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radegundThis is Oisín's 26th day in the Big World. I'm astonished at how quickly the time has passed. He'll be a month old next Wednesday, which is simply unfathomable.
[ETA: His name - for the benefit of those people who are unaccountably unfamiliar with Irish orthography :-) - is pronounced "USH-een".]
Here's how I remember it:
Sunday, 22 August, I wake up (in that other universe where I am still pregnant) at around 8am. I've been up once in the night to go to the loo, and wondered then if I was having a particularly strong Braxton-Hicks contraction. This time, it's unmistakable. (Bloody show, to put it bluntly.) Hoo boy, I think. It's going to happen - and there's bugger all I can do about it. I'm excited and scared.
So I wake Niall and we start timing. The contractions feel like moderate to bad period cramps, building to a peak and then tailing off. They're about thirty seconds long, ten minutes apart. Eep! I thought we'd have a lot more time than this! I'd envisaged long hours of companionable labouring, time to ease ourselves in, eat properly, prepare for the hard bit.
But no. Niall brings me breakfast, which I stuff down, then we both scurry around gathering the things on my last-minute list. We put on the TENS machine, and I dress in expendable clothes. The contractions are about six minutes apart by the time we leave. It's half nine, a drizzly morning, but traffic on the canal relatively light. And being Sunday, no parking charges on Merrion Square - thanks, baby!
Admission involves handing over our stuff to be locked up for safekeeping, and thus a frantic scramble to transfer delivery-room stuff into the smaller bag. I feel I should have been told about this in advance. We can't find the homeopathic labour kit. Arse. I'm embarrassed, because I've been told to change into nightie and dressing gown, and I have neither. (It hadn't occurred to me that I'd be asked to change in a completely different part of the hospital and then walk to the delivery ward.) I'm planning to give birth in an old T-shirt of Niall's. I leave my skirt on instead of a dressing gown.
The delivery room is much as I'd imagined: a high, contraptiony sort of bed with fresh sheets arcanely arranged, blinded windows, official-looking machines. We are welcomed by Caroline, who will stay with us for the duration.
Helen, the senior midwife, invites me onto the bed and conducts what is, as it happens, the first internal exam of my pregnancy (not sure if that's accident, Irish prudery, lack of resources, or best practice, but there it is). My waters break as I climb onto the bed: a hot trickle, which Helen pronounces pleasing (no worrying green colour). Having poked around a bit, she explains that I'm not in labour yet - but that's because Holles Street, irritatingly, counts labour as having "begun" only when the cervix is 1cm dilated. This may mean being sent off to a multi-bed ward full of women who, despite "not being in labour" are nonetheless experiencing regular, painful contractions. I don't want that. They understand. My cervix "admits a fingertip", so it shouldn't be long. They'll leave me another two hours and check again.
Helen reads my birth plan and, following some firm talk on my part, concedes that I can drink Lucozade Sport. I am very glad I pushed this point, given my meagre breakfast.
Helen and Caroline strap sensors around my belly to monitor my heart rate and the baby's. (It's asleep, apparently.) They need about half an hour's worth of readout. Helen departs, and Caroline, Niall and I settle down to wait. Between contractions - which are getting more uncomfortable now - we make some stabs at conversation. Caroline tries us on the Olympics, but we're useless. She asks about my job - looks faintly appalled when I evince enthusiasm for sitting at a desk all day reading scholarly papers. She flicks through my chart and compliments me on my high haemoglobin count. I say that that's good to know, since I'm vegetarian. She says, "I thought you might be - that's why I checked it." (Am I such a stereotype? Apparently.)
They take the sensors off, leaving me free to walk around (they find me a hospital gown, as I've jettisoned the skirt by this stage). We do some pacing of the corridor, stopping to lean against the wall, or Niall, when a contraction hits. Niall remarks that it's a bit like escorting an extremely drunk friend. I try to concentrate on long, smooth outward breaths. I go to the loo and have to weather a contraction on my own in the cubicle, which is quite hard.
