Baby Gian’s birthstory:

I know it’s long overdue but here is baby Gian’s birth story at last:

By lunchtime on 26 Dec I was convinced I will have to wait some more before our baby will come.  Even though I had lots of Braxton Hicks contractions it felt like nothing was going to happen that day and I even told my sister so over the phone.  After lunch I took a nap, since we had a very busy weekend due to Christmas and I was extremely tired.

During the nap I felt some contractions, but that was not unusual, since I’ve felt like that many times before.  When I got up after the nap though I felt some vaginal discharge come out and I went to check on it.  It was mustard yellow and watery and was about the amount of a couple of tablespoons, but it turned into a pinkish red, so I thought it must be my mucous plug.  I’ve read that you can lose your mucous plug days or even weeks before labour, so I didn’t take much notice.  I did put on a pad so that I could check later to see if there is more discharge.

By about 15h40 I noticed that the contractions were getting a little painful and that they were regular, so I started to time them on an app I had on my Ga.laxy ta.b.  The contractions were just under 5 minutes apart, and that confused me a lot, because it didn’t feel like I would imagine contractions to feel.  I was told by my midwife that if there is doubt it is probably not real contractions, and that I would know when it’s the real thing.

A little while later (17h00) I told DH about it because the contractions were getting even closer together and the discharge was now a light brown colour and DH made me SMS the midwife.  She said that she would phone me at about 20h00.  She changed her mind about half an hour later and phoned me to chat with me and hear how I was doing.  I had decided in the mean time that I think that the discharge might have been my waters breaking, and that the colour could be due to meconium, so I mentioned to the midwife that I thought my waters might have broken, but that the volume wasn’t much.  She told me to use a glycerine suppository to get my bowels moving and to time my contractions (I had stopped doing that, since I thought I was doing it wrong).

We watched an episode of Ca.stle while timing the contractions this time on DH’s I.phone and we realised they were just over 2 minutes apart so at 19h00 I phone the midwife and told her so.  She advised us to come in immediately to Gen.esis clinic.

We arrived at the clinic just before 20h00 and the midwife was already waiting for us.  My contractions and baby Gian’s heartbeat was monitored and my contractions were less than 2 minutes apart and genuine contractions, much to my surprise, as they were still not very sore.  I was able to breathe through them quite comfortably.  Up to this stage DH and I still thought that it might be a false alarm, but we were told I was definitely in labour.

The midwife then proceeded to check my cervix and found that although my cervix was very thin it didn’t dilate at all.  She could not even insert the tip of her finger.  She decided to try something she usually uses for mom’s who want a VBAC, by inserting a catheter into my uterus with a balloon and inflate the balloon with 50 ml of saline to try to stretch my cervix open, but she warned that if it doesn’t work that I will have to have a c-section.  When the catheter was inserted she confirmed that my waters had indeed broken and that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid.

After this was done the contractions suddenly became incredibly sore and it actually felt like I had one long contraction that only differed from incredibly sore to almost unbearable, and after about 10 minutes I begged for some kind of pain relief.  I was given laughing gas but it felt like it didn’t help at all.  The midwife put me back on the monitor to check on baby Gian’s heartbeat and it was extremely high and that indicated that baby was in distress, so she immediately took out the catheter again.  She said that she would check on my cervix again in 45 minutes and if it didn’t dilate enough that she will call the doctors to come in for a c-section.  (They were already notified of my case and on standby)

At 22h00 the midwife said that my cervix was still the same as earlier and she started to prep me for surgery.  By the time she was done with this all the doctors were waiting for us already outside my room.

The midwife was so nice, all the time explaining to me what the next step would be.  That helped me a lot because I was incredibly scared of a c-section.  Eventually all the prep work was done, I had the spinal and DH could sit next to me.  He barely sat down when he said that they’ve already cut me open.  After a little while the midwife explained that I would hear suctioning and that shortly after that our baby would be born.  So when I heard the sound of suctioning I asked DH to try to flatten the blue covers on my chest so that I could see, but I didn’t know that it was sterile and we weren’t allowed to touch it.

The gynae heard me though and he stopped and asked the anaesthetist to lift up my head (what a wonderful  doctor!) and I was able to see how he lifted our baby out head first, facing me, and we even made eye contact before they whisked him away to suction him, because of the meconium in the amniotic fluid.  I lay there with tears rolling down my face, so incredibly grateful that we were eventually parents.

DH left my side to make a video of our baby’s first moments and after what felt like an eternity I could finally hear him cry.  It took a while before he started to breathe, but he was fine.  His apgars were 8 and 10.  The paediatrician and the midwife said that he had a nice colour, beautiful skin and a strong grasp as he was clutching at everything he could lay his hands on.  He also pee’d all over them.  After about 20 minutes he was brought to me and put on my chest and less than 5 minutes later he was drinking from my breast.  I could only stare at our beautiful baby, and DH was actually a bit worried because I didn’t say a word for such a long time.  I just kissed DH’s hand and was totally amazed to see our baby.  DH told me that he was so proud of me and thanked me for our beautiful baby.  He was a proud daddy and totally in love from the first moment.

Baby Gian was allowed to lie skin to skin on me and drink from my breasts for about 2 hours, before he was dressed and allowed to sleep in bed with DH.  I didn’t sleep a wink that night, just so incredibly happy to be a mommy at last!  DH also didn’t sleep much, he kept on staring at our baby, also totally in awe, and a little scared that he might hurt our baby.