07 May, 2007

More new on our baby

Here is our little baby giving his arm a suck.



Rosa had a long labour that started when I got back from a poker night. She had been having period pains about every fifteen minutes for a few hours, but they got a lot stronger and regular when I got home.


We turned the lights down low and tried to settle down for the night, although Rosa didn't like to lie down as she had to get up when the contractions began and moan whilst on all fours, with her arms up on her gym ball (large inflatable silver ball).

From midnight until seven she had contractions every five minutes, we phoned the midwives at one am, when we =sure this was "it" and at four they came to check how we were doing. At seven Rosa's sister, Beth, joined us to help out. Beth was fantastic, she sat calmly by Rosa, rubbed her back stroked her hair and held the glass as she had water through a straw.
The labour carried on and on and by about midday tRosa's waters still hadn't broken and she was dying to get into the birth pool (a large pool-in-a-box which is brilliant. It's an enormous paddling pool with wide, heigh sides and room for two people comfortable, or four intimate 'friends').

Unfortunately her temperature was quite high and the midwife was worried that if she got in the pool her labour might reverse a bit (stop having such regular strong contractions). By about 2pm, she was allowed into the pool, took the TENS machine off (a little device which does magic - can't be arsed to explain, sorry.) and got in.
It was probably about 3pm, when she was still labouring away, we allowed the midwife another internal inspection to see how we were doing. and as most her cervix had dilated and the baby's head was coming right down, the midwife said she would burst the waters. She got a little plastic stick with a hook on the end, inserted into Rosa's vagina and with an enormous splash all this water and muck came out. Rosa couldn't see at the time, but I was crestfallen to see that it had lots of brown and green bits in it.
This doesn't mean that the baby's disintegrated thankfully, but it did mean that the amniotic fluid (waters) had myconeum (baby poo) in them, which was dangerous for the baby, if he had inhaled any of them. From here on the baby would have to be closely monitored and specialised equipment would need to be on hand if there were any problems.
Gone were our hopes of a relatively relaxing birth at home.

The ambulance came at half three. I feel as I write this that I'm going on a bit, so if you're still with me, this about the same feeling we were having at the time, your average labour would be finishing up by now, whereas Rosa had been crying out to push for about an hour and hadn't yet been allowed that privilege. In fact for the next hour and a half all of her remaining energies were used up just straining against her muscle's urges to push.

Eventually, though she was exhausted and despairing she lay on the bed on her side and as she pushed I could see a baby's head starting to appear. At five o'clock a shit-covered little baby boy stuck his head out from between her legs, facing her bum and blinked. Two pushes later he was out and started crying like you would not believe. He was wrapped up warm and had a little hat put on him, and that is as you see in the video at the top of this post.

Rosa had to stay over at the hospital in case there were any problems with his breathing or anything else. But so far, he has been perfect. Hallelujah! Here are some pictures from my visit today:

Baby Sadler Looking thoughtful

The youngest CEO in the world




I came back to get some rest myself before the baby came home and all I've done is laundry, emptying the birth pool and this post. I can't help it I'm too excited.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to you all!

Anonymous said...

Pippin! Hello me old mucka, good god! A new little baby, a mini Pippin! I've been trying to contact you for ages. It's Matt with the Cow. I'm going to bookmark this site and see if you still check it out, then i'll try and pass on my e-mail address to you.

I've been trying to call for years, to one of your old numbers in Bristol and to an old phone number that I think was your parents house that you gave me back in '97. Not had any luck contacting you since 2003, have been trying on and off every year since then. Last had your sun-alliance e-mail but you dropped off the face of the earth since then.

In the last couple of weeks I finally got an Internet connection and stumbled my way here.

You little boy must be coming up for 18 months or so, and you're a performance poet? Fantastic.

Hopefully you'll read this and I can keep in touch.

Smokle me a kipper skipper, Matt with the Cow.