Tuesday, 18th April, 2006 - Introducing Barney Coulter
Time to get up to date again! Well, 2 months ago, Rachel gave birth to Barnaby George John Coulter, weighing in at almost exactly 7lbs (Barney, not Rach). After a series of admin cock-ups we finally saw a midwife who spotted that the reason Rach was unable to answer any questions or speak to the doctor was because she was having contractions and was ready to give birth. Fully dilated using only a TENS machine (almost as powerful a pain relief as licking a battery)! The final stage of active labour itself wasn’t too long - but I need to back up a bit.
The plan had been to have a water birth – Queen Charlotte’s hospital has an active birth centre which promotes natural, low intervention births which appealed to both of us. As Rach is such a water baby herself being able to birth the boy in water seemed an obvious and relaxing choice. We had selected, and packed, lots of relaxing CDs (no new age nonsense mind) and I had my changes of clothes, as partners get to spend the night in the private room after the birth and when Rach’s waters broke two weeks early on virtually her first day, a Friday, after finishing work after a curry….
…okay, yes, we know. But who really believes that a curry brings on labour? We were lucky to get out of there before her waters broke though, and that was after a korma. Thank goodness she didn’t have the jalfrezi that was tempting her.
But the weekend was a long one – we checked in with the birth centre on a daily basis, and they were very relaxed and well informed on how long we could wait before labour began for real ie the contractions started and got regular. We saw about three different midwives all of whom were really nice, and reassuring. However, by Monday Rach was tired of waiting through quite painful contractions which weren’t getting any closer together, having started on Saturday. We had two nights of basically not sleeping at all as we diligently timed the intervals between contractions. And here’s some Advice part I for fellow parents-to-be – just don’t bother timing them, you’ll know when they are getting close and more insistent, you just will, trust us –and you need to get some sleep while you can. Dad’s, this applies especially to you – mum may not get much sleep but there isn’t a lot you can do about that – you need to be alert and able to be supportive so don’t feel bad about getting some kip whenever you can.
Anyway…
We booked in for labour to be induced on Tuesday, first thing in the morning, which meant the normal maternity ward not the lovely birth centre but not only was this dragging on and we were both exhausted but we were approaching the time after which the birth centre would not take us anyway, as the risk of infection a few days after the waters breaking would be too great. Predictably, as the morning came the contractions were getting intense and by the time we were half way there they were just 2 minutes apart. So we did head for the birth centre instead to try for the water birth. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the lovely midwives we had seen previously, just a strange woman we at first took to be the cleaner. Then at second, we again took her to be the cleaner because she clearly had no idea what was going on. Eventually, she did claim to be a midwife, and not quite twigging that Rach’s inability to speak every couple of minutes might mean the baby was coming, ambled about for a bit before doing an external examination. She muttered “Oh, hmm, well, I'd better not say unless I’m sure. Oh dear” and generally terrified us before announcing that there was a 50% chance the baby was breach. So no natural birth – straight to Caesarean! Given that the baby was almost engaged over the weekend this was surprising but at 6am we were exhausted and ready to believe an ‘expert’ no matter how dishevelled. We felt we didn’t have a choice. She told us to go upstairs to the main labour ward so a doctor could scan Rach and shoved us out of the door. Rach was in quite a bit of pain but we went upstairs and ended up waiting a further hour before a doctor came to see us. This was the 3rd person that morning to spend 10-15 minutes reading our notes, instead of just listening to us explain the situation – well, me because Rach really couldn’t talk. The scan showed, of course, that the baby wasn’t breach – the doctor speculated that the midwife had mistaken his ‘bony bum’ for a head. Brilliant. Inspiring. After another hour or so, a midwife finally came to see us and, as I mentioned, discovered Rach was ready to push. This midwife was a gem but unfortunately appeared to be running the whole ward by herself so it was a while before we could get her to help properly. The delivery itself didn’t take very long, although it started about 4 hours after we arrived at the hospital with 2 minutes between each contraction. It was infuriating and disappointing but it hardly seems to matter now. Oh – and I cut the cord! Wonderful (if a bit messy).
Advice part 2: don’t be afraid to insist –if you feel the baby is on its way, you just might be right and there’s no point waiting for someone to amble round to see you – by the time the pushing started Rach was already shattered and it took a virtuoso performance to deliver the baby.
But she did, with some amazing sights and sounds on the way which I think we would both prefer not to dwell on. Our extremely funny midwife kept us both going the whole time and Barney popped out. Well, slithered. Incidentally, this midwife was the main reason we didn’t go back downstairs to the birth centre and possible water birth once we knew she was ready to push – plus the fact that we were worried the clearly incompetent midwife would still be on duty, and neither of us wanted to put the health of our baby or Rach in her hands for a moment. She hadn’t even phoned the labour ward, as she promised to do (and said she had done), to tell them a) that we were not going to have labour induced, or b) that we were coming up for a scan because she suspected it was breach. Awful.
