July 2009 Archives

Have not blogged in a while as have been on holiday. These are just one or two things to note from our travels..

1) Flying

I always said I wasn't going to be the mother who bribed her child with food to get him to behave. However I did take one or two goodies onto the plane in case of absolute, dire emergency.

One packet of skips, two tubs of raisens and a bag of buttons later I realised I'm never going to make super mother of the year, and we hadn't even taken off.

Having a baby is like trying to fire Winston Churchill out of a peashooter; seemingly impossible and bloody hard work. However, it is also one of the most amazing things you will ever do, not least because you get to meet and begin to care for your new baby.

After it's over, when you've been through it and you're not pregnant anymore, all eyes turn to the baby; how she's eating and sleeping and who she looks like. It's easy to forget that labour is a huge trauma to the female body.

Your body is 'recovering' from the pregnancy and birth, and heaving and pulling itself around to get back to its pre-preg state.

First time moms are curious about whether their bodies will ever be the same again. Yes. Yes they will, but you have to look after yourself. We think that pregnancy 'ruins' us because we've heard so many women blame their wobbly bits on having children.

Rachel talks about sleeping through a natural delivery like it's a bad thing?

My first labour was very confusing. Being my first child I didn't know what to expect. I got to the hospital and taken to a room. The midwife exaimined me told me I was fully dilated and too far gone for any kind of pain relief. She told me to start pushing with my next contraction.

Laura Hamel-Shaw's husband got in touch to tell me about her labours. It makes it sound worth going into labour purely for the comedy element!!

Hi Laura.....As you can imagine there are lots of funny stories about my Laura being in Labour:

1. When giving birth to our first, Laura refused to take off her scanky red dressing gown much to the dismay of the two midwives. She refused to lie down and insisted on giving birth in some semi erotic doggy-style position. However the Pièce de résistance came in the rare moments when Laura wasn't attached to the gas & air mask:

My name is Juliet and my husband is Stephen.

We've been together for ages and have been married for the last three years. We always said we'd never have children together because between us we had four from previous marriages. However, we changed our minds and decided to try because we weren't getting any younger!

We caught within a month of trying; I felt really ill and an early test showed a strong positive.

I woke up at 4:15 in the morning and felt a puddle in my jammy bottoms! I knew what it was and was terrified! All I could think was ... If I go back to sleep it will go away! After 5 minutes I gently woke my partner by telling him to get me a towel!

After I cleaned myself up I phoned the triage ward who advised me to come in to be checked over as I hadn't felt baby move. They assured me that I would be allowed home! No such luck; my blood pressure was very, very high and had protein in urine (both of which I had throughout my pregnancy).

They decided I was to be induced, but when they got hold of the doctor at 9am he said not to due to my blood pressure.

However, at 9.30am I was given a pessary which took effect immediately! By the time dp was back from the car I was having really bad cramps.

Tracey didn't bother with any middle of the road contractions; hers was a labour like those of the movies. Her waters broke and it was all systems go! None of it textbook, especially the pole dancing she started to do during the birth!!

4 days overdue, but wanted another 4 days to qualify for extra 3 months maternity leave.

Whilst watching Coronation Street, at 8.45pm I started to feel some pains in my tummy. A friend happened to send me a text message to ask if there was any news of arrival. I sent one back saying that I thought baby might be on the way. I sort of crawled up the stairs and my waters broke. The hospital said that I should go in to be checked because I sounded quite far gone already. Despite planning, other half panicked a bit getting the bags together and we forgot to take in some notes to the hospital, so his dad had to bring them to us. Of course I sat on a maternity mat in the car because didn't want to ruin the new car seats!

When I first heard that there was a medical professional suggesting that women should not be offered pain relief in labour, my initial thought was: "This could only be a man."

I looked at the article in The Observer and lo! It was.

Dr Denis Walsh says that more women should be prepared to withstand the pain of childbirth.

I don't care how senior a midwife this guy is. I don't care how many studies he's done, how many babies he's delivered or how many books he's read. Until there's even the slightest chance he might have to push a person out of his body, he's not allowed to say that women shouldn't have pain relief.

He bases his theory on the following points:

Oooh.. there's something so 'ick' about the term vaginal delivery, isn't there? We all know that babies come from 'down there', but it's so much more civilised when we refer to pushing a person out of your nether regions as being a 'natural birth', so I'll try to use that term to spare the more squeamish among you.

I'm so sick of listening to those 'hollier-than-thou' women preach the evils of the caesarean section. Why do some women think that it makes you more feminine/maternal if you successfully birth a child 'naturally'.

God forbid if you opted for a c-sec. The term 'too posh to push' is flung around by those who think it's a crime against womankind to choose to bring your child into the world in way that doesn't involve your vagina (sorry, birth canal).

You're almost let off the hook if you had to have an emergency section, but you are still pitied because it is considered the poor relative of the natural delivery.

When we were planning The Kid I asked the Doctor if I would be able to have a c-section if I got pregnant. I explained the reasons and he said I would be able to.

I was adamant I was not going to be put through the experience I went through seven years earlier.

From the moment I met my midwife I was completely honest with her about my feelings on the birth. She was brilliant; she gave lots of her time to listen to me and offer advice.

Although she disagreed with the doctor about automatically needing a c-section, I felt happy to consider what she said. She told me it was highly unlikely that I would go through the same thing again.