Introducing Elena !

Hello world !

Now that my delivery story is done and dusted, its time to meet my little baby Elena !

Introducing Elena K

If that's how wonderful it feels to be a mum, I would say my 35 hour ordeal was worth it! 

Now i stayed at the hospital for about 5 days, and all I did (apart from feeding) was look at her sleep! 

They say that sleep when the baby sleeps... well that's hard, when you have a tiny little miracle yawning and snoring beside you. 

I will be posting a lot more about my adventures with Elena in my following posts. 

Xx

PJ

 

Delivery Diaries - Day 2

 

Welcome back everyone!

I had a lot of requests on Instagram to share the rest of the story quickly. I am really excited to know that you guys want to read more. So here we are sooner than I expected. 

Elena is nicely tucked into bed, Mr K is watching a movie on Netflix and I am in front of my laptop with a hot chocolate by my side,  life couldn't be better! 

If you have missed reading the part one of my delivery story you can find it here.

Honestly when I think back I can hardly remember that it went on for so long. I had no sense of time what so ever. So it is with my husband's help (who is a master at dates and time, tends to remember it all )  that I am able to write this down. 

21 Feb 2016

12:00 AM

It was time to move to the delivery suite. 

12:15 AM

I was being told that I am going to have the baby today, I was given a nice delivery suite, but it had no birthing pool , as my hospital has about 4-5 of them in certain rooms and they were all quite full. My midwife said " you picked a very busy day to deliver!" (as if I had a choice ? )  

01:00 AM

My mom and husband were my birthing partners. We could pick two so I thought mom will be an added support, and I was right. She kept me sane.

I always thought I would act all crazy during contractions because my pain threshold is not that great.

But now when i think back I survived on Gas & Air for most of it. 

3:00 AM

I had 2 midwifes , they kept monitoring me and while the pains came and went the student midwife kept checking on me and kept telling me to breath in and out. I think i concentrated on her voice and kept going, with my mom and husband taking turns to hold my hand. 

4:00 AM

I tried sitting and swaying myself from side to side on a birthing ball. Surprisingly I felt good and in control again. I moved around the room a little as and when i could and went back to the ball when i felt a little tired. 

5:00 AM 

It was time for a shift change for the midwifes. Then came in my actual midwife Jill , who seemed to know what she was doing. She asked me if I wanted to change but i didn't want to so I was still in my long Tee. 

Later things went on and I was trying to move around as much as i could. 

09:00 AM

When they checked my blood sugars it turned out high and went on climbing every 30 mins,

 even when I had had nothing to eat since last evening. I was stressed about a phone call that had come in some time ago to my husband, and even in so much pain I could hear little bit of what was going on. Sparing the details on that, I think that was the reason for my sudden blood sugar rise. 

Tip- As hard as it is, don't think about anything else but to get the baby out and how it will feel to hold baby in your arms !

9:30 AM

Following another blood sugar test it was decided to give me an insulin shot to keep it under control. Because high sugar could create complications in the delivery and to the baby. I got the shot. I am not afraid of needles so it didn't matter. I decided to calm myself down and kept on with the Gas & Air. 

Meanwhile my husband helped me with servings of cold water. All the Gas & Air wasn't easy on the lips too. So had to keep using my chap stick. 

11:00 AM

With my sugar under control, Jill noticed that my contractions were now slowing down, not that I noticed, it didn't seem any less painful. But by now I was very tired. Then came in a student midwife (who was warmer and quite friendly) and what a coincidence , her name was Elena ! She asked me if I was happy that she helped Jill with the delivery. She kept talking to me to keep me awake and kept saying its not too long now.

11:15 AM

Jill asked me if I wanted any other pain relief because they were going to offer me an hormone drip to speed up the labor since I had been at it for so long and I was gestational diabetic. I decided it was time to say yes to epidural. Soon my room was filled with doctors, my consulting doctor came to me and asked if i was sure I wanted Epidural, I was so much in pain I screamed " Just give it to me !! " I was at the verge of crying. 

