The birth of Joel

[justine.b]

I know this is a bit long winded......

Well the birth of my beautiful son Joel, as i'm sure alot of people say was not what i expected. I have a mixture of feelings of disappointment and joy all rolled into one. I had Gestational diabetes which actually wasn't that bad after my sugars were in check, i felt fine. I was just very uncomfortable as i put on alot of weight (28 ish kg) alot of that was fluid ( i felt like a giant puffer fish). The GD meant that i was induced, my ob explained to me about what that would mean, e.g. the gel and then eventually the drip and breaking of my waters. He was so reassuring but i am such a control freak and not to have control over a situation is very very scary for me . I stayed overnight in the delivery room after spending saturday with no action from the gel. My husband went home (my orders, someone had to get some sleep) they gave me some sleeping pills and off to sleep i went, but i only slept an hour because i was woken by a lady screaming.......... now i mean screaming, there was no pain relief going on there. So i just lyed there for the rest of the night scared stiff that that was going to be me the next day.

On Sunday i didn't know what to expect, i unfortunantly had a midwife from the 1900's and she just never seemed to have anytime for me. Now i know midwives and nurses are very overworked and understaffed ( i am a PICU nurse), but this lady just never seemed to explain anything to me, she just pretty much hooked me up to the monitoring and left myself and my husband there. No wonder i had an epidural so quickly (within an hour of contractions), even then she said to me that i either have the epi now or i have to wait till the afternoon ( and seemed disappointed when i said yes)

Now i had GD..........no one checked my sugars, i had nothing to eat all day and the midwife couldn't put a finger on why i was so nauseuos, i only realise now looking back at the situation, as i was in no state to be thinking of it at the time.

Well my labour once my ob broke my waters was actually pretty quick, i was having 5 minutely contractions within 1/2 hour of the drip starting and within 4 hours i felt the urge to push. My midwife didn't believe me... fair enough 1st time mum, but she was wrong joel was coming!!!!

She rang my ob and i started pushing but everytime i started pushing i would have tunnel vision and nearly pass out and then have to stop to throw up. my midwife told my to be quiet while i push !!! easy said than done, i think i told her where to go at that point, because she was soon gone and another nicer midwife came along. Though it was such an awful feeling, having these people standing around you saying " just a bit longer" and you can feel them drifting away i just had to stop pushing. I was so scared if i didn't stop.......... i would not have woken back up

Though as soon as my ob got there things were so so much better. However the last thing you really want to hear out of your ob's mouth is " we have to get this baby out now", i was truely scared, i told my ob that and he was so reassuring, i honestly dont think i could have done it without him. All of a sudden as soon as he said that midwives started rushing around the room.

I had to have a ventouse delivery with an episiotomy (the two things i didn't want), five hours after they broke my waters. As soon as my ob took charge Joel was born within 20 minutes at 2:19pm 10/09/2006. I have never come across someone so professional and so calm in such a stressful situation, he was amazing.

Thankfully i never saw that midwife again, everyone else i came across was wonderful.

I know that is full of alot of negative ( i'm probably just overreacting, they dont call it labour for nothing )but when my husband and i saw our little boys face it was all so worth it. I look back now (6m ago) and think wow i'm such a stronger person now, i remember telling my husband next time caesarean! ( i'll be too posh to push ) but i think i would do it all again, he is so worth it, i'm so in love with our beautiful little boy.