It’s the day my first daughter Caitlin was born, a birth story. Yes, there are gory details. Yes, some of you reading this are mothers and have had horrific birth experiences. But mine is personal to me and pretty exceptional in my opinion.
I remember clearly the day I took the pregnancy test, 3 days before I was due to and it almost immediately went to the famous little line. We danced around the bathroom and then I felt a sense of guilt, I’d been drinking the night before! But from then on it was a case of everything by the book. We told our families and everyone was delighted, my mum and dad especially as it would be their first grandchild.
So I’d had a pretty easy pregnancy all round. A little nausea, certain smells I couldn’t tolerate. And gagging in the morning when I brushed my teeth but I got over that by taking my toothbrush and toothpaste to work every day. I was very hormonal and emotional though – the disappearance and murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in August that year affected me deeply as a mother to be. But as my due date (3rd of December) approached I was nervous but really excited.
3rd of December (my dad’s birthday) came and went. I was never convinced that that was the right date though as I’d never been a regular 28 days, more like somewhere between 35 and 42 so when I went over, I wasn’t surprised.
I was booked to go in for induction on 11 December, we arrived that evening and I got settled into the room and was given something to try and ‘start’ me. Nothing. During the night some cramps but not any worse than normal period pain. Still another attempt the next morning and still nothing. All the while Caitlin was being monitored. They didn’t seem concerned by that and then mid-afternoon they told me they were moving me down to the delivery suite to try a drip for moving labour along. I’d had none so far.
My sister, mum and M stayed with me until I was taken downstairs. Mum stayed outside in the waiting area and my sister headed home. I was still being monitored and had no indication they had any concerns when the Doctor paid a visit to break my waters. I won’t ever forget this moment, he was going off shift at 8.45 and this was 8.15. He was an Indian with the biggest hands I’d ever seen and he was going to do an internal and then break the waters. Now I’d had internals before of course so this was nothing new. I remember the mid-wife saying to me, tell him you have cramps because he’ll let you use gas and air when he’s breaking your waters, he’s got massive hands. I didn’t need to be asked twice.
So on goes the mask and I don’t feel…………much. I remember looking down and seeing the waters being a really awful colour. I’m the sort of person who needs overloaded with information if I’m doing something for the first time and so during my pregnancy I’d read everything I could get my hands on so I knew the colour of the waters was not a good sign. For any men reading or indeed women who haven’t had kids…..meconium is when a baby poos inter-utero (in the womb) and it’s a sign they are in distress. And if my baby was distressed and they hadn’t even put up the hormone drip…definitely not good.
But…they said nothing to me, one of my major frustrations with the whole process. I remember asking ‘Is everything alright…that was meconium?’ and they told me it was fine. The Doctor then went off duty.
But an hour later he was back. He was concerned and they wanted to do an emergency C-section. I just remember M sitting beside me squeezing my hand, both of us utterly terrified. Consent forms were signed and we were brought into theatre. The anaesthetist applied the spinal and did all the necessary tests, I couldn’t feel a thing. And in comes the surgeon. For an ‘emergency’ situation they were pretty calm. The surgeon explained what he was going to do ‘You’ll feel a little tugging, like someone’s rummaging in a handbag’ he said.
I can tolerate that ok, I thought. Just get baby out fast, safe and sound. And then I felt it. I won’t ever forget. Ever. I felt pain like nothing I’d ever had before. I even felt the cold steel of the blade. ‘I can feel the cutting’ I said to M. He looked at me. The surgeon looked at me. ‘What side am I on’ he asked. I could tell exactly where he was. I just remember saying I can feel it all. Then the surgeon looked at the anaesthetist. ‘We have to keep going’ he said. ‘We can’t give you a general until baby is born if baby is in distress; it’s too dangerous for her.’ So he kept cutting. I honestly thought I was going to die. The pain was indescribable. I know now my BP plummeted to 45/25 at its lowest point and they were very concerned.
‘Baby is out and it’s a girl’ said the surgeon. There was silence, no cry. I remember being too afraid to ask if she was ok, being in so much pain. They took her and did the normal cleaning up and I remember hearing this tiny cry. And the first time we saw her. A shock of dark black hair like me. She was crying, though not really crying, which is just her personality down to a tee. They wrapped her up and gave her to her dad who was beside me. And he looked at me and said ‘This is Caitlin.’ We’d agreed on the name before because it meant something to both sides of the family, in M’s case his oldest sister who’d died as a baby was named Kathleen and Caitlin is the Irish version.
At that point M was asked to leave the room so they could close up. I was still in agony and on oxygen and then they gave me the general. I remember waking up in recovery. Caitlin was in her cot. M beside me. And my mum was waiting outside. They let her in briefly and she tells me I couldn’t speak and there was one single tear rolling down my cheek. I don’t remember too much more of that night except Caitlin being taking to neo-natal as she was jaundiced.
But despite the trauma, the night my sweet Caitlin was born is full of silly things happening. Like M and mum in the canteen – he ordered Christmas dinner at 11pm at night, the lady behind him had forgotten her purse and he offered to pay for hers too – except in typical M fashion he didn’t have his wallet with him. And my sister chasing after the bus home which she’d missed by 1 minute. And my dad who was at his Christmas party at a local hotel – he was waiting for the call from home and when he announced it to all his workmates he got a big cheer!
But most of all that was day you were born Caitlin, the sweetest, gentlest baby and now growing up into the sweetest, gentlest, kindest and most beautiful young lady. Tolerant and loving and truly as we all call you, ‘special’ girl. You already know a lot about the day you were born but not about the trauma I suffered, I’d do it again tomorrow for you in a heartbeat.
Love always, Mum xx
