The Birth of Sofia

4:30am 24th October.

I leap out of bed from a light sleep to feel a gush of liquid soaking into my pajama bottoms. In a daze I run to the bathroom and start yelling for Tom who is soundly sleeping downstairs in our bedroom. After the gush it is a slow trickle, for hours. How I managed to get out of bed without as much of a spot on the sheets is beyond me. I think I yelled for Tom about ten times before I could calm down enough to really yell his name. As I sit on the toilet and try to comprehend what has just happened, Tom opens the attic door and asks, "what's wrong?"

And so it begins, the labour and delivery of our dear Sofia.

I didn't get to sleep until 1:30 the night before, and that was punctuated by hourly toilet breaks. Maybe, just maybe I knew somehow. I mean, why on earth was I baking pumpkin bread the day before (I haven't done that for years). And sorting out my hospital bag. And cleaning the house.

Once the waters broke the contractions started coming on exactly nine minutes later. How does one know exactly how bad a contraction is meant to hurt in the beginning or later on? Or how often they will happen. More importantly, when to go to the hospital.

Just after 5am I phoned Hull and East Yorkshire Women and Children's Hospital (W&C) for advice. Since contractions were not regular they advised to attend the Antenatal Day Unit when it opened at 8:30am or to ring back should things change. Either way I needed to be checked since my waters broke. Just before 7am I rang back to W&C for advice since contractions were 2-4 minutes apart and feeling quite strong (or, what I thought was strong at the time). Tom and I gathered up the hospital bags and off we went.

Half an hour later we find ourselves in a delivery suite at W&C. Only dilated to 1cm. It is going to be a long day! Midwives encouraged us to go home. I was scared and felt more comfortable in the hospital, or so I thought. And so I was admitted to the Antenatal Day Unit. What a treat that was. I was in a ward room with four beds, the other three already occupied. I am the only one in labour. There are individual curtains to pull around each bed, but it doesn't offer much for privacy. One woman was pregnant with triplets after IVF in the Ukraine. She was awaiting induction which wasn't happening until the next day due to staff shortages. A second woman was leaking waters and would probably be induced. I never did understand why the third woman was there. Anyway, the second woman was on the phone constantly as well as loudly playing her television on some horrible Jerry Springer-type show. It didn't make for peaceful surroundings. I imagine my grunting and breathing must have been getting to them as well.
I spent quite a few hours booked into to the Antenatal Unit. I bathed twice to help with the pains. It didn't seem to do much. I tried the birthing ball. That just hurt even more. I didn't want to lie down because it hurts worse to be lying down. And so we walked. Tom and I spent quite a bit of time walking down to the courtyard garden on the side of the building and just pacing. Contractions were getting more and more painful. One of the midwives attached a TENS machine to my back and showed me how to use it. It didn't seem to do that much, but I was able to divert my attention to the TENS machine rather than focus on the contractions. I managed to eat some lunch. Well, some vanilla ice cream, yogurt, cheese and biscuits as well as some horrible apple juice. Earlier Tom had gone to find some breakfast for himself and brought back a lovely breakfast sandwich for me. Unfortunately nausea kept me from eating it so I just went hungry until lunchtime.

At 12:30 two midwives attended to check on my progress since it had been over four hours since the last check. Surely all of those painful contractions have done something, right. Right. Eight hours and counting and I was still only at 1.5-2cm. Again I was encouraged to go home. The contractions were so painful that I couldn't even imagine walking out to the car and sitting at home feeling like this. But, I was tired of being in that horrible room and if I was only dilated that far I knew it would be a while. So I agreed to go. The midwife told me to just walk out with the TENS machine as long as I promised to return it when I come back.
Tom and I left W&C at 4:30pm to go home.

The midwives told me to make sure to eat at home so I have the energy to get through this process. I didn't feel like eating much. I did eat a couple of slices of the lovely pumpkin bread I made as well as a few bites of the chicken and pasta Tom had made for himself. We were both exhausted but how can one sleep? Those hours are a blur to me. Each and every contraction seemed like pure hell. The midwife kept saying, "You will know when you hit the next level. You aren't there yet." Could they get any worse?

