Janine's stories - Paris and Ayja

PARIS

I was 20 when I found out I was pregnant. It was the end of my first year of nursing training, and wasn't too sure how I'd juggle everything, but I was still pretty sure I could do it. I was due in the middle of the holidays, half way through my 2nd year. My study meant that I didn't really get to rest a lot, and I was working every second weekend. Despite this my pregnancy went very well, I didn't really have any of the problems that everyone else seems to have. The worst I got was a bit of morning sickness early on. It conveniently struck just when I was trying to prepare a pre-Christmas dinner for about 16 people, in my tiny kitchen, on a very hot day. But that's stressful enough to make anyone feel sick. As for weight gain, it was all baby and not much else. At full term I only looked like I was 7 months, and I was told my baby wouldn't be very big, possibly around 5 to 6 pound.

I've walked everywhere all my life, and that never changed. People thought I was a bit nutty, walking to and from town most days for classes, and to my midwife appointments in my lunch hours. Even at full term I was still waddling about and I believe that kept me fit, and helped me have a good labour.

I made a point of reading up as much as I could about everything. I bought magazines full of birth stories to read. Funnily enough I always skipped straight past all the horror stories of long, painful labours, inductions and caesareans, to the stories of quick births. I have no idea why I did this, maybe it was wishful thinking? Reality is, I think I was more scared than anything else. I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to pain. Despite this, I knew I didn't want an epidural, or pethidine unless I really had to, so I decided that I would try everything else first.

When I packed my hospital bag I made sure to put in all the things I thought I'd need - magazines, wheat bags, a TENS machine, barley sugars, crossword puzzle books. You name it, chances are I had it in there! I was planning for a long haul, and was looking forward to having a nice spa up at the hospital.

On the Friday, a week before I was due, I noticed I had a show. It was pretty neat to think that in the next week or so, I was finally going to be a Mum. It was hard to keep it quiet when my Mum came round that day and wanted to go for a walk - I just made up some excuse about not really wanting to go. The weekend passed and was pretty un-eventful. I went to a home expo but left after only a little while because my partner Mike was getting annoyed, as I had to keep going off to the bathroom. I felt quite uncomfy, like baby was pressing on my bladder constantly, but apart from that I was fine. On Monday night I was looking at baby names on the internet. Our girl's name had been picked for months, and I ended up going to bed early because I just couldn't find a boys name that we both liked.

I had a really good sleep, and at 5am on Tuesday I got up for one of those frequent late-pregnancy bathroom trips. I'd barely been back in bed for 5 minutes when I heard a POP! It sort of felt a bit like someone had just popped a balloon in my tummy. I wondered if my waters had broken or not because there was no sign of any liquid - until I stood up, then there was no doubt. I woke up Mike, and told him I didn't think he'd be going to work that day. He just said "cool, can I go back to sleep now?" Since I still had no pains of any sort, I let him sleep and did a last check-over to make sure I hadn't left anything out of my bag.

Contractions started just after 6am. Each one felt like a really nervous cold wave washing over me, and I could feel my tummy tighten, but they weren't painful. I timed a couple and they were coming every 5 minutes or so, some lasted ages, and some barely a few seconds. We rung our midwife Maretta, who suggested I get in the bath to try and make the contractions more regular, and ring her back later.  I will never know how I managed to squeeze into the bath so that I was kneeling, with my arms resting on the side - but somehow I did, and that's where I stayed.

I wanted to be alone, and whenever Mike talked to me, I felt frustrated - so he went and lay on the couch and went back to sleep. I just concentrated on each contraction. I could feel when each one was coming, and I would focus on rubbing my head back and forth along my arms instead of what I was feeling. I still wouldn't call it pain, just that same weird nervous feeling. However, I do remember trying to think of a song to repeat in my head, to take my mind off it. The only one that popped into my head was the Bananas in Pyjamas song, and wouldn't you know it, it stuck there! By now it was 8 o'clock. The contractions were lasting forever, and were coming really close together. I felt like maybe something was happening but I still thought I had hours and hours to go. I got Mike to ring Maretta back. She arrived at 8.30, and practically had to drag me from the bath because I didn't want to get out.

She checked me and found that I was 7 centimetres already. It was finally then that I realised I didn't have far to go. We got to the hospital at quarter to nine. I had a HUGE contraction at the back doors to the delivery suite while we were waiting to go in. It made me double over, and it was just then that a group of people came out the doors. They looked at me, clutching the door frame for dear life, who knows what they thought. Truth is, I really didn't care - I felt cold, sick, and the contractions were relentless. We got up to the delivery suite and at quarter past, I was checked again and told I could push.   

