our first journey together - part 2

the road leading to the maternity wing at RPA must be the most pot-holed, bumpy road in the inner west! or ambulances have absolutely no suspension. that last 300m, or whatever distance it is, was the worst of the whole trip; i thought i was going to bounce off onto the floor.

i was wheeled into an examination/admittance room. is that what they are called? i think it must have been about 10:30-45am. still no foot long needle. people were fussy about but i wasn't paying any attention. i know paul was there but not exactly where.
soon i needed to go to the bathroom. getting off that high up hospital bed and shuffling the three metres to the loo was quite a challenge. thankfully i did make it as i lost the mucus plug and possibly my waters broke at this time. paul tells me my waters were broken manually much later on but i don't remember that. i think paul's version is more likely because otherwise percy was in there without her waters for a very long time.
my dilation was checked again after this. i was at six centimetres. yay! this meant i had dilated six centimetres in five hours. finally some progress. we were asked if we wanted to go home again. yeah, right! where's my foot long needle!?! if it hadn't been for the second, left side pain i probably could have managed the contractions. as it was, we'll never know. we declined the suggestion of returning home. i was wheeled into a delivery room.
jan had arrived at the hospital somewhere in this time, paul having rung her to say we had a change of plans. i think she was quite disappointed with me, us. oh well, it was my pain and my choice. it was fantastic to have her there with us for the remainder of the day as she was our advocate and fighting terrier! see, this is one of the reasons we didn't want to have our baby in a hospital. the number of interventions just add and add and add. "let's do this", "you need this", "that baby is at risk", etc etc etc. most of which i'm fairly convinced is medical staff deciding that the labouring woman is not fitting predetermined processes and timing. all very well, but not applicable to births. they are natural things that run their own course. of course i fully acknowledge modern medicine and the many lives it has saved or enhanced. also the hard working people that staff our medical system. it's not that i disbelieve them or think them wrong, they just couldn't explain satisfactorily why certain actions were being recommended. just because you've always done it that way, or that's what it says in the book, isn't enough of a reason to apply it to me.

anyways, i did have an epidural. so i got my sort of foot long needle. after this i was numb and happy to rest. naturally every bloody person in that hospital decided to come in to ask me questions or check something, departing with- "well, you should rest now, try to get some sleep." well, i bloody would if you'd all piss off!
once i was set up paul took the opportunity to return home to collect some important things that we should have brought with us- my medicare card for example! we literally turned up with what we were wearing and the house keys. quite funny now.
throughout tuesday afternoon my body did it's own thing without me being too aware of it. an intervention i didn't want but was convinced to take was a syntocin drip. the epidural had slowed the labour down and the synthetic oxytocin is supposed to speed it up again. so we waivered about this for a couple of hours, discussing with jan. then my epidural needing topping up. unfortunately the connection of the two tubes at my shoulder separated and the good stuff spilled down my back and into the sheets rather than into my spine. i had been told that it would feel cold as it followed the tube down my back, so when i felt the coldness i thought it was what was supposed to happen- not the spill. when all the pain came back such that jan turned the gas on for me to have a few breaths of that, we worked out what had happened and called for it to be done again. during the wait jan talked me thru the contractions and the side pain and modulated the gas for me. at the end of every use she gave me a shot of oxygen that kept me clear headed and not nauseous.

as the sun was falling there was still no baby in sight. we'd had many discussions, almost arguements with the hospital staff on what to do next. you see, according to protocol, i never got into 'established labour'. where the contractions are coming every 2 to 3 minutes and lasting for at least a minute at a time. mine were 2 minutes apart, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 7 minutes; all over the place. however dilation was slowly taking place and percy was trying to get into position.
around 9pm the decision was made that percy needed to move as her heart was decelerating with every contraction. i was given a form to sign to consent to a forceps or ventouse (vaccuum) extraction and failing that, a cesearean delivery. i really did want to avoid all these things. what would have happened had we remained at home? could i have dealt with the pain of percy try to come out ear first, rather than crown of head first? would the labour have been shorter without the epidural? would percy have experienced the decelerations? these things i still wonder about in quiet moments.

i signed the form.

all the straps and tubes and whatnot was removed from my body. paul was given a set of blue scrubs (is that the word?) to change into. a narrower yet bed was wheeled alongside the one i occupied. half a dozen people were whirring about the room. i thought there were 20 people, but paul tells me otherwise, and they probably weren't 'whirring' either. i was about to be lifted onto the new bed when the room emptied. apparently someone else needed more attention than i did.
reprieve!
just paul and jan with me now. the room was dim and i took stock. what an astonishing two days. what was going to happen now?

tell you later, percy is due for elevenses!