Just give me some drugs!

Flying solo this week as Dave has a cold and was forced to miss class (not a very good thing to sneeze and blow your nose with a roomful of pregnant women). In this class we learned about pain relief during labour – drug and non-drug options.

Although I’m aiming to go drug free, it’s good to know about the options.

Gas
Combination of nitrous oxide and oxygen, commonly known as ‘happy gas’. It’s actually quite effective and fast acting but it also leaves the body immediately. So you need to keep sucking it which could tire you out easily.

Pethidine
Not the most effective pain relief but it acts as a relaxant – so if your labour is really long, it can help you relax and drift off between contractions. Although it can make some people feel sick.

Epidural
This is the one everyone talks about because after all it is a giant needle going into your spine (or specifically, your epidural space). Epidural is actually not the name of the drug, but the name of the procedure. Once you gain access to your epidural space, a local anaesthetic can be injected directly into your body and it blocks all pain from the waist down. As it takes a while for everything to be set up (including getting a 20 minute drip before hand to counter balance a drop in blood pressure), so if the midwife thinks you will give birth within the hour, you won’t get your epidural.

Non-Drug Options

Heat
Heat, especially wet heat (from shower/bath) is very effective for pain relief. So the water birth option is looking more and more appealing to me.

Massage
This includes massage of your acupuncture pressure points. Will definitely give this a try.

TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation)
This is an interesting one as it sends small electrical pulses up your spine to block the pain signals from reaching your brain. But you need to hire the unit beforehand if you want to start using it at home.

As well as learning about pain relief, we also watched a second video, this time from the dad’s point of view. Too bad Dave had a cold and missed this class. There were lots of funny comments from all the different dads and it also showed a vacuum assisted birth. Much more graphic than the last video but still a beautiful birth! I'll spare you all the 'juicy' details :)

Next class – Caesarean births! Good stuff!

I'll leave you with this intriguing video - a new exercise chair that'll make your back ache just by watching this infomercial! ENJOY!



Bye bye for now, from Viv and baby.

Now PUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSHHHHHHHHH

In our second birthing class, we learned more about the second stage of labour – the pushing. Although it should be one of the most painful things a woman would ever go through in her life, the fact that the baby is within minutes of arriving will make it easier to deal with.

After hours of contractions, the woman is understandably tired and giving those last pushes is not on the top of her ‘to-do’ list. One of the ways the midwife can incentivise this is by placing her hand on the top of the baby’s head (if it’s already ‘crowning’). The theory is that once she feels the baby, she’ll be able to muscle up that extra bit of energy for the big finale.

As usual, Taryn was full of practical tips that most books will not give you. For example, remember to empty your bladder every 2 hours. The intense pain of contractions will often distract you from the relatively minor discomfort of a full bladder. And having a full bladder can actually slow down labour as the womb is pushed upwards by all the liquid. Another great tip is: watch a long movie on dvd to kill the time. If you just sit around and only focus on the contractions, it can make the hours seem even longer. So I think we’ll have the Lord of the Rings box set ready for the big day.

We were also shown a video – before you cringe, it was nothing like one of those typical graphic medical videos. It was a part of a parenting show on Foxtel, hosted by Antonia Kidman (Nicole’s sister, who has had all 4 children at our hospital). One of the couples was actually in Taryn’s class last year. It followed all the action of their big day (not their wedding of course) and it really put me at ease. They were an average couple, similar in age to us, and going through their first pregnancy as well. After 19 hours of contractions (which started at 2am and yes they watched a dvd to kill time), they decided to head into hospital and within 2 hours, she gave birth. She chose to have a water birth without drugs and even though there was quite a bit of screaming towards the end, it wasn’t all that bad. And it really got me teary when the baby girl arrived and was placed on her chest. If I could choose how my own labour will go down, I think I’ll be more than happy to go through the same.

As we get closer and closer to the finish line, things are becoming more and more real. I’ve now finally encountered my first hurdle in the pregnancy – lack of sleep. Having to always sleep on my side has proven to be a real challenge – you have to do this because sleeping on your back puts pressure on blood-flow to the womb. Being used to sleeping on my back, this is quite an adjustment (and baby kicks whenever I try to get a little rest on my back). This is on top of getting sore legs and hips (from all the hormones released to get my body ready for labour), having to go to the bathroom once or twice during the night and getting extremely painful leg cramps from stretching. My only comfort is that this hasn’t disrupted David’s sleep, although I think matters will only get worse from here on.

In the meantime, I’m really happy with all the progress our baby is making. Kicks are getting stronger and it’s following a very steady sleeping pattern. I’m also starting to suspect that there’s more baby than water in my womb (similar to what Simone said about David when he was born). With my increasingly growing cravings for sweets, we’re well on our way to having a little giant! Both David and I are seeing our baby in our dreams, although the face is always fuzzy. We can’t wait to meet our little one and when it does arrive, it’s got a whole heap of cute baby clothes waiting! :)

Check out video below created by David. This time lapse of the Opera House was taken from the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay, on June 13th and 14th, the final 2 nights of the Smart Light Walk which is part of the Vivid Sydney Festival. The movie is a combination of 3 sequences containing 850 images - they were 2 cold nights, he now has a cold :(

If it doesn't stop you from walking and talking, it's not ACTUAL labour

Last Wednesday night, we attended the first of 6 birthing classes at the hospital. Each class is 2.5 hours and we couldn't begin to think how they'd fill all those hours!

