Riya-Ray is HERE!

As per the Doctors orders we booked into the hospital at 12.05am on 28 July 2010.  We are there for the induction and I am slightly panicky – my teeth were chattering like crazy, either a sign that I’m cold or that I am freaking nervous.  In this case I think it might have been both…  We go up to Magnolia Ward at VP and get put into one of the 3 labour wards.  The beautiful hospital robe was waiting for me on the bed, a small reminder of how exposed I was going to be over the coming hours.

The plan with this induction was that it was “social” and therefore if it did not work then I could go home without having to take the baby out with a ceaser.  I was praying that it would be natural birth or we go home, really not keen on a ceaser unless it was essential.  They put the first lot of gel in and hooked me up to the monitor so that we could ensure that baby was always fine and that nothing was going wrong.  After 30 minutes, they decided that if nothing had happened yet with baby it was ok for me to go and wait the 6 hours in the ward.

We booked into the same ward and the same bed as we had with Kyla!  So I was in my familiar hospital home if you could call it that.  For the time being I was alone, but it was inevitable that I would be joined by another new mother.  Seth stayed with me for about an hour, but then went to his parents to have a bit of a sleep.  I had a bit of a nap but couldn’t sleep properly in the anticipation of what was to come.

Now, I had had “Braxton hicks” contrations from the beginning of the third trimester.  Really not Braxton hicks as these are supposed to be painless.  When I asked the gyne he said, ” you get Braxton hicks and you get the contractions that bring on birth.  But there is a grey area in between that it can be any combination”.  Well thanks…  That helps.  So I was getting more contractions, but they were like the ones that I had been getting the whole time and no where near the pain I experienced with Kyla.  So I thought it didn’t work.

Seth arrived and then so did Dumbrill (the gyne).  We went and checked and I was still very posterior but 2-3 cm dilated.  I couldn’t believe it as this was a manageable pain, I could maybe even go without an epidural…  Then he asked if he could break the waters to really get this going.  So I couldn’t respond in my shock and lack of brain activity but Seth gave him the go ahead, and that was it.  Man that was uncomfortable… Then the contractions got to epic proportions – so epidural it would be.

Dr Whitehead took a while to come, but hooked me up to a small piece of heaven on Earth.  I was not feeling anything really in terms of contractions.  It was beautiful.  We spoke about the dangers and possible effects of it, one of them was that a small section could not be affected by the drugs and you could still feel the pain there and another could be death.  I said that I had experienced this mildly with Kyla (obviously not death) but they topped up the drugs and it was all cool after that.  He said that will hopefully not happen, did a couple of checks and left.

We then just waited… And waited…  Then at about 12, at the very top of my left thigh and lower bit of my stomach, I felt every little bit of the massive contractions I was having…  I was literally crying (yes, I am a pansy – you try giving birth drug free, and if you did, well then you deserve an award).  The nurses phoned the Doc and he said that I must be turned to the left.  When this instruction was relayed to my nurse, she clearly misunderstood and put me with the right side down.  Even after Seth pointed this out to her,  she insisted she was right, and we thought maybe he meant tilted up to the left. After all, surely she knows best.  This meant that all the drugs were running down to the  unaffected area (I learnt this with Kyla last year).  After what felt like eternity (but was only actually 30 – 40 minutes) I was turned by Seth to my other side and they topped me up like 3 times.  Finally the pain subsided and everything was good again.

During this whole time, right from the very beginning I was hooked up to a heartbeat monitor for baby.  As she was descending we had to keep finding her and her heartbeat.  Quite freaky actually.  Also the epidural and induced labour can cause baby’s heartbeat to drop – we had a couple of scares and we were totally freaked out.

Finally at 1pm Dumbrill came in and checked and I was about 8cm dilated.  He said that we would deliver the baby at about 2 and he would see me then.  So we waited a bit more and joked that he/she was going to come out and be like “Hey, what ‘s taking you dudes so long – I wanna get outta here” because originally I was only going to deliver at about 6,but things were moving faster than “normal”.  All of a sudden I could not find the heartbeat at all.  Seth came over and he couldn’t find it either.  He decided to open the blanket to see what was going on and THE ENTIRE FREAKING HEAD WAS OUT!  Yes, the WHOLE PURPLE HEAD was not moving and in a puddle of fluid on the bed.  We looked at each other completely freaked!  Seth fumbled and turned and ran on the spot not knowing whether to press the button for the nurse or deliver the child.  Opting for the button, Seth proceeded to yell franticly for the nurse (can you believe it – Seth shouted).  She finally came in and by then the baby had wriggled its shoulders out…  Seth was trying to help it out but the nurse told him not to, but to rather get the sterilised stuff to wrap baby in.  As the nurse lifted baby on to the sterilized stuff we saw that there was a lack of a certain appendage.  We had sneakily thought it was a boy, as this pregnancy was so different, but whatever… IT’S A GIRL!!!!!

Welcome little Riya-Ray! At 2pm Riya brought herself into the world, weighing just 2.96kg.  She scored really well on the APGAR tests and latched on immediately.

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