slow recovery

This c-section nonsense sucks. What makes it even (slightly) worse is that I knew it would be bad and tried my darndenest to avoid one.

I’ve now had two incidents of incision blow out. The first being in a doctor’s office, the second in my bed in the early hours of Wednesday morning. These are some freaky experiences – leaking a LOT of fluid from your belly – a place where you hadn’t had a hole before. Like enough fluid to soak through gauze, nightgown, bedclothes, into the mattress… The first time I soaked through a whole bath towel and took a ride in an ambulance to the ER. On the upside, that saved me bus fair home – since the ER is less than a block from my house.

This time the fluid was darker in color. This time they seemed to take the incident a little more seriously.

I went back to my doctor for yet another round of antibiotics. I am feeling really frustrated because I’m not really sure what’s going on, I feel weak and tired, and the drugs aren’t kicking it.

I am trying to rest. I’ve been watching a lot of daytime tv. I find the shows I liked to watch in the 70s and early 80s the most restful: Quincy, Hart to Hart, I Dream of Jeanie, plus some Columbo and Perry Mason tv movies – still hoping to find a cache of re-runs of Love Boat and Fantasy Island on the cable.

The birth story

Here it is…the birth story…read at your own discretion.

Baby Cletus was born on Sunday June 3 at 6:30 am, 16 days overdue.

My birth story has to start with symptoms I was feeling the previous Monday. I suspected I had a bladder infection, but then thought maybe it’s just the pressure of the baby on my bladder. It’s apparently quite normal to need to pee a lot more frequently as the baby descends. It did sting a bit to pee…but not loads and loads. I wondered if perhaps I’d developed an infection after having a membrane sweep the previous Friday when I was 41 weeks.

The stinging and bladder discomfort gradually worse over time.

On Tuesday, I had my post dates clinic. They wanted to induce that day because the baby was “small”. (6lbs, 15 oz – which isn’t really that small) I refused. But agreed an induction date for Monday 4 June. Normal protocol would have been to induce on the Friday at 42 weeks exactly, but I felt I was close to going and still wanted to have my home birth.

I started having irregular, but frequent-ish contractions on Wednesday. I had a second sweep on Wednesday and the midwife said my baby had turned from his excellent position to back to back or posterior position. This usually makes labor more painful and can make it longer.

And I started to really think, yes, I have a bladder infection.

On Thursday – I began contracting much more regularly. But my bladder really hurt and by this time it really stung to pee. I called the midwives who told me to see my GP – he gave me antibiotics. Over the course of Thursday night, I thought I was in labour. I thought I might have my home birth after all – just inside the deadline. I called out my doula and the midwives.

Although my contractions were coming regularly, strongly and frequently, I was only 2cm dialated and as soon as the midwife showed up my contractions slowed down – so I was left to labour all day Friday in increasingly excruciating pain. The contractions weren’t that bad, but by Friday evening my bladder pain was so bad I literally couldn’t stand up straight. (A combo of the infection, the baby pressure, and agitation from the contractions). Going to the toilet was excruciating with burning and stinging, but I tried to keep going to make sure that a full bladder didn’t impede delivery.

I was also asked to come in for an induction Friday evening and I finally agreed. I couldn’t take it anymore and at least wanted to have access to gas and air (nitrous oxide commonly used in labor and delivery in the UK). I also believed that the pain from the bladder infection was impeding my labour – and so I might well go on forever.

The delivery suite was full at that time and I agreed with the consultant (senior) obstetrician that I would wait at home til they were ready for me rather than in the delivery suite waiting area (not fun!) I live across the street and could get to hospital practically immediately. I called at 8pm – they were full. I called at 11pm (full). I begged for any kind of pain relief (again for the bladder – the contractions were painful but bearable). No help on offer. I got into the tub at home for some relief (difficult because at this point my feet were so swollen I found it difficult to actually bend enough to get my legs in the proper position in the tub). That helped a LOT – and my waters broke in the tub.

I called the delivery suite again and they said to come in for assessment. I got in and was put in this really nice assessment suite. I begged for pain relief and they said I couldn’t have anything until I was in established labour and they had done 30 minutes of CTG fetal monitoring. By this point, the baby heart rate monitoring belt which goes down low was actually too painful for me to wear – the additional constant pressure on my bladder was terriffic. Unfortunately NO ONE seemed to believe that my main pain was coming from the bladder.

But one midwife finally did. She let me have gas and air (which was all I wanted) and let me refuse the CTG monitoring. She let me stay in the suite and I laboured all night on the birthing ball (I still couldn’t stand – bladder pain, or lie down – contraction pain was worse).

They moved me over to the main labour and deliveyr area for an induction but before that happened I had my external exam and I was at 5cm. I didn’t need an induction after all!

I had already decided that with the bladder pain and the stronger contractions under a hormone drip that I would have an epidural if I were induced. Despite going into labor on my own I still considered an epidural because of the bladder pain. I had been dead set against an epidural all along, for a variety of reasons – including the fact that once you start an epidural you’re more likely to have further interventions. An anesthetist had already been called because I didn’t think I could stand an induction and its much stronger contractions without an epidural . He was really good in listening to me about the bladder pain. I told him I was coping with the contractions, but not the bladder. He found this an unusual situation and thought the epidural was the most likely way to ease the bladder pain, but said he couldn’t guarantee that it would be relieved by the epidural as epidurals are focused on contraction pain and the nerves are higher up. We talked about the pros and cons. I decided against the epidural after my doula found out that the giant tub was available.

