h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Going 12 days over your due date means you have too much time to think.

This is because you were, of course, more or less prepared a good two weeks in advance.

It also gave you too much time to clean. Parts of the house that have never been cleaned before, even. Of course, this is all a distant memory now.

[Hang on, I think I hear my Mistress's voice now. 62 words. Something of a record.]

Anyway. What you were mostly thinking about was childbirth mortality statistics. From a time before modern medicine held sway.

One in four births ended in somebody dying? Was that the mother, the baby or both? You found yourself musing. Did more mothers die or did more babies die?

Were there more deaths of mothers for first babies or was it pretty evenly spread out?

Did the one in four include deaths actually while giving birth or from complications afterwards.

What about animals? Are their death rates comparable, or were some of the deaths due to interference from pre-modern doctors?

Then you would recall that there are depictions? Descriptions? Of Caesarians being performed in Roman times. Which had cheered you up until you were told that, of course, the woman always died.

[Hang on, I think I hear my Mistress's voice calling. 140 words. Hurrah!]

Anyway. All this goes to explain why you are enthusiastically in favour of hospital births rather than home births. Feeling comfortable is less important to you than feeling safe.

Having an induction, then, suits you down to the ground as it means that you get to spend the entire labour wrapped in the four walls of your own special security blanket. Apart from the bit where they send you out for a walk.

Actually you nearly missed out on the induction. Your appointment was booked for 12 noon, but you woke on the morning of the 2nd at 6am feeling distinct tightenings. Which didn’t go away.

However, neither did they get any worse, and so you ordered your cab for 11am and had a leisurely, if not terribly comfortable, sit in a traffic jam, thankfully enlivened by the chatty driver’s reflections on Russo-Somali relations, women and the best way to drive around the line of cars in order to get you to the hospital on time (he succeeded. You tipped him heavily).

The midwife was unimpressed by your tightenings and so decided to apply the gel anyway.

She was also unimpressed by your claims to have arrived at the hospital last time 9cm dilated. This, on reflection, might have been a mistake. But then how were any of you supposed to know that the miracle goo would succeed so well that while you were on your post-application mandatory brisk walk taking in the sights and boutiques of Chelsea and attempting to make polite conversation with your husband, you were also contending with full on labour? Apart from anyone who had been around for your first labour, of course.

[Hang, on, I think I hear my Mistress's voice. 300 odd words there. Not bad.]

Well, you assume that’s what it was, as it was only an hour and not much more intensity after you arrived back at the hospital than your waters broke and you were found to be 8cm ready.

4cm is when they are supposed to transfer you to labour ward. And give you access to the gasnair. Childbirth tip number one: never smile politely at midwives when you in labour and they ask you how you are doing. They tend to assume you are not in that much pain really. Even though the only things keeping you sane are feeling your husband’s leg pressed firmly against the small of your back, concentrating very hard on the same two paragraphs of a book entitled Ravished! , squeezing your husband’s hand very hard at intermittent intervals and whispering viciously at your husband when he makes a joke in the middle of a contraction.

B, you will gather, was a very necessary part of your pain management strategy.

Your second childbirth tip is never try to stab a labouring woman with a needle.

Back in the days of pregnancy you had agreed to give certain samples to a tissue bank in order to aid the study of various conditions relating to problematic pregnancies. It seems they had missed getting one vial of blood and so had tracked you down and were actually poised over your vein when you felt that very distinctive gushing from down below.

And then all hell broke loose.

Because GODDAMMIT but it really hurt after that. I mean OW!

You screamed, in fact. Quite a lot. The research doctor ran away*****.

In spite of which, they were still surprised to find how advanced you actually were***, although once they had, they were also quite concerned to get you onto the bed for transfer to the birthing room. They didn’t, apparently, want you deliver the baby in the 100 metres of corridor between the ward and your single bedded sanctuary.

In fact, it was another hour and a half before you gave birth. Thank you once again the gasnair. You didn’t feel it actually made the pain much more bearable this time, but it did help to regulate your breathing. And give you something to bite down on.