At first it was hard to get it right. I felt like I was getting no-where. Then I changed position so that I was more upright, and that was much better. The baby's head started to keep its place instead of sliding back after each push. When it was crowning Maretta asked if I would like to touch the head. I didn't, I just wanted it out!   Finally, at 11.07am the head was delivered, and the baby just came sliding out without another push. It was a girl! She was put on my tummy, all warm and wet and slimy. It was the best feeling in the world; all I wanted to do was just hold her forever. Mike came and cut the cord - throughout the whole delivery I had made him sit over at the side of the room, only coming over to give me sips of water. I never swore at him, or was nasty - I just didn't want him near me. We did have a bit of a scare a few minutes after the birth though, when the baby was quickly handed to Mike, because I was bleeding more heavily than usual and it wouldn't stop - in those few minutes I was more petrified than I have ever been in my whole life. The midwives managed to sort things out though, and after that everything was fine. I had about 5 stitches for small grazes, where I had torn upwards and sideways, but nothing too major.

After all my preparations, my bag of goodies was never opened. I didn't get my spa, I didn't even have any pain relief! Paris Harmony was born on Tuesday the 5th of August, after a mere 5 hours of labour. She weighed 7lb 3oz (so much for that "small" baby!) She had olive skin, dark eyes and lots of beautiful black hair. 

I never thought I would give birth with no pain relief, and so quickly. It was just like something I had read in those magazine birth stories. Maybe all that wishing came true.

 

AYJA

Little miss Ayja was a very different pregnancy from Paris - I had morning sickness this time, got a hernia, had to have a growth scan because she decided it would be funny to sit low and worry us all. I think at 33 weeks I measured 28 and it was going backwards! Waiting that week for the scan was so worrying, all to find out that no, she was perfect size and nothing to worry about - just not too much fluid around her.

Then I got that horrible symphysis pubis pain and just couldn't wait for her to GET THE HELL OUT! I would take 10 mins to get out of bed at night, rolling ever so carefully using my night-shirt to pull myself around because I couldn't use my hips. I would sitck a pillow between my knees while I crawled off the bed backwards and waited for it all to click back in to place - with a huge amount of pain.

For a few weeks I was down to shuffling everywhere because it was so hard to walk, but mainly night times were the worst - I actually dreaded going to bed each night. Paris thought it was great because she got to sleep in our bed alot: there was no way I was getting up to her 10 times a night. I would just put her in our bed the first time she woke if she was having a bad night.

To top it all off, my midwife got an offer of an overseas holiday that no-one could refuse, (I told her she'd be nuts not to go so leave already!!) which meant I would get a different midwife to care for me during the last few weeks, and labour. It wasn't that bad though as she had been my little sister's midwife so I knew her.

I tried to get across to her that my last birth had been quick but I'm not sure she believed me, and she told me all about the different stages each woman went through. I thought: "Ok lady, with Paris I skipped most of those stages,but hey, whatever.."

I kept telling everyone that nope there was no going full term: I would go early.

So, when I started having contractions at 1am on a Saturday about 2 weeks from my due date I thought, "YAY! Finally I can have this baby". My older sister was scheduled to come a week later - she was supposed to stay with Paris while I went to the hospital. So off went Mike in the middle of the night to get my mum to stay with her instead. They got back and slowly the contractions slowed down, and stopped at about 4am.

Paris woke up the next morning and wondered what was going on: Nana was here sleeping on the couch, but Mummy was still here too, and there was NO BABY?? I felt really cheated, I'm pretty sure she did too. So, I gave my sister a ring and told her she might have to change her ticket because otherwise she might not make it. She changed it to the Wednesday, which i thought was reasonable - I could wait that long, surely. 

The weekend was pretty uneventful, and on Tuesday, I even went into town and did a few last minute things, collected Paris from daycare, and walked home. It just felt like everything was calm as calm, and baby was happy where she was and was never coming out. That night, Mike decided that he would take advantage of the fact that i was feeling pretty ok for once, especially since my older sister would be arriving by bus the next day, so there wouldn't be another chance for any "relations" to happen.

I went to sleep about 11pm, I still felt very calm, no twinges or anything. I woke again at 1am, with a very slight period painy cramp and thought, "Ok, what a load of bollocks, here we go again, another false alarm..."

The cramps were about 20 minutes apart, not lasting very long at all and were very irregular. They weren't even that strong, and so I stayed in bed. At about 2.30am I thought, ok, maybe things might be happening, and got up to make sure everything was ready for Paris the next morning in case i had to go in to the hospital.

The cramps were about 10 mins apart still, lasting as long as a sneeze, but a little more painful. So i rang Mum, and asked her if she would mind bunking on our couch again.