The water was great. I laboured for at least four hours. By this time my contractions were strong and long and painful (but still bearable). I was managing both the bladder and labour with the water and occasional gas and air. I would breathe and visualise through the contractions and for the pain in the bladder I’d hit the gas and air. (I had to use it to pee at this point).

I had another internal exam. I was only 6 cm! All that work for practically no progress. The midwife wanted to use the syntocin to push things along. I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope outside the tub, so I went for an epidural. It took the 6 or 7 attempts to get it in (apparently my back is a line of bruises). But the anesthetist geared my position so that it was more likely to knock out the bladder pain and it did! Oh my god with that and the catheter, what relief. By this point I hadn’t slept well in several days or at all for two nights. I was able to sleep a little. This was Saturday afternoon.

My dilation progress was incredibly slow. But at least I was able to sleep a little. They kept ramping up the syntocin over night. I finally got to 9cm and they agreed to let me go a little longer. But when I was finally just short of 10, it turned out the the lip of my cervix had started to swell from unequal pressure of the baby’s head. And the baby had passed meconium. So the only really option was an emergency c-section.

So I went from home birth to caesarian with three days of labour in between!

The c-section was apparently uncomplicated. It’s a bizarre experience. You chat away with the anesthetist about inane things (they want to know you’re still ok) – like I said that baby needed to start bringing in money soon – for all the trouble he’d caused me – and I suggested baby model if he were cute or chimney sweep if he wasn’t. The anesthetist suggested Wimbledon tennis star instead – but given me and the Vol-in-Law’s genetic heritage, chimney sweep seemed much more likely. I could feel the medical team tugging around and pressure, but it didn’t hurt.

Baby Cletus was born at 6:31 and they whisked him away to clean him up. He didn’t cry for what seemed like a long time. The had to suction the meconium and pink him up with a little oxygen. For those who know what this means, his initial apgar score was 6, but he was scoring 10 after 5 minutes.

They passed him to the ViL as a little wrapped bundle, but my husband was so freaked out by the whole thing that he had to pass Cletus to the anethetist. Ol’ Cletus was pretty beat up looking, so I was initially a little disappointed, I have to admit.

The post-partum ward was its own special hell. On Sunday evening I had the sister screaming at me because I was refusing morphine (baby wanted a lot of skin-to-skin and I wouldn’t have trusted him in the bed with me after morphine). It was unbelievably hot (I was sweating buckets) and I couldn’t sleep from the noise and heat and discomfort. I couldn’t sleep either night there or get any rest because of lack of privacy, constant interruptions. So except for some epidural sleep, I had almost no sleep for a week!

We’ve been doing fairly well at home, but on Sunday night I kind of felt something “go” along the incision line as I set the baby down in his bed. It was very painful, but only for a short while. On Monday, we took the baby to a cranial osteopath to see about his lumpy head and when I stood up to hand the baby over I noticed liquid gushing down my legs. My incision had come open and was now “weeping” (it was a lot more like wailing – as I managed to fill a small bath towel with fluid).

We called out an ambulance, but the ER docs didn’t do much more than take a swab, dress my wound with dry gauze and send me home with two prescriptions of antibiotics. And that’s where I am now – awaiting the results of the culture.

releasing my inner hippie

I don’t mind a little tofu eating or sandal wearing. Never have. But I’ve always been a little hesitant to truly embrace the hippie and the dippy. While I love vegetable based dishes, including those that don’t involve meat or dairy products – I find myself vaguely suspicious of vegetarianism and downright dubious about veganism. And organic?? – a pack of lies and propaganda – I’d no more buy an organic cotton shawl than a syringe full of heroin.

But as I approach my time of confinement – I find myself really dreading the idea of confinement in a rather dreary NHS hospital. I don’t want their food or their rules. I figure hospitals are for sick people and if I’m too sick to care that I’m in hospital then that’s exactly where I should be. I’m embracing the whole concept of natural child birth and the empowering birth experience.

And to whom have I turned for inspiration? Those crazy women from The Farm – just up the road from where I went to high school. I’ve just finished reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth – and what a fantastic book it is. A nice easy read – it’s packed with useful information and a real sense of the positive experience of going through labor without drugs. (And I love painkillers!)

What’s really funny – is that the beginning of the book has all these birth experiences and there are loads of women who are describing their treks to Tennessee to birth on The Farm and this strange and exotic locale of Summertown (well, Summertown is strange). But it’s a bit odd to see the place you grew up described as the apex of some epic and mystical journey.

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We interviewed a doula last Friday (kind of like a birth consultant) and she asked me where I was from. I told her I was from Tennessee and that my mom lived not very far from where Ina May Gaskin practices and teaches midwifery. This woman – who will be studying to be a midwife – was just amazed. She asked me if I’d been to The Farm. I have. I told her my mom had a lot of friends there – though I didn’t know if she knows Ina May (turns out she has met her). I discovered I could probably be really cool in holistic midwifery circles.

I hadn’t yet finished Ina May’s guide at the time of the interview – but it would have been pretty nifty to be able to point to one of the photos of glowing ecstatic women giving birth and say “I know this woman, she was a guest at my wedding. She was wearing clothes on that occasion”