Time passes. Caroline produces a big ball for me to bounce on (surprisingly pleasant), and a mattress for me to kneel on, and a birthing chair. Niall cracks open the massage oil. I have some Lucozade, which is revolting but staves off the demons. The contractions get longer, stronger and closer together. One might be eighty seconds long, with the next arriving after only ten or twenty seconds of downtime. By now I'm vocalising as I breathe out - long descending notes, sometimes scales. Singing training coming in handy. The TENS machine is also helpful in distracting me from the pain - and all the more so when I remember, duh, that I can turn it, the fuck, up if I like.
Somewhere along the line Helen comes back and examines me again. I'm 1cm dilated. Hurrah! I'm in labour!
Niall is being splendid. He massages me during contractions, feeds me peppermint tea, holds me, murmurs quiet encouragement. Caroline knows what she's doing - she watches me carefully and suggests changes when I seem to be flagging. I get under a hot shower for about half an hour, which is bliss - even without the crutch of TENS. When we come back to the delivery room I try the birthing chair for a while, but it's not so helpful. I kneel on the mattress and drape myself over the bouncy ball. Glancing sideways, I notice the fat black stirrups that lurk under the foot of the bed. I turn the TENS machine up so high that I'm twitching with every pulse. Through the haze, Helen and Caroline get me back up onto the bed for another examination. I'm 4cm dilated. Helen's smiling face shimmers. Niall's hand is a lifeline.
Things are getting very difficult. Contractions are like being strapped to the railway line, and you feel the huge rumble, distant at first, and then swiftly louder, and then suddenly the train is on top of you, rushing, shrieking, grinding, and there's no escape, no rolling aside, just the shriek, the grind. And then the next, and the next, and the next.
I've no idea what time it is. I'm exhausted. I can't do this. Why did I say I'd do this? I want to go home. Caroline encourages me, tells me that I'm doing brilliantly, that it really won't be long now, that the work I've been doing is just great. But the contractions keep coming before I'm ready for them, and now there's this awful, urgent downward feel to them, and from all I've read I know that's bad - I mustn't push until I'm fully dilated. Caroline tells me to pant. I'm making one freakish hell of a lot of noise. I'm complaining. Caroline gently says, "Have you had enough? Would you like some pethidine?" - and in the lull between contractions I rasp, "Yes, give me some pethidine." I feel relieved, but also sad, because I'd hoped to avoid this.
I have to have another exam first. It isn't Helen any more: the shift has changed. It's Anya, who's Welsh and reassuring. She feels around and exclaims that I'm 9cm dilated - almost there. I'm delighted - I can do this after all. "I wouldn't go for the pethidine at this stage, love, I honestly wouldn't," Anya says, and I agree. Caroline offers me gas and air instead.
I kneel up over the head of the bed, still grasping Niall's hand, and suck on the Entonox nozzle. It's wonderful - a cold rush of light-headed relief. Doesn't kill the pain, but blunts it in a most delicious way. I suck and suck. Anya speaks sharply, says I'll hyperventilate unless I get my breathing under control. Caroline counts with me - a slow in, two, three, and out ... two ... three. I turn to Niall, and he smiles at me, and it's the best moment of the day so far.
The downward urge is almost unbearable. I ask how long more before I can push. Caroline says that although I'm almost fully dilated, the head is still quite high, so not yet. I begin to suspect that the downward urge is not what they mean when they say "don't push" - so I give in to it. Something very large is descending through my pelvis. I suck my precious nozzle, I breathe, I submit to the contractions. Nearly there.
And then Anya comes back and examines me again and declares that the time has come. Caroline assures me that the worst is over. Anya is entirely in control. She asks if I want to squat or go on all fours, but I'm too tired to make any such decision, so I stay where I am, in the traditional reclining pose. Still sucking gas and air like a crazed addict, still hanging on to Niall like a limpet. Caroline and Anya don plastic aprons. This is going to be bloody.
And then I push. I do exactly what Anya tells me - she's that sort of person. When a contraction comes I take a deep breath, drop chin to chest, hold the breath and push "like you're more constipated than you've ever been in your life" (says Anya). Fifteen or twenty seconds, then breathe out, breathe in, and push again. Maybe three pushes per contraction. Then rest until the next one. For ever and ever.
There is great excitement. Anya has a practiced rhythm - like a train, in fact. She gets going in tandem with the contraction - "AnOTHer big push, anOTHer big push, anOTHer big push, anOTHer big push - BIG push now, BIG push now, BIG push now, BIG push now" - and I obey. And it's painful, of course, but so inexorable, so overwhelming that the pain recedes in importance.