Well, to our surprise, the class flew by. We had one of the most experienced birthing coach in the state, Taryn, who has taught over 4500 couples! She was animated, informative and very knowledgeable about anything and everything baby related. Our first topics were 'what is labour' and 'signs of labour'. After reading our Baby Bible, we thought we had a good idea about what labour was but the books never describe things the way Taryn did.

If you divide a typical first time labour of 30 hours into 2 stages, the first 90% is the cramping and stretching of the uterus in preparation for the birth, and the last 10% is the actual pushing of the baby. That means for the first 27 hours, your uterus is vigourously pulling upwards to create a dilation of at least 10 cm in your cervix, so that the baby will actually fit through.

And what do those infamous contractions feel like? Ever had a cramp in your leg from stretching a little too hard while asleep? The sharp pain and helplessness you feel when that happens is what the labour will feel like, every few minutes or so. And the cramp will last from 30 seconds in the beginning (occurring every 10 minutes) to 90 seconds towards birth (occurring every 90 seconds). Wow! How I look forward to the pain!

We were also taught to look out for signs of actual labour (your body will have practice runs leading up to the big day) and Taryn did a very animated imitation of how someone will react to a real contraction – it will take your breath away and stop you from talking and walking. We also learned that only around 25% of women break their waters leading up to labour, and if the liquid is green or brown, your baby is in distress and has done a poo (nice one!). Mostly, one of the first signs of labour is a 'show'. I won't go into details here, you can Google it if you really want to know what that involves (probably not immediate before or after having a meal).

We also had a tour of the delivery suite. 4 weeks ago I wrote about how wonderful the birthing centre rooms were, well, the delivery suite was no different. You have the room to yourself. Besides the few monitoring equipment and the 3-part adjustable bed, it looks like a normal room. Stocked with distractions (one of the dads asked where the plasma TV was – oh, how all the dads laughed to that joke!) like Swiss ball, floor mat, cd player etc to cater to mum's comfort. My favourite was of course the en-suite bathroom, complete with bath and a 2 headed shower (so you can aim at 2 painful areas simultaneously). Dads are encouraged to join in the shower, provided that they wear swim wear (David would rather like to think that the nurses would enjoy seeing him without!).

Overall it was a great night, and we both look forward to the next 5 weeks of classes. Our group of 10 couples all seem very agreeable and I hope to make some friends so we can hang out after our babies are born.

We also had our appointment with midwife Alex. Everything is going really well. I'm growing at about 1 cm a week so that's well on track. And baby's heart was beating beautifully – a sound that always brings a huge smile to our faces.

Well, that's it for another week - week 24. If my labour is on the early side, we can expect a new baby is less than 13 weeks! Now isn't that an exciting thought!?

Love,

Viv

Life's like a petri dish - you never know what you're gonna get

In my last year in high school, we did an experiment in Biology class one Friday afternoon; growing bacteria in a petri dish. Each individual in the class (of about 8) was given a dish, and was given the simple task to grow bacteria from different sources. Then, the dishes would go into a incubator during the weekend, and the results would be shown on Monday.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a free-for-all, and we had to pick one specific 'source' for the bacteria. Air, tap water, a finger on a thoroughly washed hand, and I was tasked to use my non-washed hand to start my own colony of bacteria. One person was asked to simply breathe onto the dish, but was specifically warned by the teacher: do not cough on it! Apparently, doing this had the potential of creating a biohazard of epic proportions. Now that caught my attention! I quietly scraped my throat in preparation, and when the teacher wasn't paying attention, I opened the lid on my dish to do a big nasty whooping cough straight onto it.

When the results were presented to us on Monday the result was beautiful. My dish was filled with all the colours of the rainbow, representing all sorts of bacteria, and looked spectacular next to all the other dishes. And the disturbed look on the teachers face was priceless when she realised that this was supposedly from my unwashed hand.

That was the last time I was this excited over a biological experiment I was involved in. What also excites me is that I'm probably the first person in the history of the world to compare the conception of his first child with coughing into a petri dish.

I fully understand the concept of genetics, and the 50/50 split that occurs, but if the child was 100% like yourself (i.e. a clone, a mini-me), that would be totally creepy, so 50% means half of totally creepy, which is still pretty creepy. But then again, I can get used to the idea quite quickly. We sometimes try to picture what a baby that's half me, half Vivian will look like, and we can't help but get a bit worried. In particular its forehead. If ours is anything to go by, the baby will end up with a forehead 50 centimetres tall. And then its teeth! It will most probably have double rows, top and bottom, of big wonky teeth, like a great white shark. Possibly born with them as well. Come to think of it, perhaps we should have adopted after all!

Note about the photo: As part of the Opera House Luminous Festival and Vivid Sydney Festival, landmarks around the CBD are lit up at night with beautiful projections, as well as many night sculptures. This was taken across from the Opera House, in front of the Park Hyatt hotel. By chance there was a massive sailing boat docked for the night. We hope you like it :)

David.