I am not sure where the last 21 days have gone, as I was intending to share Jacobs birth story much sooner than this, however I am not sure how I had forgotten just how much a caesarean section hurts!
All the way through Jacob’s pregnancy I knew I was going to have an elective section due to 2 previous caesareans and other than getting a little down at the end of my pregnancy with some people’s ridiculous comments and thoughts on taking the easy way out having a section instead of giving birth it had been a relatively easy pregnancy compared to the last.
However with pre op on the 4th February and my section planned for the 5th February it would be fair to say we were all systems go once we hit February to meet our newest member of the family.
When we arrived at pre-op on the Thursday I was really pleased to hear that my hospital in the 5 years since I had been there having Joshua as developed several new practices, the first that was mentioned was the enhanced recovery – effectively I was given something called pre-loaders that were carbs in a powder form that I had to drink so many the day/night before surgery and then one on the morning of the section as they stopped my body starving and loaded up with carbs like an athlete would do before a big race!
It was vile but I found if I added ice-cold water and then added ice cubes I could neck them … which helped!
The second change the hospital had made was offering delayed cord clamping, which is something I had heard about but never really thought our hospital would offer it. If you haven’t heard about this before it effectively means that instead of clamping the umbilical cord immediately after baby is born its left until its stopped pulsating as 1/3 of baby’s blood supply is still in the placenta when baby is born meaning that by delaying the cord clamping baby gets a full count of red blood cells, stem cells and immune cells.
So knowing this could help with keeping both baby and I in top form we opted to go with delayed cord clamping this time.
On the morning of Friday 5th February we headed off to Kingsmill Hospital nice and early and arrived just before 8am and were taken to the delivery ward.
I was so nervous and yet excited, I don’t remember much of this time period waiting with Joshua so wanted to capture it all in my head so I wouldn’t forget it but know that in time it will fade.
At Just after 9.30 am were given our wonderful hospital clothing, the fabulously airy hospital gown for me and a full set of scrubs for Ollie.
We were then introduced to the anaesthetist who we discovered was the same one who was with us with when we had Joshua nearly 5 years ago!
Just before 10am we headed to the pre op room so I could get a spinal put in place so I could be awake for the surgery, however after the first attempt and it not being successful I did begin to cry and start to freak out, after a while the second attempt finally took and I was wheeled into theatre and it was almost like an inner calm took over ( or more to the point the drugs took over) I literally was away with the faeries!
This section was by far the more surreal of all the sections I have had, and the uncomfortable tugging and pulling was certainly more uncomfortable than either of the others were.
With my other deliveries I had expected someone to shout out the time Jacob was born but with delayed cord clamping I didn’t realise that he had been born for a few minutes and only twigged on when everyone suddenly became busy and Ollie got up and started taking photos but after checking my notes after Jacob arrived at 10.52am on Friday 5th February 2016 weighing in at 8lbs 13.5ozs
This time round even though I knew what to expect I was still totally overwhelmed with his birth and cried for most of the time in surgery.
I may not have got what some claim to be a “natural birth” but for me this is as natural as birth gets and with a healthy baby boy at the end of it … it was a perfect birth for us.
