19 Days Later...

Samantha Elizabeth Squire is 19 days old now, and at last I have simultaneously got the time and the emotional energy to write!

The short story is: Samantha is a beautiful healthy baby girl. She was born at 0416 on Thursday 15th October, weighing in at 3.51 kg. After some (normal) initial weight loss she is generally breastfeeding well and has now almost recovered her birth weight.

Here is a comparison of the vital stats on the labour and birth:


As you can see, there were lots of things that were a lot better second time around. As Midwife Victoria says, "No-one should have to have a first baby!" (Sorry to anyone who hasn't had their first baby yet.) In fact, the worst thing about the whole experience this time was having my tear stitched up afterwards. That's not to say the labour and birth didn't hurt this time! But it didn't hurt for as long, so the recovery was much easier.

Unfortunately, after a terrific birth experience, our family has had a tough first fortnight...

The first problem was that due to my fast & furious labour, I didn't get the IV antibiotics I needed to protect Sam from a Group B Strep infection during the birth. I tested GBS+ while pregnant with Cassie. This infection has no effect on adult carriers, but can cause serious problems including meningitis for babies infected during the delivery.

We monitored Sam by taking her temperature every 2 hours or so during the first day; it was a little high but not quite in the danger range. So, we were just about to head home with her 13 hours after the birth (Geoff was literally about to put her in the car seat) when we were told to stay in hospital for another 24 hours of observations. They took a blood test that night at 3am and it turns out Sam had a high white blood cell count. This was consistent with infection, so they decided to start her on 2 kinds of antibiotics. We then stayed in hospital for another 3 days for antibiotics and further observations. The good news is, no bugs grew in the blood cultures - the suspected infection was probably a false alarm. We still don't know what caused the high temp and the high white cell count.

I was very pleased to head home by Monday 19th - hospital is neither pleasant nor restful. Actually, I found the whole sense of isolation from family (especially Cassie), friends, community, weather and time to be very depressing.

Unfortunately, we still had to wait a few more days for a whole family to come together under the one roof. Cassie came down with croup on Friday 16th, with the first signs becoming evident about 1 hour after she'd given Sam a big, infectious "kissy cuddle". I'd heard of croup, probably in period dramas or novels, but didn't know much about it. It's a respiratory inflamation caused by various viruses. It can land kids in intensive care. Luckily, Cassie only needed the GP. It was still very stressful though. It's also been stressful worrying about whether she passed the illness to Sam. So far so good on that front.

Cassie spent a few days in isolation with her grandparents, and came back home to us last Saturday. She's enjoying her little sister, but has been generally a bit more naughty than usual as she adjusts to the new shape of our family. I guess this is to be expected.

Our only other stress is that Sam has occasional days where she feeds very poorly and vomits. This was really worrying, but seems to be gradually improving over time.

39.5 weeks and into uncharted territory

Warning: This entry is a bit of a whinge.

I'm now only 5 days out from the official due date of 19 October. This date is based on the ultrasound conducted at 5.5 weeks when I had bleeding issues. Apparently the earliest scan is the most likely to provide an accurate date since there is greater variation between fetuses at later scans. At the time the baby was only 2mm long from crown to rump...it's a lot bigger now!

I've now entered uncharted territory as Cassie was born 6 or 7 days early, so my first pregnancy didn't actually last this long. I was optimistic that I would go a little early this time too, but after some false-start tightenings on Saturday and again this morning that amounted to nothing, now I'm not so sure.

Actually, I'm feeling pretty crappy this week. I walked to Belconnen town centre last Friday when I was still feeling great and smugly thought to myself: "39 weeks pregnant - ha!". But since Saturday a more intense kind of back pain has kicked in and now I am having real mobility issues just getting around the house. Not to mention lifting 13 kg or so of Cassie in and out of the car seat...she can mostly do this herself but still needs a bit of help sometimes.

I'm not sure if the back pain is because of the size of the baby or because it is tending towards being posterior, which makes me want to bend forward all the time. My joints are also extremely loose and I have to be really careful with any kind of twisting motion or I feel like my hips are about to dislocate.

I also don't remember my tummy being this itchy last time! It is infuriating. A playgroup friend suggested taking a photo of my bare tummy but as it's covered in red scratch marks and horrible purple stretches it's a sight I'd rather not see (and certainly won't post on my blog). Bugger - maybe I won't be wearing my bikini this summer after all!! (Something tells me there'll be other priorities to worry about anyway...)

Anyway, I guess I'd better sit tight and be patient. I hope the baby swings around into a better position before the labour starts for real. I got Geoff to read up on accupressure points to ease posterior labour pain just in case it doesn't move:

http://acupuncture.rhizome.net.nz/Acupressure/problems.aspx.

There are some videos linked to this website that are also really helpful. Apparently some of these points are also good for inducing labour if you are overdue. Obviously, I feel a little cautious about random advice picked up over the internet this way, so I hope I am coherent enough to ask the midwife about this next time I see her (particularly if I go into labour before the next appointment on Monday!).

Any Day Now ??

In a rare flurry of organization, I packed my Birth Bag this weekend. I'm not sure whether this was inspired by our attendance at the Birth Refresher course on Thursday, the rapidly looming due date, or the predictions of nearly every random stranger I meet that the baby will come early. I'm pretty sure these predictions are based on my rapidly looming belly!!

Anyway, packing the bag was a pretty straightforward exercise, except for the selection of musical accompaniment. Last time I didn't bother with music. This time, I'm thinking it can't hurt and might even help. Of course, if I was truly organised, I wouldn't need to bother selecting music in advance. I'd just pack my fully loaded and operational MP3 player and so have access to our full music collection. No such luck though - I actually need to choose some CDs. Anyway, Victoria (the midwife) has advised us that she is "sick to death of Enya". That's fine. There is no way in the world I would be giving birth to Enya. My current selection includes Sacred Spirit [a kind of combination of American Indian music, electronca, classical], Faure's requium, some Hildegard von Bingen, Oceania [polynesian], some Moby and Loreena McKennit. I suppose there is fair chance that I will never want to hear any of these items again afterwards...

Geoff's suggestion of the Ride of the Valkeries has been rejected out out hand, although maybe I should just take it along just so that I can make him listen to it out for 13 hours or something.

I was feeling a bit strange about taking a Requiem to a birth, but I feel reassured by the liner notes, which say "'It is as gentle as I am myself' wrote Faure,...Not for him classical models from Mozart to Cherubinin, nor anything histrionic as in Verdi...'My Requium expreses not so much the fear of death as the peacefulness of eternal rest'...". I guess if the music is not reassuring then I can always get Geoff to read our the liner notes over and over!

The "Non Pharmacological Pain Relief" handout supplied by the Birth Centre also suggests getting the support person (i.e. Geoff) to repeat simple words and phrases such as "Open, release, you're doing well, we're getting there". Sounds good. The suggestion to "Visualise your vagina opening like a flower" is less helpful. I'm sorry, but pushing a person out of my body just doesn't bring floral images to mind. Or it certainly didn't last time. Sorry if I just grossed you out.