Baby E’s birth story
7 March 2012 6 Comments
So, I thought that I should probably be more punctual in writing up Baby E’s birth story than I was with Little O’s (written about 15 months after the event). Although he is now six and a half week old, it feels as if Baby E has been part of our family for so long that my memories of his birth are probably just as they were of Little O’s 15 months on!
Our little gyermek (child in Hungarian) was due on 25 January but as Little O had arrived 9 days after his due date, I was convinced that it would be about the same with our second.
The Thursday before my due date three mamma friends came round for dinner at our place, our excuse for a girls night being that they had all volunteered to help out with looking after Little O when the time came for Husband and I to go to the hospital. Of course they needed to come round for dinner and see the spare room and hear about Little O’s routine. And so what if that part of the plan actually happened at 1am, shortly before they left… We spent the large part of the evening discussing birth stories and perhaps also indulging in a very little bit of gossip. And I clearly remember telling them that I knew that this baby would not come on time, that I was settling down for a long wait and that maybe I would even get to the same stage as with Little O and have to be discussing the option of the dreaded inducing of the little one.
Fast forward to the next evening and Husband and I decided that it really was time to practice some of the Lamaze breathing exercises, seeing as we’d had our refresher course a month before, just before Christmas. Just before going to bed we ran through the three different breathing exercises. We’d been warned that the third one could make you feel a bit light-headed, so when I started feeling a bit funny immediately afterwards, I imagined that was the reason.
But then I started feeling even odder and it started to feel familiar. Off to the bathroom I went, and that was it, my waters broke. And immediately the contractions started. They were probably about 30 seconds long and about 3 minutes apart. I immediately sent a text message to my three mamma friends and let them know that all systems were go. It was around 10.30pm at this point and one of them had just finished having a meal with colleagues in the city and so she was able to be with us within 10 minutes.
While I waited for her to arrive, I wrote up Little O’s breakfast details and anything else that I could think of that she needed to know. Because, of course, this baby was going to arrive late, so I had not done any of this yet… I called our chosen hospital, BB Stockholm, a privately-run ward at Danderyd Hospital, where Little O was born, and let them know that we were heading in. (A privately-run ward sounds so very posh, but it isn’t really – you pay a small fee and it is all just a bit nicer and less hospital-like.)
Husband called a taxi and I ran through the instructions with my friend and put the final bits and pieces into my hospital bag (yeah, yeah, of course, I hadn’t fully packed that either – don’t you know, this baby is going to be late…). By this time the contractions were still about 30 seconds long but were now coming every couple of minutes. A quick discussion with Husband and we changed plans and decided to head for our nearest maternity ward, at Karolinska Hospital, instead, as BB Stockholm was a 25-minute drive away and Karolinska was just 10 minutes down the road. Karolinska were more than happy for me to come in – especially when I said how close the contractions were and that Little O had been born in around five hours (from when my waters broke).
The taxi journey was were things started to get a bit surreal. As I was having a contraction at the time, I’m not sure how it happened but the next thing I knew Husband and the taxi driver were chatting away in Hungarian, while I sat in the back wondering whether I should be doing the first stage of Lamaze breathing or the second…
At the hospital, we were taken into an examination room and the midwife waited while the contractions abated so she could check me. By this time, which was around 11.40pm, they were less than a minute apart and unfortunately she wasn’t quick enough examining me between the end of the last the beginning of the next. Blooooooody hell, that hurt. On the upside though, I was at 9.5cm.
At this point I knew which breathing pattern I should be doing and switched to the third, as I was feeling the urge to push. I let the midwife know this and also that I would really, really like to use gas and air. She obliged and suggested I kneel up on the bed and hold on to the headboard as that was where the mask was.
The next part is a bit of a blur. I remember breathing very deeply in and out when the gas came through and starting to feel its effects. Some more people came into the room and I was feeling the gas fully then, so in my confused state, I became convinced that they were surgeons and that I need to have a C-section. They started to undress me and asked me to hold out my arms and at that point I may or may not have grabbed one of them on the boob – sorry to whichever one it was! It got more surreal from there and I started to think that I had full understanding of everything – you know, life, the universe and everything. I remember thinking “I need to ask Husband for a paper and pencil when this is over, as I need to write all this fantastic insight down”. Oh yes… powerful stuff that nitrous oxide. The only thing that was distracting me from these amazing thoughts was the woman screaming in the next room – I really wanted her to shut up. I took the mask off for a short while to ask for a glass of water and found that the screaming had stopped. As the gas began to clear from my system in that brief period, I had an even clearer realization: that the woman screaming was me…
Two sips of the water, another urge to push, mask back on, two pushes more and Baby E was born at 00.01 on Saturday 21 January.