11:30 AM

I was 8 cm dilated by now. And for the last 2 cms I couldn't hold on ! I was given epidural. It took a while to kick in and I remember feeling a little better. But soon the hormonal drip started and all hell broke loose. 

12:45 PM 

By now I had this serious urge to push. Jill told me not to push until she said so. Apparently if you listen to your midwife and push when its the right time to, you are likely to have less tears. 

But my case was different, I was already having the worst pain of my life and that great urge to push. I kept screaming to Jill 

Me - " I cant hold on any longer" 

Jill -  " I will take a look , I am supposed to do this about 30 mins later, but let me check. "

Jill & Elena together - "That looks like the head ! Baby is coming !" 

Jill - Ok Pooja , We need to do this now, looks like baby is on the way, take a deep breath and push!! 

The room around me shifted. there was so much chaos , Mom was holding my hand almost in tears, Hubby was standing beside me rubbing my forehead and I think I spied a tear in his eye too. Everyone was shouting one big push, one big push! By world ! that was the biggest push of my life.

1:00 PM

With one last push, all of a sudden there she was ! I could hear her cry ..... I was crying my guts out myself. and when they put her in my arm..... It felt magical.... 

All my pain was gone , Baby Elena was in my arms and she was looking at me with her eyes wide open, her head full of beautiful black hair ( no wonder I had major heart burn throughout the pregnancy) I think all mothers, would agree with me on this, the first time you hold your baby in your arms its something that will live with you forever. 

1:15 PM

She was out barely 15 mins and my midwifes were saying she is not breathing properly. I couldn't believe my ears, they said that Elena has swallowed some meconium (which is baby's first poo). 

She was quickly taken away from me and pediatric nursers were filling the room , one of the senior nurses put something quickly into Elena's mouth and made her puke all the meconium out. But it was decided she will be put on oxygen for a while. She was taken quickly upstairs to the Buscot ward, special care baby unit.

I think it was after a few hours that I got to see her again. By 9:00 PM she was sent to my room. 

So this was my story of a long and tiring labor. But if I was to do it again I totally would. Don't ever get nervous about how it will be, coz every pregnancy is different and so is every labor. I am glad that Elena was  born to us. It has been such a fantastic journey since then. 

Don't get me wrong, there are ups and downs of motherhood (I will be sharing it all) but nonetheless it's has been a life changing experience. 

Here is the first ever picture of Elena, 

One that my husband took on his phone. 

That one moment when she was given in my arms and our eyes met ! I always thought that babies have their eyes closed but I was so pleasantly surprised to see that she had her eyes wide open. 

Bless the mid wife's who work so hard for everything ! I am truly thankful to my hospital for making it a truly great birthing experience for me.

In retrospect if you are in the UK and your hospital asks you to wait at home as long as possible, do it for as long as you think it's safe for you. I found that it was good that I waited at home for as long as i did because I was with my family, in a familiar environment and I was free to move around or take hot baths as and when I needed them. Somehow I think waiting at home made it possible for me to get through the pain and I wasn't as tired as I could have been had I had been in the hospital since one day before. It would have been really demoralizing.  

So trust the midwifes and listen to your body. Don't let anyone scare you of labor and giving birth, because trust me,  your body was made to handle it and you  got this ladies! 

With that thought I leave you. 

Hope you all have a positive birthing experience. 

Cheerio,

PJ

Delivery Diaries - Day 1

From what i have heard, giving birth is always going to be a unique experience for every woman, even if you have done it before. This being my first, I was thrilled and nervous at the same time.
It has taken me a long time to pen down my delivery story, my first priority being my baby girl.
But here I am! Better late than never isn't it ?