You have never previously appreciated how important it is to have something to bite down on when medical things are happening without adequate pain relief. Although you seem to have buggered your jaw up again. Which is a shame as last time you only got rid of the clickiness and tendency to find that your jaw had become dislocated in the mornings by having your mouth comprehensively mauled in order to get your wisdom teeth out.

So the Comet, when she did arrive, arrived very quickly. Total official labour time, 2 hours and thirty minutes (which is when you returned to the hospital from your walk and mentioned that you thought, tentatively, you might be in labour). Total actual labour time, five hours. Total time since any evidence of any kind of contractions, 13 hours.

Which definitely beats the 48 hours you spent on the Star.

And that difference, in the endgame in particular, is curious. Because you have always rather assumed that the reason why the Star had to be hoiked out ignominiously by the doctors is because you didn’t realise how hard you had to push. Until someone in a white coat came and shouted “PUSH!” very loudly in your ear.

Whereas this time, you hardly pushed at all. Once, in fact. To slither the body out after the head had emerged*, which it would have done at that point whether you wanted it to or not. At this moment** you understood how it is that women end up caught short on the toilet.

In fact, looking back, you wonder whether you went into the final stages of labour at all with the Star. Because it simply didn’t hurt that much with him.

[Hang on, I think I hear the doorbell. That'll be my mother then.]

But on balance you will take a short labour over a gentle labour any day. It makes the post birth euphoria that much more satisfying. Nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you had at the gasnair again while they stitched you up****, but definitely to do with being able to properly enjoy the buzz of quietly chatting with B as he carried your daughter around the room, although the dinner jazz segment he found on Jazz FM was also particularly soothing. You were also uplifted by the artwork and would like to commend the subconscious of whoever commissioned the very vagina-in-flower like portrayal off strawberries nestling on a hanky that sat opposite you while your legs were very much akimbo in the stirrups.

But a short labour also means that when that wears off, which is sometime around the moment that you notice that your toes are still, a number of hours later*******, covered in blood and you really need to piss, you still feel remarkably spry.

A bit too spry, actually, given that when you finally made it onto the ward you were not nearly tried enough to ignore the five women who had had Caesarians and whose babies, therefore, were not as tired out as yours was and therefore cried all night. Not to mention the fact that you were right next to the birthing rooms, and could hear every yell. Especially from the woman who has only just made it to the hospital and who had, apparently, collapsed just inside the front doors and was subsequently wheeled, howling with a particularly disconcerting Doppler effect, at a brisk trot through the entire length of the hospital five minutes after you had finally managed to drift off.

[Hang on, I think I hear my Mistress's voice. No idea how many words that was. Thought I had it there]

But in the end, you darkly suspect that the problem you would have with a third child****** is not whether to go for long and gentle or short and sharp, but being confronted by a choice between birthing at home without the aid of a midwife, who will have come and gone away again when she sees you are not in sufficient pain to growl at her when she asks you how you are and giving birth in a taxi. Or on the bus. As you will again have misjudged how much pain you are in until it is too late.

Better keep the third child hypothetical then.

*TMI yet?

**Well, ok, perhaps not that very moment.

***Really, I mean it, do not smile at the midwives while in labour. Although at this point you really really weren’t.

****Childbirth tip number three. Never ignore the bit of the antenatal classes which involve perineal massage. Regarding which, isn’t YouTube a wonderful thing?


*****For the record, though, you had her paged the next day and she came and got her blood from not only you, but also B, so that’s your bit for medical science completed then.

*******Childbirth tip number four. Do not try to hurry the woman stitching up your delicate undercarriage. Remember what you might be wanting to use it for later and appreciate her artistry.

[So at 12 hours that only took nearly as long to write as it did for you to actually give birth.]

I read this when you posted, but I managed to fail to post anything eloquent afterwards.

I will also fail to post anything eloquent, but I wanted to mention that I loved this. Especially your footnotes. *takes notes of things to look up on YouTube*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK2P8Ziqc6Y

Yeah, I saw that one. Something else she could have mentioned - make sure you have short fingernails. I did and it was still a little bit scary - someone with long nails could have done some damage!

