Poorly baby

Poor Michael is unwell. He has met a grand total of four people since leaving the hospital two weeks ago and has left the house once for a walk with Phil and I. Despite this, he has managed to pick up a cold from someone. He is incredibly snuffly and we're having to use a saline nasal spray four times a day. He also has to have his mattress raised up so that he can sleep. When he first started to get unwell on Thursday, Phil and I called the out-of-hours doctor (it was 10pm) to see what we should do. She told us to bring Michael to the hospital for a check-up. We abandoned our KFC dinner and ran around the house gathering up anything we might possibly need for such a journey and headed off straight away. Fortunately, he didn't have a fever and his chest and ears were clear. All he needs is the saline spray and some TLC. I was really looking forward to going out and about with him but we'll have to wait until he is well again to show him the world outside the house.

Birth story

Warning - this is quite a graphic account of my labour experience so please do not read on if you are at all squeamish!

I've been meaning to get around to writing this for ages but the timing has never been right. Michael is currently fast asleep on his Daddy so I guess now is the time.

On the evening of Friday 11th August, Phil and I had been watching the Big Brother eviction on TV and afterwards I started to get some niggling pains - low back-ache and some cramping. I really wasn't sure if it was anything or not and we went out for a walk. When we came home I took a shower and went to bed and the pains stopped. At 4am I woke up a split second before my waters broke. We are not talking a little trickle here - it was more like Niagara Falls. When I look back over my labour experience, I think this was the most shocking thing of all. I tried to rouse Phil:

Catherine: "Phil, my waters have broken!"
Phil: "OK"
Catherine (slightly more urgently): "Phil, my waters have broken!"
Phil: "OK"
Catherine (now getting angry): "Turn the light on, you silly man!"

This got the desired reaction and we got up. I didn't start getting contractions until an hour or so later and they were reasonably manageable through the night until we could call the midwife out at 9am. I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but the plan was to have a home water birth. We had rented a birth pool and Phil had practiced assembling it the week before. Anyway, back to the story. By the time the midwife arrived the contractions had become very painful and frequent. I was dismayed to learn that I was only 1cm dilated. The midwife offered me the opportunity to go to the hospital and have an epidural. This was very surprising as the Dutch are very keen on natural childbirth and anecdotally it is easier to get blood from a stone than an epidural. I declined the opportunity to go to the hospital and the midwife left after telling us that she would be back to check on me in four hours.

This is the point where things started to move very fast. My contractions were coming almost continuously - I couldn't change position without having another one. I tried everything to help - yoga, my birth ball, the shower, a massage - nothing helped. An hour and a half after the midwife left I relented and agreed to go to the hospital. I would have done virtually anything at this point to escape the pain, I'm sure. I regret that I was not strong enough to resist accepting an epidural. I had had a completely medication-free pregnancy and still feel that on some level I failed Michael in this respect. The midwife made arrangements for me to go to Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum in Leiden. It took about two hours for Phil and I to leave the house because getting dressed and getting ready to go was severely hampered by my contractions. I honestly thought I would never make it the 30km to the hospital in the car.

Get there we did, and I even managed to sleep between contractions in the car. We were shown into a delivery suite and I was examined and found to be 5cm dilated. Progress! I was pretty out of it and found it very difficult to talk to anyone - I couldn't focus on anything but the pain. I was put on a monitor and a drip and we waited for the anaesthetists to arrive. A short time later, four of them arrived in green caps and gowns. I really don't know why four were necessary. One to site the epidural, and three to stand around in awed silence, maybe? I was then hooked up to more machines and a scalp monitor was put on Michael. This is regret number two. For whatever unfathomable reason, the epidural did not work - at all. I had full sensation in my legs. It was at this point that I got an irresistible urge to push - everyone was standing around waiting for the epidural to work and it took some time to get this urge taken seriously. I was examined again and found to be fully dilated. This was half an hour after arriving at the hospital. I had dilated 5cm in half an hour - still makes me wince to think about it! The anaesthetists told me that they didn't know why the epidural hadn't worked, but they cheerily wished me luck and left.

The doctor then told me that I could push. I think the last bit of sanity I had left me at this point. Not five minutes ago I was waiting for blissful numbness from the waist down and was now being told to push. I was exhausted and distressed and ending up pushing for almost two hours. They gave me an injection to increase the frequency and strength of the contractions - this didn't help. Michael's heart rate was starting to dip when I had a contraction so the doctors decided that I would need some additional help to deliver him and got a ventouse kit. This was agonising, and I had to have an episiotomy (mercifully, with a local anaesthetic) but it was effective and Michael's head was born a short time later. I have frequently read that delivering the head is supposed to be the hard part and that the body is just supposed to slither out with the next contraction. No such luck. Anyone who knows Phil and I will know what broad shoulders he has. Little (or not so little) Michael has inherited his Daddy's shoulders and got himself well and truly stuck. In being born, his right collar bone was broken. He was cleaned up and put on my tummy and the cord was clamped and then cut by Phil. This is regret number three as I did not want the cord to be clamped until it had stopped pulsing. As I mentioned, I was too out of it to really object. I don't hold the broken collar bone as a regret as this would have happened regardless of the labour experience - he was just too big for my little pelvis.

My poor little boy had a raised area on his head and a killer headache from the ventouse. He also had to have the sleeve of his sleepsuit pinned to the button area to prevent him from raising his arm and turning his broken collar bone. We spent a night in the hospital getting to know each other and we were discharged the next day after the paediatrician had examined Michael.

There are a lot of areas of my labour experience that sadden me greatly. I see pain in my little boy's eyes when I look at the photos that were taken of him immediately after the birth and even now I find it difficult not to cry. At the end of the day, Phil and I have been blessed with a beautiful and healthy little boy and this is the best gift we could ever have.

Welcome to the world, Baby Gleghorn!

We joyfully announce the birth of our son

Michael Alexander Gleghorn

on Saturday, 12th August 2006 at 4:15 p.m.
Weighing 9 pounds, 2½ ounces

He fills our arms with love and our hearts with happiness

Philip and Catherine Gleghorn

Happy due date to me

Well here I am on my due date. Have I spent the morning staring adoringly into the eyes of my baby son? Have I been doubled over in agony with labour pains? No I haven't. Shall I tell you how I have spent my morning? I have been on my hands and knees looking in nooks and crannies for our hamster.

His cage door was accidentally left open last night when Phil was feeding him and he made his escape after we went to bed. This isn't the first time that Quadrinaros has made a bid for freedom and his second bid has not been more successful than the first. We found him curled up fast asleep in the bookcase having chewed his way through my CV writing book. Thank goodness there wasn't a scratch on him and other than being rather thirsty, he seems to be absolutely fine.

Given that I haven't had so much as a twinge, I doubt that my day will get any more exciting than this. I had a midwife appointment this afternoon and baby M is doing well, although perhaps a little too well as he is clearly very happy where he is. If he still hasn't put in an appearance by next Friday then I will be sent to Spaarne hospital for a scan and examination and if all is well with him and the placenta then I will be allowed to go to 42 weeks. At that point I will have to go to the hospital to be induced. As the midwife put it, I will be a Mummy by 21st August. What a scary and exciting thought!