I know i know i only post every six months or so. But honestly Elliot is 18 months old and everyone likes to ask when I’m giving him a sibling. And HONESTLY are people joking??? It’s 12am and I’m sat in his bedroom with him asleep on me because he’s having a fussy stage and doesn’t want to sleep in his cot. I have to be up for work in 6 hours where I’m solely responsible for the safe coordination of a unit that will essentially administer poison into 110 people. And people are asking me when I’m going to bring PREGNANCY into the mix
I dunno if people are as nosy as me but I have never really mentioned my birth experience anywhere
TW for pregnancy, birth, birth stories etc etc
So basically I had a fairly straightforward first and second trimester (I hated it though soz I’m not a fan of pregnancy) I just had sickness and indigestion and there was a brief period where I couldn’t walk properly but by the third trimester I was feeling okay
I had a routine midwife appointment and had loads of glucose in my urine which she was like “yeah that’s fine we’ll keep an eye on it” which really isn’t guidelines especially as it was a fasting wee I literally hadn’t eaten anything so I asked my midwife friend to book me in for a diabetes test and unfortunately it was positive for gestational diabetes. This was probably about 30 weeks and I did end up needing insulin to control my blood sugars. I actually felt really well physically but I got a bit in my head with anxiety after this, I think as a trained midwife i just knew a bit too much and the baby was measuring really big (although I wasn’t actually presenting big) like they estimated he’d be about 4.7kg at birth. They offered me an induction at 40 weeks which is standard for gestational diabetes but I was just so worried about his size I really pushed for an earlier induction (I obviously know that scans are not accurate at this point but the anxiety was overwhelming I was so worried he was going to get stuck) and so I threw it out that I was a midwife and the consultant immediately offered me an induction at 38 weeks
Obviously I don’t work as a midwife anymore but I was so shocked how many people remembered me and I got such amazing care - I ended up having to have the 24 hour propose and then three tablets and barely any changes to my cervix. I was then informed that I would probably need a C-section which I kind of came to terms with but they needed a doctor to confirm this and whilst waiting for him I did start having some quite decent contractions and when he examined me he was pretty sure they’d be able to break my waters (although it would be difficult).
Where I used to work it’s notorious the wait to go and have your waters broken is days not hours so I was really expecting to be in it for the long haul but the next day one of my friends messaged me like hey are you in the hospital I’m coordinating delivery suite, and honestly about 45 mins later one of my old students came to get me which was so sweet - she was so nervous.
So she managed to break my waters about half 4 and I opted immediately after to have an epidural as I KNEW I’d need the hormone drip and I wasn’t interested in doing that without an epidural especially as it wasn’t advised I labour in the water because of the diabetes and also the big baby
I bullied my midwife a bit because she had a student with her and wasn’t letting her get involved so her student inserted my catheter which she did really seem to struggle with and honestly i knew immediately it was in the wrong place because it was so uncomfortable and I could feel myself passing urine which isn’t the norm with catheters but they kind of kept an eye on it. So my urine output was absolutely shocking and the baby’s heart rate skyrocketed which indicated an obstructed labour (common with big babies) so I was kind of prepared for a section at about 8ish and was just having thousands of blood tests to check I wasn’t going into kidney failure 😂 However this was handover time and the new midwife who came on is one of my old friends and she changed my catheter as soon as I mentioned it felt weird and my urine output improved and was just about satisfactory and the heart rate trace got a bit better and the new consultant said she was quite happy to see how things went over the next couple of hours
During those hours my epidural wasn’t working particularly well, I was super numb on my left but could feel most things on my right but honestly I didn’t mind it because i felt like I knew when I was having contractions and gas and air worked so well for me but I had lots of tweaks and changes to my epidural
When they examined me at midnight I was about 6cm which is such quick progress for this kind of induction and then literally about an hour later I felt pressure with all of my contractions so I knew in my midwife brain that I was probably fully dilated but this wasn’t confirmed until 3ish?