If you are wondering why am i calling it delivery "diaries" - "Day 1", well I am among those women who had an awfully long labor. If i calculate from the time I started to have my first real contraction at home till baby Elena came out, it went on for about 35 hours to be exact.
I was under so much pain that we didn't think about taking any pictures (hopefully next time :D if that ever happens)

So here it goes

Since I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in the 8th month of my pregnancy, I was to be induced on the 20th of Feb 2016, we picked that date because it was a Saturday and hubby could be home and such, without wasting any of his paternity leaves.
Last few days had been very difficult to go by for me and my family. We were all excited that the baby will be here soon and I for one, wanted my contractions to start naturally.
I had a disappointing phone call on the 19th of Feb from my hospital saying - my induction will have to be moved to 22nd of Feb due to overbooking and lots of unplanned inductions that happened that day. Since I wasn't as high risk I had to be moved. Since the NHS provides free maternity care and my hospital is considered one of the best ones in the county , I couldn't do much than to say yes.
 But little did i know.... that my wish was about to be granted and granted good !

By late evening on the 19th I felt like having Pizza! Yes ! Pizza !
I told my husband , "This baby isn't coming out until it has had that slice of pizza ! "
And we had it ... Dominoes to the rescue !
Later I went to bed around 10pm British time, slept maybe for a few hours when my contractions started.

20 Feb 2016,

 2:00 AM 

I woke up with a lot of pain. It was probably going on for a while but this was when the real contractions started to kick in and woke me up. My first instinct before i woke anyone up was to record the time and gap between the contractions. I used the mothercare app , which has a contraction timer . At this time the contractions were coming and going , i would fall asleep and suddenly wake up with a lot of pain.

4:00 AM

By this time things got more intense, the pain was a lot more than before but it would last about 8-9 seconds and go away.

9:00 AM

This was when i finally gave in and woke my husband up , he took my hand and together we started counting the contractions. The pain was coming and going in waves like it should but the duration between two contractions was still not enough to go to the hospital.

12:00 PM

By noon I was feeling much better and i could walk normally and I was back to my normal self . The pains still came and went but the duration between two was getting longer. By this point I thought it was a false alarm.

5:00 PM

Had tea and toast , The pains were back again with much more intensity than before.

6:00 PM

It was hard to stand , and I found it difficult to manage the pain.

8:00 PM

I had my Dinner , and now the pains and the intensity was much increased. Little did i know that this was just the beginning ! My husband called the hospital to report my situation we were advised to stay at home and wait it out a bit. I was to continue my day as usual and practice breathing exercises ! Our collective feeling at that time was FRUSTRATION !

10:00 PM

By this time I was in horrible pain, we called the hospital again , they asked me if there was any sign of water breakage and there wasn't , so I was advised to take a hot bath and keep doing the breathing exercises at home. I did take a warm bath and it did feel nice to be honest, but it didn't last, as soon as I came out of the shower all the comfort was gone.

11:00 PM

An hour later it was just unmanageable pain ! I couldn't stand without support and I was constantly bending forward keeping my hands on a table and swaying from side to side to relive the pain , after a few minuets when i went to the loo , I saw the mucus plug going down and I knew it was time. But there was still no sign of water breakage but i couldn't be sure. Hubby called the hospital the 3rd time and said "that's it she is not going to hold on any longer !" and we were asked to come to the hospital.

11:10 PM

A taxi was called , I had no time to change, thankfully I was in my yoga pants and a large comfy Tee. I could see the panic in my husbands eyes... as i mentally prepared myself that this is going to happen now and by morning I will be meeting my darling Elena !

11:30 PM 

We reached the hospital and went to the labor ward , where I was taken into a assessment room . After a few assessments and about 30 mins of monitoring of contractions with baby heart beat It was determined that I was ready to be admitted! I was almost 5 cm dilated already, half way there.
I was already on Gas and Air to relive the pain. It was quite helpful.

12:00 AM

It was time to move to the Delivery suit.


To be continued .....
The rest of the story is coming soon with an introduction of Baby Elena ! :)

Cheers
PJ