I've still got quite some weeks before I need to start but a little practice might mean I actually have a clue what to do by the time I get to that stage.

They covered it in our ante natal classes anyway. Still, anything that avoids tearing is worth doing. If they suggest standing on your head and chanting, do not question it.

How far along are you now? I've lost track.

21 weeks. I had my abnormalities scan today and came out clear (well, as clear as they are able to say, anyway).

Yay! (not for you. You can have )

Oh, that is good news.

How cool is it to be able to see them like that?

Did you find out the flavour? I appreciate you might not want to share. I actually found it odd both times, as each time I was sort of expecting the other.

We're going to have a son. It was a little weird finding out but I'm glad I did as it gives me a bit of time to prepare. For some reason I'd sort of got it in my head it was going to be a girl, so at least I get to have four months of wrapping my brain around the change!

It was odd seeing all his ribs and down his spine. And comforting to see the heart be all checked out and as it should be. And it had a funky colour thing where it showed up where the blood was pumping, incliding down the imbilical cord as well as in his own heart. It was !

Hurrah! Hurrah! Son's are good! As are daughters of course.

We had a student doing ours this time. It was good because she was talking all the time with her supervisor so I got a proper guided tour as well.

It's the moving that gets me. Look s\he's moving!

Aaarg! Errant apostrophes!

Incidently, I only stopped feeling ill around this stage I think. You may yet bloom! Although I still wanted to sleep all the time.

There may be hope for me yet!

The sonographer was really good - she pointed out all the various points, what she was measuring and checking out and why. It was really interesting.

It is interesting, isn't it? Modern technology is a wonderful thing. I can't imagine going through the whole pregnancy without a look inside like my Mum did. Or perhaps it bred a better acceptance of the possibilities of issues. All I know is that until my second scan was done, I was deeply apprehensive.

Although I do think the moving helps too.

Anyway.

You in the mood for a couple of book recommendations? I think I started my reading/ research around eight months, but I know other people are more organised.

Oooh, go on go on. :D I'm up for book recommended by people I trust about such things. If nothing else it's the only way to whittle down the vast amount of information out there.

Gina Ford. Contented Baby. She's a very marmite sort of person - some people love her, some hate her. She advocates routines with a capital R. But if you have no experience of babies, looking at the routines, even if you don;t want to go that route, tells you a lot about what you'll be doing with a newborn. Feeding mostly.

I rather like her routines, and I don't think they are arbitary, just representative of the sort of sleeping and eating babies want to do. But I think you need a good milk supply and the ability to pump to be able to do them properly.

The other one is a Dr Harvey Karp's book. Baby Bliss. The first half is him talking about his Theory about how babies ae born thee months too early. Do not be put off! The second half has some practical tips for soothing babies which I found worked like a charm. Especially Sssssssshhhhhhhing. And swaddling.

People have also recommended the Baby Whisperer to me, but I never got round to reading that one.

Gina Ford: hated her and everyone whose babies clicked into her routines! My refluxy baby couldn't have done it even if he had wanted to, bless him. Don't think she is much good for breastfeeding mums as her feeds are too spaced out for them.

There, reflux, something I never knew existed and wished I had heard of sooner rather than later so I could have pushed for treatment far, far earlier. It is basically a very, very, VERY sicky baby who screams for months and can't be laid down - eventually saw a paediatrician who gave us the right meds for it and the next day t'Boy smiled and played with his toys for the first time. WISH I'd known to ask about it when I thought something wasn't right at 4 weeks instead of getting to 12 weeks and the pit of despair. Top tip: don't let health visitors put you off, you know your baby better than they do - in fact unless you get lucky with a good one then try to avoid health visitors chase them out of the house with a broom if necessary...