Niall is invited to the foot of the bed to see the top of the baby's head as it begins to be visible. I'm in a tunnel of pushing, with only Anya's voice reaching me. I push. I push. I push. They're monitoring the baby's heartbeat externally - I've refused permission for an internal monitor. Anya says, "the baby's showing signs of getting tired, so if we don't have a result in the next five minutes I'm going to want to do something about that". I renew my efforts. I push. I push. I push.
Then everyone says "look!", and I look down, and there's a big hairy head protruding from between my legs. And the next contraction comes, and Anya tells me to pant instead of push, then push, then pant, then there's a slithering sensation, and Niall gasps, and Anya says, "Now! Look what you've done! What have we got here? We have a boy!" It's 16:45. I've been pushing for 15 minutes (not 15 years, despite what I may think.)
She lays him on my grotesquely deflated belly. My first impression is of warmth and weight. He feels solid, substantial in a way that for some reason I hadn't anticipated. His head is enormous. His torso is a little barrel. His skin is reddish purple. He has long fingernails. He moves. He's amazing. I'm crying.
They cut the cord, weigh him (9lb 13oz / 4.45kg), put a nappy on him, wrap him up in a blue blanket and hand him to Niall while they deliver the placenta - which I almost don't notice. I'm transfixed by my son. Anya injects local anaesthetic and sews me up. I have a second-degree tear, but not a bad one. Caroline and Anya change the blood-soaked sheets for fresh ones, then leave the three of us (the three of us!) alone.
[ETA: His name - for the benefit of those people who are unaccountably unfamiliar with Irish orthography :-) - is pronounced "USH-een".]
Here's how I remember it:
Sunday, 22 August, I wake up (in that other universe where I am still pregnant) at around 8am. I've been up once in the night to go to the loo, and wondered then if I was having a particularly strong Braxton-Hicks contraction. This time, it's unmistakable. (Bloody show, to put it bluntly.) Hoo boy, I think. It's going to happen - and there's bugger all I can do about it. I'm excited and scared.
So I wake Niall and we start timing. The contractions feel like moderate to bad period cramps, building to a peak and then tailing off. They're about thirty seconds long, ten minutes apart. Eep! I thought we'd have a lot more time than this! I'd envisaged long hours of companionable labouring, time to ease ourselves in, eat properly, prepare for the hard bit.
But no. Niall brings me breakfast, which I stuff down, then we both scurry around gathering the things on my last-minute list. We put on the TENS machine, and I dress in expendable clothes. The contractions are about six minutes apart by the time we leave. It's half nine, a drizzly morning, but traffic on the canal relatively light. And being Sunday, no parking charges on Merrion Square - thanks, baby!
Admission involves handing over our stuff to be locked up for safekeeping, and thus a frantic scramble to transfer delivery-room stuff into the smaller bag. I feel I should have been told about this in advance. We can't find the homeopathic labour kit. Arse. I'm embarrassed, because I've been told to change into nightie and dressing gown, and I have neither. (It hadn't occurred to me that I'd be asked to change in a completely different part of the hospital and then walk to the delivery ward.) I'm planning to give birth in an old T-shirt of Niall's. I leave my skirt on instead of a dressing gown.
The delivery room is much as I'd imagined: a high, contraptiony sort of bed with fresh sheets arcanely arranged, blinded windows, official-looking machines. We are welcomed by Caroline, who will stay with us for the duration.
Helen, the senior midwife, invites me onto the bed and conducts what is, as it happens, the first internal exam of my pregnancy (not sure if that's accident, Irish prudery, lack of resources, or best practice, but there it is). My waters break as I climb onto the bed: a hot trickle, which Helen pronounces pleasing (no worrying green colour). Having poked around a bit, she explains that I'm not in labour yet - but that's because Holles Street, irritatingly, counts labour as having "begun" only when the cervix is 1cm dilated. This may mean being sent off to a multi-bed ward full of women who, despite "not being in labour" are nonetheless experiencing regular, painful contractions. I don't want that. They understand. My cervix "admits a fingertip", so it shouldn't be long. They'll leave me another two hours and check again.
Helen reads my birth plan and, following some firm talk on my part, concedes that I can drink Lucozade Sport. I am very glad I pushed this point, given my meagre breakfast.
