After some debate we rang the hospital, who told us to come in. I found myself finally doing 'the journey' - a hospital drive through the cold dark night with Aurora beside me in some pain.
We were greeted by a very sweet midwife who showed us to a rather spacious room. She examined Aurora and found she was 2cm dilated, and she could feel the baby's hair, so the waters must have broken.
We decided to stay (rather than going home for a while) and ran a hot bath. We got some painkillers and the bath helped ease the pain of the contractions.
By about 7:30, she was contracting every 3-4 minutes, and they were getting more and more painful. Our midwife Wendy brought us a canister of gas & air (N2O + 02) which helped with the pain.
At 10am she got out of the bath and went back to the room where she was examined again and was 4-5cm dilated. There was a birthing pool being filled, and the plan was to stabilise the pain and move there. By 10:25, the pain had got worse and we decided to have Pethidine - an injection into the thigh. It takes 20 minutes to kick in, but by 11:15 the pain had got still worse. Pethidine makes you drowsy, and Aurora at this point was barely conscious, only waking up during contractions. Eventually she murmured the word 'Epidural' through her drug-fuelled haze.
I returned from buying some lunch to find an Egyptian anaesthetist explaining the epidural. Aurora was pretty medicalised at this point - catheter, 2 IV lines, BP monitor, etc. She needed to be sitting up to get the epidural in, and also completely still. This we achieved, and the epidural went in at about 11:40. The pain eased off pretty quickly, but things got a bit hectic at this point. Her BP dropped to 71/36, and the baby's HR from ~140 to ~65. Pretty soon we had a registrar (Ken), and another midwife pumping her with fluids to get the BP up (which was the cause of the drop in the baby's heartrate). At one point I looked up from my bacon brie and cranberry panini to see a foetal ECG probe going up Aurora's punani - bon appetit!
Anyway they got the BP back to normal (ish) and the baby's heartrate recovered. At this point (midday) she was 8cm dilated but the baby was 'back to back' which means that a VD would probably require instruments. We decided to wait a couple of hours and then if she had not dilated any more we would do a C-section. Well, 2:30 came quite quickly since the contractions were not hurting any more, and we were disappointed to learn that she was still at 8cm and the baby had not changed position. We were offered a hormone drip to get her fully dilated, but we decided that would not be a good idea, because if she got dilated and he didn't turn, he would get well into the pelvis so a C-section at this point is more risky, and a VD would involve instruments (and consequently, damage).
After the interminable hours of labour, things moved pretty fast once we decided to operate. I put on scrubs and went into theatre with Aurora on her trolley and associated paraphernalia. The anaesthetist dosed her up using the existing epidural, and tested using a cold spray to make sure she was properly anaesthetised - which she wasn't. At this point the anaesthetist Hamza turned and announced with some foreboding: "I'm afraid you're going to need a spinal".
Once she was properly drugged up the operation began with a kind of pre-flight check. They counted how many instruments in and out, they made sure everyone knew what they were doing - they even asked Aurora her name to make sure they were operating on the right person!
In the room we had our midwife Wendy, Hamza, Ken and another (lady) surgeon, the girl handing out tools, a spare anaesthetist, the master of ceremonies (the lady who read out the checklist) and 2 paediatricians (2 Indian guys we've never seen before walk in at the last minute. The look on my face obviously says "who the fuck are you?" so they introduced themselves). I watched them making the incision, then looked on incredulous as the surgeons yanked, tugged and rummaged. Aurora said it felt like they were looking for their car keys. Pretty soon I looked over the screen to see a scrunched-up purple head sticking out of her abdomen. It looked like a disembodied lifeless purple alien head sitting on her tummy.
Luckily it turned out to be a human, alive, and with a body attached, which soon came out. The shrill unmistakeable sound of a bawling infant filled the room and Aurora & I both wept with joy. The paediatricians laid him out on their chopping block / desk and when had decided he was healthy, they invited me over to trim the cord, i.e. cut it back close to the body (it had already been separated from the placenta).
Soon he was cleaned up, wrapped in a towel and in my arms, where I gazed lovingly at him while Aurora was stitched up. An incredible wave of feelings overcame me. All my misgivings about having a baby fell away and I couldn't tear my gaze from this little guy doing his pouting and generally looking cute.
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| He has his father's eyes |
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| Ken the surgeon's little army of snowmen |
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| New mummy |
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| Arriving home 2 days later |
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| Munchkin's first bath |