Tom washed some clothes and tidied the kitchen. I checked my email and did what I could to occupy my time. We discussed baby names, talked about what was happening, etc. Just before 8pm we remembered that Michael Palin's New Europe was on at 8. We missed the Sunday show since we were visiting with friends. I forced myself to go down and watch with Tom. I managed to watch most of it, dozing off a minute or two here and there.

When that was over Tom went up to Tesco to get a couple more packages of maternity pads. How much amniotic fluid can possibly be left in there?

We were both exhausted by 10pm and so we decided to go back up to the attic and lie down. I told Tom to try to sleep, but he was so worried about me. He kept waking up and jotting down notes about contractions. The pains seemed to intensify just before midnight. I don't know how I kept myself going. It hurt, really hurt.

At 2am I just couldn't take it anymore. It was coming up on 22 hours of contractions and the pain was worse that I ever thought it would be. Contractions were still irregular coming anywhere from 3-7 minutes apart. I rang W&C and they told me to go ahead and come back in. Tom showered and we got ourselves ready to go once again. Arrived at W&C just after 3am.

Booked into a different Delivery suite. Sue, the midwife, had a long talk with us about everything that was going on. Since my waters broke we had no choice but to be committed to the birth at this point. I could wait for it to happen naturally or we could augment the birth (induce). Tom and I talked about induction and pain relief. We came to a decision that I would be induced as long as I could have an epidural. I was at my wit's end with the pain and just couldn't endure it any longer. Sue suggested we do another exam to see how far along I am at this point before making a final decision. At 3:40 I was examined and at this time I was only dilated to 2cm. It took 23 hours to get to this point.

At 4:15am they started a drip and prep for an epidural. By 4:40 the epidural was in and complete. Most of the pain is gone within ten minutes. Once this is complete they started the oxytocin drip. What a relief. Tom went outside to call our parents to let them know what was going on with us. Tom was relaxing in the recliner sleeping on and off while I dozed on and off in the bed.

At 7:30 it was shift change and another midwife, Tina, took over. Tom was hungry around 8 so he went out for some fresh air and something to eat. I couldn't eat anything in case they needed to perform a C-Section on me. By 8.30 I needed a top-up on the epidural since I was starting to feel quite a bit of pain. Back to snoozing on and off. There were concerns over the heartrate of the baby so I had to change positions a couple of times. Things still weren't better so a doctor was called in to check the printout over the past few hours. The pain was getting quite intense again. I could feel contractions way down in the perineum area but nowhere else. The epidural was topped up again but it didn't seem to take away any of the pain. The doc asked if when they were going to check me again and the midwife said 12, four hours after the last check. The normal rate of dilation with induction is 1cm per hour. We all thought I would be there all day.

At 10.45am the midwife did another exam and found that I was fully dilated. No wonder I was having so much pain down there.

The midwives busied themselves getting things ready for the baby. It was all a whirlwind after that. Before I knew it they had me in position and told me to get ready to push. As each contraction came on I pushed with all of my might. It felt like my head was going to explode.

The pain wasn't nearly what I thought it would be. I'm sure the epidural helped with some of that! It was only something like 4 contractions and baby Sofia was out. It took all of 23 minutes for the second stage of labour. They gave me a shot to help the placenta out and that came out a mere 7 minutes later.

Total time: 30 hours and 45 minutes. No tearing or stitches.

Baby Sofia, Tom and I sat together in the birthing room. We just looked at her. This miracle. It had been years ago that we started trying. Finally I was holding our daughter in my arms. I attempted to breast feed, but she didn't seem all that interested. She was content to lie there and look around.

After 45min to an hour the midwives came back in and got her dressed while I showered. Wow did a shower feel good. It wasn't long after my shower that a wheelchair arrived and we were transferred to the Postnatal unit where I would spend the next two days.

When all of this fertility assistance, etc. started here on the NHS I was unsure of how things were going to go. I didn't know how the medical system worked, what the hospitals were like, the level of care, etc.

Overall I can say that both Tom and I are nothing short of thrilled with the care I received on all levels. It took a year to get me pregnant on Clomid, but the outcome is the most wonderful thing that has happened to us.

And so our lives as parents to Sofia begins...