When I started pushing I had stopped pressing my epidural so I honestly could feel everything and I KNOW I was pushing well but there was just no movement and when they came to examine me his head was tilted so they made the decision to do a forceps delivery. The junior doctor really wanted to take me to theatre as they were so concerned about the size of my baby and I thought Jase was going to have a bit of a breakdown at that point but luckily my consultant came in and she was so chilled that she was happy to do it in the room and honestly she just moved his head and he came right down and she honestly just gave him a little pull and he was here. I do think if id been given an extra 30 minutes I’d have managed to get him out myself but at this point I had a fever and his heart rate was not looking amazing and we were already set up so I told them to carry on. I’ve seen hundreds of forceps deliveries and it was genuinely the nicest and calmest I’ve ever seen.
Unfortunately because I had a forceps delivery they did do an episiotomy and despite it being the smallest episiotomy (about 3cm) bad luck had it that there were two arteries there and I ended up losing a lot of blood (about 2L) and spending the rest of the day on the high dependency unit. I also had to stay because my kidney function did take a while to return to normal.
I know that this sounds really dramatic but honestly I didn’t feel stressed throughout, I knew my rights and felt I could advocate for myself and so many of my friends came to see me that were on shift I just felt so comfortable and although so many things happened that could have been traumatic I still feel really happy with how it all went. I was so glad he was okay and I didn’t need a C-section the rest just felt negligible.
Obviously when they put Elliot on my chest I was like “where is the rest of him” because he was actually 7lb 9oz so not big at all. I still don’t regret making the decision for an early induction but if I ever have another baby and they tell me that he might be big then I’d probably feel less anxious and happily go overdue.
Also Elliot is just lanky that boy is so tall it’s obscene
Anyway, I love reading birth stories so here’s mine
There really is nothing like being ill as a parent
I was at my friends house with Elliot and I suddenly went so weak and shaky and my stomach was hurting so much that I was like well I have to leave because I need to make sure I can safely get him home and then jase had to come and get him from the car because suddenly I couldn’t even pick him up??
But you literally just still have to parent?? Luckily Jase has done almost everything this evening but he had to go to his parents and Elliot just woke up and needed a little cuddle and I was SWEATING with the effort
Hilariously I wore a new perfume on my wedding day/honeymoon and had such a bad morning sickness those two weeks that I can’t smell that perfume without gagging now
No one really talks about how lonely being the childless friend is because suddenly the biggest part of your friends life is now something you don't have in common, or can't relate to, or can't really comment on because you don't want to offend anyone by saying the wrong thing. And then they understandably go on the hunt for new friends with children who can understand their problems and you become a little bit obsolete. And you can just never really say anything to anyone because a) you don't want them to feel bad and b) all your other friends also have kids. Mixed in with feelings of jealousy etc etc and it really does make you feel quite alone.
I feel like I don't have much to say and I think almost everyone I follow on here has me on Instagram so probably is fairly updated with me life. But yeah I'm still here, keeping up to date with everyone I've followed for like 9 years!
For anyone who doesn't know, the NHS has pay bands and increments within that band for experience levels. Staff nurses are band 5 and I've been qualified 6 years this year and therefore should be earning £27k (£30k as of next month) but instead earn £24k due to various job changes meaning I've missed my yearly increments. I finally grew some balls and spoke to HR/payroll and basically they're putting me up to £30k at my increment next month and then backdating me my pay for the last year. I'm absolutely over the MOON it'll make such a difference
Not only that, but cats basically meow JUST for your benefit! They don’t talk to other cats with meowing- really only kittens, because kittens are still learning how to speak cat. But cats have realized you can’t speak cat, but you DO respond to meowing, so they accommodate you!! They want to talk to you so much that these little creatures who aren’t really about doing work if they don’t have to are willing to work to talk to you!! That’s amazing!!
