My birthing story

So I've been totally lame in updating this blog. Oops. So this will be a long post to catch up on our recent exciting events!

Our gorgeous new addition to our family, Harrison Paul John Taylor arrived on 26 August 2011. His arrival was slightly frustrated and traumatic, but I guess most births are! Thankfully he arrived safe and sound by emergency c-section at 4.57am.

When we were in our antenatal classes, Chris and I took an evening to consider how we would like the birth to go and what options we wanted to go for. We decided on an active birth, preferably in the birthing pool. Chris would cut the cord, the placenta would be delivered naturally. I didn't want my waters broken artificially and I wanted to take skin on skin immediately on birth. Erm, it didn't quite happen that way! In fact, the midwife may as well have taken the plan and taken it as instruction on exactly what was absolutely not to happen!

Having had contractions since Tuesday night, we went to the hospital on Thursday morning with strong contractions coming every 4 minutes. By the time we arrived at the hospital (just a 10 minute drive away) the contractions had slowed down to every 7 or so minutes. The midwife checked me and declared me to be 3 cm dilated. We were advised to go home and come back when we felt we had to. So away we went and by lunch time the contractions were coming every 3-4 minutes again. So back to hospital we went. We were shown up to triage and told to wait in a cubicle. Contractions slowed down again to every 6 minutes. After an hour of waiting we were again told I was 3 cm dilated and to go home. By the time we got home the contractions were few and far between at 10-15 minutes apart. By 4pm I was able to sleep for an hour on the sofa with the contractions coming every 30 minutes or so. By 7pm they were all over the place (7 mins, 20 mins, 12 mins) but coming stronger and stronger. Whilst I was reluctant to go back to hospital, Chris insisted we go.

When we arrived, we were told that the shift was about to change over so they would not do an internal until the midwife I would be allocated for the night arrived. So they hooked me up to the trace instead which measured my contractions and baby's heartbeat. On the first contraction whilst hooked up, baby's heart beat dropped from 136 bpm to 56 bpm. This gives you an idea of why things didn't go to plan! When I was checked at 9.30pm I was 7cm (not bad going with just a TENS machine and bouncing around on a birthing ball at home in my opinion!).

With the heart beat dropping, they decided to break my waters to speed things up and get baby out quicker. There was meconium in the waters and this being a further sign of distress decided to move us to a bigger delivery suite so they could have a bigger team on hand and more equipment, including a resusitair (sp?) for the baby when he was delivered.

Throughout the labour, any time I moved off my left hand side or had a contraction the baby's heart beat dropped. I had a gut feeling this was going to result in a c-section and decided to ask for an epidural just after midnight. It didn't work! The midwifes had to call through to the anaesthetist to get permission to increase the dose. When they rolled me to my right hand side to let the dose settle on that side, the baby's heart beat stopped entirely and the crash team was called. As soon as I was moved back to my left hand side the heart beat came back and doctor was called off to an instrumental delivery in another room. He came back at 3am to do a fetal blood sample to check the oxygen levels. I was still 7cm. The oxygen levels being fine, he agreed to come back and check me at 4am, 5am and 6am with a view to deciding what to do to move things forward at 6am.

Over the next hour, the baby's heart beat stopped with almost every contraction. By that point, Chris was holding the monitor on my stomach and trying to find the heart beat when it stopped in case it was just the monitor losing contact that was causing the heart beat to go from the screen.

When the doctor came back at 4am, he looked at the trace and agreed with us that a c-section was the safest way to proceed. By that time, Chris and I were ready to demand a c-section because it was clear that the baby was not happy and we weren't prepared to put him at risk any longer.

At 4.57am on Friday 26 August 2011, Harrison Paul John Taylor joined our family, weighing 6lb 12oz. We had originally had a list of 4 names, Benjamin, Oliver, William and Harrison. Benjamin was by far our favourite but as soon as we held him in our arms, we both independently thought he didn't look like a Benjamin! Whilst I was being put back together again in theatre, Chris had skin to skin. For all the drama he caused arriving, he was fit and healthy with apgar scores of 9 (it's out of 10 for those that don't know and a score to show how responsive and healthy a newborn baby is).



I spent two days in hospital and was let home on the Sunday. Two days was more than enough! The food was vile and I barely slept because everyone's babies were crying all night! The girl in the bed next to me in particular didn't seem to get that when your baby cries, you need to feed it, change its nappy, wind it, burp it etc and just left it screaming in its cot until the midwife came in to see what the issue was!

So Harry is here now and is a gorgeous little boy who is starting to show his personality. He knows what he likes and what he doesn't like already! He has developed a new talent for pooing out the side of his nappy this last week and also becomes quite vocal when his bottle gets taken off him! He is suffering with painful wind at the moment, so we have had to start using Infacol when we feed him. He sleeps well, waking just once at night for a feed (usually at about 3am but has slept until 5/6am a few times now).

He is taking 3-4oz every 4 hours. You could set your watch by him!

Chris has been amazing since Harry arrived. He's been very bossy with me because I try to do too much after major surgery - like clean the kitchen cupboard doors the 3 days after surgery. He has done a great job of keeping Harry and I in clean clothes and food. We have eaten better this last 4 weeks than ever. It is much easier to plan and prepare meals being at home. Tesco online is my new best friend. Our weekly food shop is easily £20 cheaper from not buying all those tempting "bargains" as we meander around the store. Also saves me from getting trolley rage!