Birth Story

So...in the end, a baby will come along the way it wants to, all plans aside and wishes notwithstanding. I knew this from the start - have stated it several times like a mantra! - but my whole story still went a little awry from my expectations. Here, without further ado, is my birth story.

I left you last, Constant Reader, with news of the hospital's plans to perform a membrane sweep on 11th August - my EDD - as they were slightly concerned about rising blood pressure. I was relaxing on Sunday night when I suddenly realised I couldn't read a full sentence on my laptop screen. Everything looked...well, weird. I had a clear window of vision in the centre of my eye (for those who don't know, I'm congentially blind in one of them anyway), but everything to the sides was akin to looking through one of those special-effects insect-eye lenses, if you've ever done so.

As visual disturbances are a known symptom of pre-eclampsia, Matt insisted that I call NHS24, the Scottish medical advice phone service, who were alarmed enough to send out the emergency paramedics. I was convinced they were overreacting, but later hospital tests showed that my kidneys were under pretty serious stress, either from pregnancy-induced hypertension or pre-eclampsia. The baby was fine - but in order to prevent kidney damage to me, the decision was made to induce labour.

At 11am-ish on 11th August, a prostaglandin gel was tried on me, and I must have been fairly ready to give birth anyway as it worked so well - contractions started immediately with about 2.5 minutes rest between them.

For those who aren't aware, in a normal, spontaneous onset of labour the contractions gradually build up in intensity, becoming stronger and more frequent. In an induced birth the body doesn't have this gentle build-up, and contractions tend to be more painful, frequent and so on. Because of this and my status as a first-time mum (apparently induction's usually more painful the first time), I was advised that I'd almost certainly require an epidural. There was also concern that the frequency of my contractions would mean I'd have no energy come 'push-time', especially given that I'd had less than 3 hours sleep in about 30 hours at this point. My father was taken into intensive care following emergency surgery on the morning I was induce, and the stress wasn't helping much either.

At that point I said I'd forego the epidural, but keep an open mind about it. The plan was to break my waters and use another Prostin gel, but Cian did a pretty thorough job of breaking my waters on his own! At that point, the contractions became far, far more intense. My TENS machine was up to maximum and I was cursing the fact that I couldn't use a birthing pool as all induced births need more careful monitoring. Matt and I decided that an epidural was probably the best idea, as it would allow me to conserve some energy for later in the day.

The anaesthetist tried 4 times to site the catheter in my spine...to no avail. So he asked a more experienced collegue, who tried 4 times to site the catheter in my spine...to no avail. Eventually the head obstetric consultant anaesthetist was called, who managed to install the epidural first time - I sucked on gas and air to enable me to stay still during contractions, so that he could do so.

About 15 minutes later he came back to ask how the pain was now...and was surprised to hear there was no difference. To cut a long story short, over the whole time of my labour 4 different consultants (including the senior anaesthetist for the entire teaching hospital) tried to get epidurals to work on me. Three were sited perfectly, with two different types of drug being tried. None gave any reduction in pain and I could still move my legs and walk around the room, much to the surprise (to say the least) of the doctors now having a conference by the side of my bed, wondering how on earth this could be.

Works out I'm one of only two cases they've ever seen where a labouring woman is genuinely immune to epidural pain relief. Go figure.

Around 5am-ish on Tuesday morning, I was examined. The midwife was sure that, given how strong and frequent my contractions had been showing on the monitor, I'd be well-dilated by now. I was at 2cm, at which point I felt extraordinarily frustrated.

Eventually I got about an hour's relief from a spinal block which was supposed to last a number of hours. It gave me just enough rest to get a little energy back. I was also given about an hour on a patient-controlled pump containing a very short-acting opioid. I'd stated a refusal of opioidssuch as pethidine from the outset as I didn't want adverse reactions in the baby, but I was informed this one was designed to leave the system in around 4 minutes, so caused no such problems. The PCA wasn't very helpful, but the staff were fantastic in bending over backwards to try to help me. I was offered another spinal block and possible caesarean section due to the unusual circumstances, but refused both as they could have posed a risk to the baby.

With the possible help of a syntocinon drip, I suddenly progressed from 2 to 5cm dilated in 2 hours...then up to 9cm in another 90 minutes. By this point I had no pain relief except gas and air, so there was nothing to do but go for it when I felt the urge to push.

After an hour's pushing, shouting, manically changing position (which should have been impossible, if not for my freakish epidural immunity!)...little Cian Matthew Sebastian Slane came into the world. Beautiful, perfect, completely unperturbed by any of the day's events, he let out one almighty yell, then took a big breath and looked so calm a he was laid on my chest. Matt had been planning to catch the baby and cut the cord, but in the event was unable to do either. He was crying, saying "You did it, you really did it! The baby's here!", shaking and looking awestruck by it all.

I had an episiotomy and a second-degree tear - a scissor cut, and a tear to my muscles for the uninitiated - so Cian stayed on me for 10 minutes on me before I had to be repaired. Matt was fantastic and proved an instinctive daddy by stripping off his shirt to snuggle the baby skin-to-skin. About an hour later I was all stitched up, and the three of us were left to get to know each other.

I had to recover for a couple of days in hospital, and I'm still very sore - between swelling, stitches and a severely bruised spine, I feel like I've been hit by a train! - but we're home now and getting used to each other. Sleep is difficult, and I'm trying to locate a 12-step programme for mummy's milk addicts, but I never realised exhaustion could be so worthwhile. Cian is just breathtaking - all little pouts, big eyes and hair like spun gold, with a touch of the Irish red. He's confused by the world, but loves to be cuddled and has passed all his screening tests so far with flying colours. I'm so proud of him...there just aren't words for how much I love my little golden boy.

A number of midwives and anaesthetists have approached me about my labour, and have said they consider me a very rare case of a difficult, induced birth without significant pain relief. They seemed to feel guilty that they couldn't help me, but that's nobody's fault - just one of those random things. All the staff who helped me were, without exception, supportive and fantastic during my labour. Matt was simply amazing, doing everything he could to encourage me and make me more comfortable, and I genuinely couldn't have done it without him.

Not the birth I'd been hoping for, all-in-all - I'd hoped for a much more gradual onset and more control over my situation. However, I got the RESULT I was hoping for, as my beautiful baby boy is safely in my arms, currently sleeping cuddled up to me.

No regrets from this lassie. No regrets at all.