We were both very emotional when we saw the little fellow and the midwife placed him on Rach’s chest as he opened his mouth and bawled (for the first of many times). What a miraculous bundle of instincts, reflexes and pure reaction! What an astonishingly risky and complicated process to get him out to the air!
What a beautiful, beautiful boy.
World, meet Barney - Barney, meet the World.
Coming soon: The First 2 weeks
The plan had been to have a water birth – Queen Charlotte’s hospital has an active birth centre which promotes natural, low intervention births which appealed to both of us. As Rach is such a water baby herself being able to birth the boy in water seemed an obvious and relaxing choice. We had selected, and packed, lots of relaxing CDs (no new age nonsense mind) and I had my changes of clothes, as partners get to spend the night in the private room after the birth and when Rach’s waters broke two weeks early on virtually her first day, a Friday, after finishing work after a curry….
…okay, yes, we know. But who really believes that a curry brings on labour? We were lucky to get out of there before her waters broke though, and that was after a korma. Thank goodness she didn’t have the jalfrezi that was tempting her.
But the weekend was a long one – we checked in with the birth centre on a daily basis, and they were very relaxed and well informed on how long we could wait before labour began for real ie the contractions started and got regular. We saw about three different midwives all of whom were really nice, and reassuring. However, by Monday Rach was tired of waiting through quite painful contractions which weren’t getting any closer together, having started on Saturday. We had two nights of basically not sleeping at all as we diligently timed the intervals between contractions. And here’s some Advice part I for fellow parents-to-be – just don’t bother timing them, you’ll know when they are getting close and more insistent, you just will, trust us –and you need to get some sleep while you can. Dad’s, this applies especially to you – mum may not get much sleep but there isn’t a lot you can do about that – you need to be alert and able to be supportive so don’t feel bad about getting some kip whenever you can.
Anyway…
We booked in for labour to be induced on Tuesday, first thing in the morning, which meant the normal maternity ward not the lovely birth centre but not only was this dragging on and we were both exhausted but we were approaching the time after which the birth centre would not take us anyway, as the risk of infection a few days after the waters breaking would be too great. Predictably, as the morning came the contractions were getting intense and by the time we were half way there they were just 2 minutes apart. So we did head for the birth centre instead to try for the water birth. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the lovely midwives we had seen previously, just a strange woman we at first took to be the cleaner. Then at second, we again took her to be the cleaner because she clearly had no idea what was going on. Eventually, she did claim to be a midwife, and not quite twigging that Rach’s inability to speak every couple of minutes might mean the baby was coming, ambled about for a bit before doing an external examination. She muttered “Oh, hmm, well, I'd better not say unless I’m sure. Oh dear” and generally terrified us before announcing that there was a 50% chance the baby was breach. So no natural birth – straight to Caesarean! Given that the baby was almost engaged over the weekend this was surprising but at 6am we were exhausted and ready to believe an ‘expert’ no matter how dishevelled. We felt we didn’t have a choice. She told us to go upstairs to the main labour ward so a doctor could scan Rach and shoved us out of the door. Rach was in quite a bit of pain but we went upstairs and ended up waiting a further hour before a doctor came to see us. This was the 3rd person that morning to spend 10-15 minutes reading our notes, instead of just listening to us explain the situation – well, me because Rach really couldn’t talk. The scan showed, of course, that the baby wasn’t breach – the doctor speculated that the midwife had mistaken his ‘bony bum’ for a head. Brilliant. Inspiring. After another hour or so, a midwife finally came to see us and, as I mentioned, discovered Rach was ready to push. This midwife was a gem but unfortunately appeared to be running the whole ward by herself so it was a while before we could get her to help properly. The delivery itself didn’t take very long, although it started about 4 hours after we arrived at the hospital with 2 minutes between each contraction. It was infuriating and disappointing but it hardly seems to matter now. Oh – and I cut the cord! Wonderful (if a bit messy).
Advice part 2: don’t be afraid to insist –if you feel the baby is on its way, you just might be right and there’s no point waiting for someone to amble round to see you – by the time the pushing started Rach was already shattered and it took a virtuoso performance to deliver the baby.
But she did, with some amazing sights and sounds on the way which I think we would both prefer not to dwell on. Our extremely funny midwife kept us both going the whole time and Barney popped out. Well, slithered. Incidentally, this midwife was the main reason we didn’t go back downstairs to the birth centre and possible water birth once we knew she was ready to push – plus the fact that we were worried the clearly incompetent midwife would still be on duty, and neither of us wanted to put the health of our baby or Rach in her hands for a moment. She hadn’t even phoned the labour ward, as she promised to do (and said she had done), to tell them a) that we were not going to have labour induced, or b) that we were coming up for a scan because she suspected it was breach. Awful.
We were both very emotional when we saw the little fellow and the midwife placed him on Rach’s chest as he opened his mouth and bawled (for the first of many times). What a miraculous bundle of instincts, reflexes and pure reaction! What an astonishingly risky and complicated process to get him out to the air!
What a beautiful, beautiful boy.
World, meet Barney - Barney, meet the World.
Coming soon: The First 2 weeks
posted by nickcoulter at 4:30 pm
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