Helen and Caroline strap sensors around my belly to monitor my heart rate and the baby's. (It's asleep, apparently.) They need about half an hour's worth of readout. Helen departs, and Caroline, Niall and I settle down to wait. Between contractions - which are getting more uncomfortable now - we make some stabs at conversation. Caroline tries us on the Olympics, but we're useless. She asks about my job - looks faintly appalled when I evince enthusiasm for sitting at a desk all day reading scholarly papers. She flicks through my chart and compliments me on my high haemoglobin count. I say that that's good to know, since I'm vegetarian. She says, "I thought you might be - that's why I checked it." (Am I such a stereotype? Apparently.)
They take the sensors off, leaving me free to walk around (they find me a hospital gown, as I've jettisoned the skirt by this stage). We do some pacing of the corridor, stopping to lean against the wall, or Niall, when a contraction hits. Niall remarks that it's a bit like escorting an extremely drunk friend. I try to concentrate on long, smooth outward breaths. I go to the loo and have to weather a contraction on my own in the cubicle, which is quite hard.
Time passes. Caroline produces a big ball for me to bounce on (surprisingly pleasant), and a mattress for me to kneel on, and a birthing chair. Niall cracks open the massage oil. I have some Lucozade, which is revolting but staves off the demons. The contractions get longer, stronger and closer together. One might be eighty seconds long, with the next arriving after only ten or twenty seconds of downtime. By now I'm vocalising as I breathe out - long descending notes, sometimes scales. Singing training coming in handy. The TENS machine is also helpful in distracting me from the pain - and all the more so when I remember, duh, that I can turn it, the fuck, up if I like.
Somewhere along the line Helen comes back and examines me again. I'm 1cm dilated. Hurrah! I'm in labour!
Niall is being splendid. He massages me during contractions, feeds me peppermint tea, holds me, murmurs quiet encouragement. Caroline knows what she's doing - she watches me carefully and suggests changes when I seem to be flagging. I get under a hot shower for about half an hour, which is bliss - even without the crutch of TENS. When we come back to the delivery room I try the birthing chair for a while, but it's not so helpful. I kneel on the mattress and drape myself over the bouncy ball. Glancing sideways, I notice the fat black stirrups that lurk under the foot of the bed. I turn the TENS machine up so high that I'm twitching with every pulse. Through the haze, Helen and Caroline get me back up onto the bed for another examination. I'm 4cm dilated. Helen's smiling face shimmers. Niall's hand is a lifeline.
Things are getting very difficult. Contractions are like being strapped to the railway line, and you feel the huge rumble, distant at first, and then swiftly louder, and then suddenly the train is on top of you, rushing, shrieking, grinding, and there's no escape, no rolling aside, just the shriek, the grind. And then the next, and the next, and the next.
I've no idea what time it is. I'm exhausted. I can't do this. Why did I say I'd do this? I want to go home. Caroline encourages me, tells me that I'm doing brilliantly, that it really won't be long now, that the work I've been doing is just great. But the contractions keep coming before I'm ready for them, and now there's this awful, urgent downward feel to them, and from all I've read I know that's bad - I mustn't push until I'm fully dilated. Caroline tells me to pant. I'm making one freakish hell of a lot of noise. I'm complaining. Caroline gently says, "Have you had enough? Would you like some pethidine?" - and in the lull between contractions I rasp, "Yes, give me some pethidine." I feel relieved, but also sad, because I'd hoped to avoid this.
I have to have another exam first. It isn't Helen any more: the shift has changed. It's Anya, who's Welsh and reassuring. She feels around and exclaims that I'm 9cm dilated - almost there. I'm delighted - I can do this after all. "I wouldn't go for the pethidine at this stage, love, I honestly wouldn't," Anya says, and I agree. Caroline offers me gas and air instead.
I kneel up over the head of the bed, still grasping Niall's hand, and suck on the Entonox nozzle. It's wonderful - a cold rush of light-headed relief. Doesn't kill the pain, but blunts it in a most delicious way. I suck and suck. Anya speaks sharply, says I'll hyperventilate unless I get my breathing under control. Caroline counts with me - a slow in, two, three, and out ... two ... three. I turn to Niall, and he smiles at me, and it's the best moment of the day so far.