Mike went off to get her, and things started getting a bit more painful, but still really irregular. I rang my sister and told her that she was probably going to miss out on everything. She was a bit dissapointed but hey, what could i do? I rang the midwife too, who was already up at the hospital with another lady, and she listened to me on the phone, and decided that I musn't be too far along really, so I should stay at home as long as possible, and "ring her in a few hours if I still felt like I needed to come into hospital". That made me a little angry really, but Mike wasn't back yet anyway.

I thought maybe i should hop in the bath to take the edge off - but then remembered last time it had made everything much stronger and faster - so i decided to wait for Mike to get back (I had been having dreams for weeks before hand that baby was delivered on the bathroom floor, so there was no way I was tempting fate!)

Mike and Mum finally got back, and I got into the bath.  BAM - just like that, contractions were on top of each other, reallllly painful and lasting at least a minute and a half. They were even making me violently physically sick, which I hadn't had last time. I thought "Stuff this, I'm going to the hospital, I don't care what the midwife says" .

Mike rang her again, she was still busy with the other lady, and told him that if it made me feel better, then go up to the hospital.

I had hopped into the bath at 3am. It took me the better part of 45 minutes to actually drag myself out, and get dressed. I managed to make it out on to the bathroom floor, but each time I tried to stand up, I would get another contraction and end up crumpled on the floor again. Finally after Mike coming in and out of the bathroom a few times, I told him he'd just have to help me get dressed. I threw on something, I can't really remember what, and crawled about the lounge trying to put on my shoes, which mum and mike ended up doing for me. Away we went. I had a few contractions walking down our flight of stairs, which is not a nice experience, and to top it off, Mike decided he would park as far away from the entrance to the delivery suite as humanly possible. I crawled a good part of way inside from the carpark after stopping to feed the plants along the way. This was hurting much more than last time.

I crawled into the lift, and out again, and was met at delivery suite by my new midwife, who told me she was still busy with this other lady, who would probably deliver soon - but she'd get another midwife to watch me for a while, and she'd be in to check me later.

I got to the room about 4am, and plonked myself at the bottom end of the bed, head on my arms, sitting on the floor. I was asked if I wanted a shower, as there was no bath there. I told them, "No thank you, I can't actually stand!"

After about 10 minutes, they finally managed to get me up onto the bed, with much coaxing. The midwife said she had called in another one of her colleagues to come and take care of me as the other lady was having a few problems, so she really needed to stay with her. I thought: "Great! ANOTHER midwife!"

The other midwife arrived within 5 minutes though, and was great. She checked me - which no-one else had before then - and found that I was 7 cms, with a huge bag of bulging waters. No wonder I was feeling so much pain and pressure! She broke my waters at 4.15am which was a huge relief, and I asked her how long she thought it would be before we had baby. About an hour or so was her response.

No - 10 minutes later at 4.25 am I had the urge to push, she checked and sure enough I was ready to go. There was no-one else to help her out, so Mike had to come over to help and hold my legs. After 10 minutes of pushing, at 4.35 am, baby shot out, with a gush of fluid that went all over Mike! Poor guy! Never in my life have I been so relieved!

The other lady in labour was still contracting away, but had heard when I had Ayja (I didn't know I had been so noisy!) and apparently started crying, and told the midwife it wasn't fair: she was here first, how could I have baby before her?! It reminded me of the Friends episode where Rachel is waiting and waiting and everyone else has their babies first.

2 hours later, when i was being wheeled off to the postnatal ward, she was going off for an emergency c-section. My sister got the call to say that she would be able to come and see the new baby once she got off the bus from Hamilton that afternoon, and the best thing was that Mike was back home in time to tell Paris when she woke up the next morning.

Our baby was much different than we had expected: we thought we would have another decent-sized baby(if not bigger), with dark hair and olive skin, just like Paris. Boy were we wrong! Ayja was a tiny little red head, with fair skin. They put her on the scales, and we were really surprised that she was only 2800gm, a real lightweight compared to her older sister, and so completely different.

And that's the way it has stayed - sometimes people say how alike they are becoming, I usually laugh at them. They couldn't be more different, in looks and temperament. Paris is tall, and quiet, and usually well-spoken. Ayja is a fiesty tiny firecracker, very rough, and playful and mischievious. It's been so different all the way and I'm pretty sure it will continue to be. I can't really compare them, because they are just so different.

All I know is second time around was so much harder and more painful for me, but I still got away with no pain relief (maybe i'm just crazy)... It surely taught me that I do know my body best - i don't fit in the with text books, so if it ever happens again (a very unlikely event) then my midwife had better take me seriously when I say it's going to be fast!