The arrival of Penelope Eleanor Evans

Monday 20th August 2018. To most people it was just a normal Monday, yanno, back to business as usual after the weekend. The weather was in the mid-twenties and Drake was No.1 on the Official Charts. However, this was no ordinary Monday. For that afternoon a squidgy little newborn bundle entered the world and made me a mama. This blog post is all about my labour and delivery and I must warn you, it's a bit of a long one! (Start to finish my labour was 52 hours)! So get comfy, grab a cuppa (or a gin) and enjoy!

First we need to go back to a few days before I gave birth. I was overdue by a few days and had an appointment with my midwife for a stretch and sweep. She did all the usual checks but when she
looked at my notes she noticed that my bump hadn't grown for a few weeks which could indicate that something was wrong with the baby and her growth. The midwife gave me the "it's nothing to worry about" speech, said she'd book me in for a scan at the hospital to make sure everything was okay and then sent me on my way. That afternoon, I got a call from a consultant at the hospital to tell me that because I was already overdue, they weren't going to bother with a scan but book me in for an induction that weekend! WE WERE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!

Arriving at the hospital

We set our alarms for early Saturday morning to ring the hospital and book our time slot, we checked, double checked and triple checked our bags and off we went! After the boring paperwork was done they got my induction underway. I was induced via a pessary with the idea of getting me to dilate to 2cm, just enough to break my waters and get labour going. By 6pm it had worked its magic and the pessary was removed. It was just a waiting game now for a bed on the delivery suite to have my waters broken and have a baby! I was beginning to get uncomfortable but because nothing much else was happening Luke had to go home.

Sunday morning rolled around after a night of approximately 0 hours sleep, things had really started to get quite painful and by 4am I was having regular contractions, about 4 in every 10 minutes but they just weren't lasting long enough yet. Luke graced me with his presence at about 9:30am (he slept in, alright for some, eh?!) and I was given some codeine to help with the pain, which triggered what I like to call 'Vomit Armageddon'. I was spewing ALL DAY in to these grey cardboard trays, so much so that Luke was shown where to collect fresh trays and how to dispose of the, um, used ones, as the nurses and midwives had MUCH better things to be getting on with than transporting my stomach bile/orange isotonic drink concoction across the ward every 10 minutes. I was offered a bath around lunchtime which helped loads, I even fell asleep for half an hour or so, making me feel at least a little bit more human and at 5pm I had an anti-nausea injection with the hopes of getting at least some fluid and pain relief down me. Overnight, things really began to ramp up, they do say that induced labours can be more painful and that coupled with the fact the baby had decided to go back to back, was absolutely unbearable. I couldn't stand up, let alone walk. The only way I can describe it is if someone plunges a red hot knife in to your back and twists it round and round, tightening up every part of your lower torso. In the early hours of the morning I had another bath and Luke begged the midwife to give me some stronger pain relief so she agreed to examine me and take it from there. HALLELUJAH! I was at the magic 4cm (if you've ever had a baby then you know), they just wanted my contractions to be a little closer together but they said I could *finally* be transferred across to the delivery suite!

At around 8am on Monday morning, we were carted off to the delivery suite and this is where things get a little hazy and complicated. I was quite poorly at this point, my heart rate was off the scale and I was very dehydrated, so I was immediately hooked up to various drips and according to our family WhatsApp chat, I was given gas & air by 10 past 9. Things weren't looking great with the baby either, her heart rate was dipping and her movements were no longer registering on the monitors. Medical professionals are very good at making you think everything's okay when everything is very much not okay but there was lots of hush-hush conversations and doctors coming in for second opinions. The baby was getting distressed and we needed to get her out ASAP. All the while I was blissfully unaware, absolutely off my tits on gas & air and morphine, sat on a commode with my eyes blinking out of sync, trying to tell the midwife that I was feeling pressure to push but all I could get out was "did you know that Alaska is an American State but it's not in America". Gas & air - 10/10 would do it again, ha! The midwife also tried to deny me an epidural, but after 2 days in labour I wasn't having any of it and I shouted at her (sorry) and it's safe to say I got my epidural. I couldn't get comfy though as I was constantly moved from side to side and back again, they had to keep moving me to try and get the baby to move. They clipped a heart rate monitor to her head to keep a close eye on her but time was starting to run out.

Eventually, a doctor with an entourage of students came in to examine me a final time. He confirmed that I was at the all important 10cm and gave the go-ahead to start pushing. The midwife did some "practice" pushes with me to see if I could move the baby enough to have a vaginal delivery or if I needed a Caesarean to get her out safely and Luke thought this was a REALLY good time to go for a wee. Luckily I was able to have a natural delivery with "help"... aka the dreaded forceps and episiotomy route.

Penelope Eleanor Evans - 20.08.18 - 15:06 - 7lb 5oz

Luke made it back just as the surgeon came in and I was having my feet hoisted in to stirrups. I don't know how long I was pushing for but Penelope Eleanor Evans made her dramatic appearance in to the world at 6 minutes past 3 in the afternoon. She needed a little help to cry at first but she was here, she was safe, she was ours and she was absolutely perfect.