Baby E - a few minutes old
So, it was a pretty intense experience all said and done – an hour and a half from waters breaking to Baby E’s arrival, beating Little O’s five hour delivery by some margin. I know they say that subsequent births are quicker than the first, but this really was cutting it fine, as he born just 20 minutes after we arrived at the hospital. I am so very glad that we made the decision to take the nearest hospital, rather than risk Baby E having been born at the side of the motorway on a cold January night!
Two steps forward, one step back
21 February 2012 13 Comments
I’ve been a little quiet online for the past few days because my body decided that now was as good a time as any to get mastitis. Oh yes, and what a delight that has been…
On Sunday evening, Little O, Baby E and I came back from another second birthday party and I started to feel a little sore on my left-hand side, spreading down from under my arm. I could not feel any lumps so I did not think anything more of it. However, by the time I went to bed that night, the pain was worse and I could not turn over in bed. I spent the night sleeping on one side with my hand cupped underneath my breast as that was the only thing that reduced the pain.
Each time that Baby E woke for a feed in the night, I asked Husband to check my forehead (it’s like he has a thermometer in his hand and can detect a fever at ten paces) but there was nothing. By the time I woke on Monday morning though, I felt rotten – like I had the ‘flu (aching limbs, headache, feverish) but without any signs of ‘flu in my nose or throat. When I checked my temperature (with a real thermometer this time), it was at 37.6°, so high but not that high.
I read a couple of books to check and see if it was mastitis (Baby Whisperer and the brilliant What to Expect When You’re Breast-feeding by Clare Byam-Cook, which I highly recommend) and it looked like it could be, although I had no lumps and no red streaks, both of which are typical signs. Both books stressed the importance of consulting your doctor if you suspected mastitis, since it can be fixed without antibiotics if caught early enough.
I decided to call the health information line for Stockholm, where you can get advice from a nurse. The woman I spoke to said that it might be mastitis (mjölkstockning in Swedish) but that I should not bother to go to the doctor as my fever was not high enough to justify it and I should wait and see if I got worse.
I find this reaction from healthcare providers here in Sweden so frustrating. It is just like the reaction I got from the lactation specialist about Baby E’s colic-type problems – that you don’t really have a problem, your case is not that bad and that there is someone worse off than you. Yes, that might all be true but when you’re going through a situation like this, it is very hard to be told each time that you’re making too much out of it. I asked Husband why this is the case and he said that he believes it because too many people go to the doctors, ask for antibiotics and then don’t finish the course of tablets, meaning that the bacteria become immune to the antibiotics. All fair enough, but I still believe it odd that given it is a condition where you are advised in books to head straight to your doctor, they put you off doing just that here.
Anyway, during the day I felt worse and worse, my temperature got higher and higher and the sore area got redder and redder. I defied the health line and called the doctors surgery. Unfortunately, it was too late to get an appointment that day but they helpfully gave me the number to the local drop-in clinic at the hospital a few blocks away, and I arranged an appointment for 6pm.
I was so glad that I made the decision to do this as the doctor I saw there confirmed that it was mastitis and said that it was good that I had come in at that stage as if I had left it longer I would have needed antibiotics. She told me to empty the breast using a pump and showed me a massage technique to do at the same time to try to clear the blockage. I left there so pleased that I had a way to try and solve the problem, that I had managed to avoid having to take antibiotics and also just a little bit pleased that I had been proven right (take that, Vårdguiden!) – childish, I know…
So, I did as the doctor said and hoped for a better night. Unfortunately, I had not managed to avoid the worst of the fever and an hour later I had a fever of 39° again and was wrapped up in bed in pyjamas and a fleece dressing gown with the duvet over me and a wool blanket over that. And a couple of hours after that I was drenched in sweat and kicking all of these off.
But I woke this morning feeling much better and with no fever, so I hope that the pumping, massage and pressing a hot, hot flannel against the sore area when I am feeding Baby E have all helped towards solving the problem.
As they say, things can only get better!
In brief: English, living in Sweden, with my Swedish/Hungarian husband and our sons, Little O and Baby E, and trying to juggle all the different aspects of my new life - the me I was before, the me I am now and the me that I would like to be... 
