So along came my baby girl, Rosie Cat Redford, on Monday this week. We're adapting fast to family life and have our second sleepless night together just ahead of us. Ruth and Rosie and cuddled up on the sofa so I'm taking the chance to update my blog while the experience of childbirth is still fresh in my mind.
Things started on Sunday night at 9pm, just as I was soaking in the bath with sore thighs from football that morning (we won a cup game against our arch rivals South London Lions 5-3). So, while I was planning an early night to bed and work the next day, Ruth hit me with the thunderbolt of her first contraction. She was pretty sure that the sharp pain she felt couldn't be anything else and, although my first instinct was to jump out of the bath and prepare for a home birth, Ruth wisely told me to relax as we had a long night ahead of us. How right she was!
Our nesting instinct kicked in very strong at this point, with Ruth clearing the kitchen while my task was to ready the living room by rearranging sofas and inflating the birth pool. I also laid down plastic covers and old sheets on the sofas and lit some candles. Having had a practice run with the birth pool, I managed to get the liner on and started filling it within half an hour, and thankfully the hot water was on constant so we managed to get a good temperature of close to 40C. To begin with, Ruth was happy to bounce on her exercise ball, use the TENS machine and go down on all fours and grab the sofa if the pain got too intense, but eventually when the contractions were just 3-4mins apart we called the midwife and she arrived after about an hour. Elaine checked Ruth over at about 2am and said that she was 4cm dilated and in established labour, then left us saying she'd be back in 30 mins, so Ruth got in the birth pool.
At this point, the contractions started getting very intense but Ruth managed to control them with deep breathing, despite the occasional need to writhe around and bang her head on the outer chamber of the pool. After an hour, Ruth began to get restless that the midwife hadn't returned but I just tried to reassure her and provide drinks and moral support. We began to worry when it got to 4am and Ruth wanted to push, but there was still no midwife, so I rang the delivery suite and explained the urgency of the situation. At first, they seemed a bit complacent and happy to emphasise that first labours often took a long time, and one midwife even said it was up to us to decide if we wanted to stay at home and wait or come into the hospital. When I insisted that we wanted a midwife at home now, they managed to get the midwife supervisor Jackie out of bed and she arrived in an hour.
As soon as Jackie arrived, my stress levels dropped massively and Ruth also relaxed, although the lack of midwives for the last few hours had stopped her wanting to push and this arguably slowed the whole labour process down. I should say straight away though that, despite the NHS midwife team at Queen Elizabeth being short-staffed and under-resourced, each of the midwives that attended to us provided an amazing level of care. Jackie especially helped Ruth through the early hours and had the patience of a saint as the contractions began to slow as we approached daylight, and even took the time to read Ruth's birth plan to understand how much she wanted a natural delivery. But by 7-8am, Ruth was completely exhausted and we tried various positions on the couch and squatting to help push the baby out, and Ruth even took to walking up and down the stairs to get contractions started again, but we were both frazzled and frustrated by the waiting game, as well as the intensity of the situation. So Jackie gave us three options - i) keep treading the stairs and hope the contractions recommence, ii) go back to sleep and hope the contractions return later (the controversial option), or iii) go into hospital and take a syntocinon drip to kickstart contractions.
We took the latter route and an ambulance turned up at around 10am and we all headed to the QE hospital, arriving 20mins later after having to turn around at the new width restrictions outside the Meridian sports ground. Ruth decided against a wheelchair and waddled through the entrance in her dressing gown, ignoring the stares of those standing by. We were quickly whisked to a delivery room, and the next 2 hours were so intense and such a rollercoaster emotionally, that words really fail to do it justice. Suffice to say that, after some incredible bravery and superhuman pushing from Ruth, Rosie Cat Redford came into this world at 13:05 on Monday 28th September weighing just shy of 8lb. She screamed and screamed, had a conical shape head and was purplish blue in colour but she still looked like the loveliest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I'm not too proud to say that my eyes welled up as we shared those first few moments as a new family.
So, we didn't quite get the home birth we planned and there were further complications with a retained placenta, which meant Ruth had to go into theatre and stay in hospital overnight while I returned home, but overall the whole experience was incredibly moving despite all the challenges. As well as the patience and care shown by the midwives, the NHS staff at the QE hospital were wonderful with Ruth, even when she caused a fire alarm by taking a shower and causing steam to filter out from under the door and trigger the smoke detector. We're home now after various check-ups and all is fine, so we're really looking forward to a happy family together despite already being bleary eyed from last night's screaming and nappy changing. Happy days!
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