The other thing I didn't properly discover until baby #2 which would have been a GODSEND for #1 given his need to be held upright constantly - slings. A long piece of material you wrap around you and can pop the baby in so they are held next to you but, crucially, you have your hands free (tea *and* a biscuit). I eventually cracked breastfeeding in mine (although not hands free like some lucky women) which meant I no longer ended up sitting down feeding constantly. I had a stretchy hugabub first but my big lad quickly got a bit too heavy for the jersey material and I switched to an ellaroo instead.

Such an exciting time for you (cluck cluck cluck)

Ooh, thanks to both of you.

I've already been given a sling by a friend, and I really hope to make use of it. I have quite weak arms (although I'm sure they'll get stronger with use!) so I'm hoping to use that as much as is practical.

And reflux... sounds uncomfortable and I'll look it up.

*makes notes about books* I figure as long as I take all books with enough shovels of salt I'll be OK!

Hello

sorry for just jumping in, a son for Mr and Mrs Vip

About the book buying, I can't offer any advice on parenting styles, mostly because I avoided them ,

I did get a book but it was a one about child development 0-5 rather than a parenting guide as such. It was aimed at people studying childcare, so to be fair more a text book really

I flicked through a few, and found one that most readable for me. I read the bits that interested me and dibbed in and out of it when needed. I found it helpful, informative and unbiased

Love Peanut

My mum trained to be a nursery nurse, and I have to say that hearing her talk from a child development point of view has been very useful*. It's a shame she is so far away though, there won't be a lot of hands-on support, but at least we have the telephone!





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*Apparently she refused to take me to more than one Parent and Toddler group when it became clear that parents were expected to force their children to play together, despite being too young for that stage of play development. Nobody knew any better.

Slings are the way to go. *nods emphatically* I had a baby bjorn for the Star, which was fine though I don;t think you can use it from birth. I got an ellaroo for the Comet, on kelli's recommendation, and I _really_ like that, as does the Comet. I'm going to look out the baby bjorn one though as B finds the ellaroo one a bit earth mothery for him. The breastfeeding thing is not to be sneezed at. You can't in a bjorn (I think). But I find it useful to be able to simultaneously feed the Comet and sprint after the Star as he heads towards the duck pond. Although a bit ineptly. I need to find another youtube video. Or get bigger breasts.

Incidentally, breastfeeding is hellish for the first six weeks for a lot of women. It's important to know this, I think, because otherwise it's easy to give up. I seem to have low milk supply generally, about which nothing seems to be able to be done, but I know a few people who have struggled because their babies were spelndidly sleepy babies for the first three days... but that meant that the babies weren't feeding enough and so they struggled to get back on track with raising milk supply. Every three hours, four if they are sleeping and it;s the middle of the night. That's from when you start feeding them each session, not when you finish, and they can take 30-45 mins per feed when they are new.

Plus, getting them to latch on is trikier than you might think (midwives and such are good here - get them to check your latch every time they hove into view).

But what is really impt to remember is that the let down reflex really really hurts for some seconds every time they start sucking but before the milk flows for as long as six weeks or so. Really hurts. They'll tell you breastfeeding shouldn't hurt, and they mean that a bad latch will hurt (true). So it's impt to not think you are doing it wrong for the ten seconds of blinding agony.

And then there's reflux, which kelli mentioned.

HOWEVER, After six weeks it gets a lot easier and after a few months they are real pros and it's all very smooth. And I really like breastfeeding from a cuddling the baby and feeling all maternal point of view, even though I have to supplement as well.

And of course you may find it very easy indeed. I know one or two people who really did find it a doddle. Best to be braced though, and have the name of a lactation consultant handy. Because unfortunately the time of struggling most with breastfeeding coincides with the baby blues and the least amount of sleep you'll be getting in your life. Until your next baby.

Another book (*grins at Peanut*). There's a series called 'what to expect...'. They do it for pregnancy, the first year and toddlers. It rather freaked me out. As a teacher, I always feel I should be doing something to facilitate the milestones, so I find it better not to concentrate on them too much. But it is extremely comprehensive and I kept it on hand as a reference for it's section on illnesses and what to do about them.