Recovery Room after the Birth

I take my book with me to the recovery room - I remember the last time I just couldn't manage to sleep and it was awfully boring there all that time - this time I was just happy to watch people come and go.

On arrival they put blankets over you, stick a heater with a pipe under the blanket and heat you up - quite pleasant really...

A nurse checks me every fifteen minutes asking if I can feel my legs or if I have pain... the time passes quite quickly - I don't know for sure, but I feel I had different drugs this time, I'm much calmer and don't feel in such a rush to get out. The head nurse is very good in reassuring you that you will soon be with your baby.

You get a couple of visits from the mid-wife who comes to feel your stomach and make sure that the uterus is going back to it's normal state - they also check the blood flow. Also, I forgot to mention that you also now have a catheter fitted.

And before you know it you are being wheeled back to the bedroom... where your husband has been sitting with a coffee and a puzzle book for some time... and off he runs to the nursery to fetch the baby back.....and she is delivered along with her carnet de sante and the paper to register her birth at the mairie.

Finally....

Baby Eloise Niamh arrived today by c-section at 0835hrs. She weighed 3.57kg and is 51cm long. More anon.

D- Day for the C-Section

I'm woken before 7.30am by a mid-wife bringing in a drip bag stand and the baby monitor - I have to get up straight away and have a shower with the awful yellow stuff again. I change into my dark blue paper nightie with nothing on underneath it and a paper bag for my head. I forgot to mention that last night I was also partially shaved 'down there'.

I have a needle put into my wrist for the drip to be inserted into later and taped into place - this is one of the worst things about the c-section - the drip catches on everything, pulls and is just a pain, well a pain in the wrist for the next few days. Then my husband arrives....

I'm put on the baby monitor for a short while to check baby is well and before I know it, the mid-wife comes to get me - wraps me in a sheet and I walk the few metres to the operating block - where they take off my slippers and put paper slippers on each foot... and we leave my husband there.

I enter the surgery room and am sat on the stainless steel operating table with just a nurse there opening up big paper parcels of surgical instruments. The anaesthetist arrives is very jokey - exactly the same as I remember him 4 years ago. Then there are 2 mid-wives there (I think one was a student) and a young male doctor - By this time I am totally frozen - I've been taken from a sub-tropical bedroom (at least 25C) to what feels like 17C or below... wearing virtually nothing...

They sit me on the edge of the table and I lean against the doctor whilst the epidural is injected into my back (this time it's one injection) - last time as I was in labour and didn't know that a c-section was going to happen the epidural was drip-format that they could top it up. This is uncomfortable but bearable. Before I have chance to put my legs on the table I can't feel below my left knee and I'm helped to lie down. I'm then given a relaxant and a painkiller into my wrist drip. Within minutes I'm numb from the chest down.

The gyne / obstetrician that has followed me throughout this (and the last) pregnancy and birth (also c-section) arrives. My stomach is covered in red stuff and a curtain is pulled up so I can't see what's going on. Then they get to work - within a few minutes my blood pressure drops somewhat and I feel like I'm going to be sick (difficult as I haven't eaten anything..)... I managed to mutter 'vomit' and the anaesthetist makes a witty comment about me hanging onto my haricots and gives me a cardboard bowl - he sees my blood pressure has dropped and gives me some more drugs of somekind.

By this time I feel like I've had 10 gin & tonics and feel very happy indeed. The doctor and my gyne then both push down on my stomach with their full weight, the reason for the c-section is that my baby hasn't descended (no one knows why...) and some strength is needed to push her out... then Eloise arrives - and cries... I get to see her for a quick kiss and she's taken away.

45 minutes of being sewn up (7 layers of disolvable stitches) and idle chatter with the doctors (yes it's a totally bizarre feeling) and listening to Eloise screaming her head off in the room next door (I later find out that she had a lot of mucus in her that they had to suck out). I also ask to see the placenta, which looks just like a large piece of liver....

I'm wheeled out of the surgery and find my husband holding Eloise - they wheel me into a side room (which looks like it's normallyused for storeage) for me to be with Eloise for 10 mins and breast feed her.

As the delivery rooms are all busy, I can't stay with her now - I have to go to the recovery room for 3 hours for monitoring which is really sad but unavoidable.
Eloise goes to the nursery and husband goes back to my bedroom to wait for me. It's not even 0930hrs...

Last Visit to Gyne?

My final visit to the gyne today - we think.

He does an internal examination, checks my blood pressure which is normally 11 and today is 13.5! and measures my stomach - pronouncing that it's going to be a beau baby!

He ponders about a 'radio' / x-ray on my pelvis while he is considering whether to do a c-section (like last time as the baby is 'too high') .... but then we go and have another scan. The baby already weighs 3.5kgs (7lbs 7) and he reckons that at the birth she will weigh 3.8kgs (8lbs 4 oz - 'eck it's an elephant not a baby...) at this point he says it's not worth even doing the radio as she is so big - and then comments that a big stomach means a big baby... you saying I'm fat???

So we are booked in for a c-section at 8am on 29th September - going into the clinique at 1730hrs on 28th September and the grandparents have been booked to come down... that is, unless I got pop beforehand.

I've also been booked in for a 'monitoring' on 22nd September at the sage femme in the Polygone.

Euro45 for the visit.

Final Lab Visit

Today is our final visit (we hope) to the lab for 6 (yes 6!) vials of blood to be taken out of my arm ... a kind of smear test for Strep B and a urine test.

Test results take a little longer - I have to go back Saturday to get them.

The smear test is to avoid the infection that babies can get when in the birth canal during birth.

Next appointment is Monday to find out if we need a c-section or not now.

Regular Gyne appointment

Into Montpellier today for my gyne appointment - 34 weeks..

The baby is a good weight - I've only gained 1 kilo since the last RDV. The baby is apparently very high and he doesn't think it's going to come out on it's own!

We have another appointment on 15th September to make a decision about whether to let nature take it's course or book a c-section in... depending on the weight and position of the baby. The c-section would be booked for the last week in September - i.e. a week before the normal due date of 5th October, so the baby doesn't get too big.

29th August I'm off to the clinique for the epidural appointment and have a prescription to go to the lab (after 5th September) for more toxoplasmosis tests and a vaginal swab to test for Strep B for the birth.

I asked why the baby wasn't decending as normal (same thing happened with baby no 1) - he said during the last c-section he noticed no malformation of my uterus and it's just one of those things.

Euro45 for the appointment.

Third Scan at the Gyne

We have an appointment today with the stand-in gyne (it's August - EVERYBODY IS ON HOLIDAY) at 0930hrs - we turn up early at 0915hrs - 2 minutes in the waiting room and we're straight in.

A 15 minutes scan and baby is well and is a good weight etc for 33/34 weeks - he asks if we are definitely booked in for another c-section - I said my normal gyne said he didn't know if it would be a normal birth or not. It looks like we are going to have an x-ray of my pelvis done next time.

Then I'm weighed and given a quick internal examination - Euro90 later and we're out of the office before 0945hrs!

Next appointment 22 August, with the appointment at the hospital to check for the epidural on 29th August.