped, dramatically. It was horrible and the reassuring galloping sound slowed. The midwife rang the buzzer and some other people came in. I was made to lie on my side and the heartbeat thankfully recovered. The staff put in down to the epidural. However, it happened again and again!

The next few hours are now a blur of a constant stream of doctors coming in, examining, heart rates dropping and recovering. There was an awful moment when one junior doctor started panicking that it was actually my heart rate they were picking up and not the babies, thankfully this was wrong.

I remember begging doctors to give me a caesarean and to just “get this baby out”. I was so scared and I don’t think I took my eyes off the monitor the whole time. It was very stressful. My protective urge was huge. I’d never even met this little person, yet already I would do anything to keep it safe.

My contractions began to slow down, which was not good. They put me on a drip of syntocinon to speed them up again and decided to break my waters. When they did so, they discovered meconium, which meant that the baby was stressed.

At one point the team decided that they would take some blood from the baby’s head to check the oxygen levels. Thankfully they were fine. However, the heart rate was still dropping every so often. It was decided that when I reached 10cms, they would use forceps to get the baby out as quickly as possible.

Finally at around 1.45pm I finally reached 10cm. A lovely consultant (Mrs Ramsey) came in and began her work, despite Simon wanted to finish his crisps!! Forceps were put in (not pleasant, even with an epidural) and I was told to push whilst they pulled. I pushed my hardest, I wanted this baby out as quickly as possible. I remember being told to pant and then one push later our baby was born, crying!! It was 2.10pm. Those cries were one of the sweetest sounds I’d even heard. Our baby was ok! I remember seeing the little duck tail of hair at the back of the head and the consultant had meconium on her glasses where the baby had spat it out on delivery!

I can’t remember exactly who told us the sex. I think it might have been Simon. I just remember sobbing – he was ok!

We had a room full of doctors and he was given straight to the pediatric doctors to be checked over. He was then wrapped and brought over to us. Seeing him for the first time was amazing and I remember him sucking his two fingers, how he still does now. Would already decided on names, so there wasn’t much to discuss. Welcome to the world Oscar…

He weighed 7lb 12oz and apart from a slight temperature he was fine. We took lots of photo’s and began announcing the news to friends and family. The birth of a new baby is such a lovely and amazing time and we couldn’t wait to show him off.

I was 26 when I had Oscar. It is amazing the love you have for your children and Oscar’s birth taught me just how fragile life is and how every birth is a little miracle.

J xx