The downward urge is almost unbearable. I ask how long more before I can push. Caroline says that although I'm almost fully dilated, the head is still quite high, so not yet. I begin to suspect that the downward urge is not what they mean when they say "don't push" - so I give in to it. Something very large is descending through my pelvis. I suck my precious nozzle, I breathe, I submit to the contractions. Nearly there.
And then Anya comes back and examines me again and declares that the time has come. Caroline assures me that the worst is over. Anya is entirely in control. She asks if I want to squat or go on all fours, but I'm too tired to make any such decision, so I stay where I am, in the traditional reclining pose. Still sucking gas and air like a crazed addict, still hanging on to Niall like a limpet. Caroline and Anya don plastic aprons. This is going to be bloody.
And then I push. I do exactly what Anya tells me - she's that sort of person. When a contraction comes I take a deep breath, drop chin to chest, hold the breath and push "like you're more constipated than you've ever been in your life" (says Anya). Fifteen or twenty seconds, then breathe out, breathe in, and push again. Maybe three pushes per contraction. Then rest until the next one. For ever and ever.
There is great excitement. Anya has a practiced rhythm - like a train, in fact. She gets going in tandem with the contraction - "AnOTHer big push, anOTHer big push, anOTHer big push, anOTHer big push - BIG push now, BIG push now, BIG push now, BIG push now" - and I obey. And it's painful, of course, but so inexorable, so overwhelming that the pain recedes in importance.
Niall is invited to the foot of the bed to see the top of the baby's head as it begins to be visible. I'm in a tunnel of pushing, with only Anya's voice reaching me. I push. I push. I push. They're monitoring the baby's heartbeat externally - I've refused permission for an internal monitor. Anya says, "the baby's showing signs of getting tired, so if we don't have a result in the next five minutes I'm going to want to do something about that". I renew my efforts. I push. I push. I push.
Then everyone says "look!", and I look down, and there's a big hairy head protruding from between my legs. And the next contraction comes, and Anya tells me to pant instead of push, then push, then pant, then there's a slithering sensation, and Niall gasps, and Anya says, "Now! Look what you've done! What have we got here? We have a boy!" It's 16:45. I've been pushing for 15 minutes (not 15 years, despite what I may think.)
She lays him on my grotesquely deflated belly. My first impression is of warmth and weight. He feels solid, substantial in a way that for some reason I hadn't anticipated. His head is enormous. His torso is a little barrel. His skin is reddish purple. He has long fingernails. He moves. He's amazing. I'm crying.
They cut the cord, weigh him (9lb 13oz / 4.45kg), put a nappy on him, wrap him up in a blue blanket and hand him to Niall while they deliver the placenta - which I almost don't notice. I'm transfixed by my son. Anya injects local anaesthetic and sews me up. I have a second-degree tear, but not a bad one. Caroline and Anya change the blood-soaked sheets for fresh ones, then leave the three of us (the three of us!) alone.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-17 04:20 pm (UTC)What an amazing name. May I ask about how it's pronounced correctly?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 12:36 am (UTC)I, too, am wondering how to pronounce your son's name...?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 06:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 08:44 am (UTC)Oisín is pronounced "USH-een" - meant to add that above, and will now go and do so :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 08:48 am (UTC)It's pronounced "USH-een". Pretty counter-intuitive for anyone unfamiliar with Irish spelling - which is more or less everyone :-) I love the name, but I hope we don't come to regret giving it to him...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 08:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 11:41 am (UTC)The bit I've been remembering most lately is asking the midwife sometime after daylight on the Friday (so about 30-33 hours into labour) "Am I going to hate my baby?" because I was terrified I'd resent the whole thing. I'm still conscious of strong relief that I don't.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 09:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-18 09:41 pm (UTC)(Except Ivan wants more, so I'm just trying to convince him that we should buy one from China!)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-19 04:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-19 11:02 am (UTC)And, I wish you so much joy of OisÃn.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-19 01:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 06:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 06:53 am (UTC)Oisín is a joy, even at 4:26am when I've had barely two hours' sleep...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-21 12:37 am (UTC)oh and....
Date: 2004-09-21 12:39 am (UTC)Re: oh and....
Date: 2004-09-22 03:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-22 03:21 pm (UTC)