The Life of Matthew

As promised, I’m going to try and tell you everything that happened on the day that I was born.
Friday morning we all arrived at the clinic at 8:00. Mummy was very hungry because she had been up at 5:00 but wasn’t allowed to eat anything because she was going to be induced to tempt me to come out.

First of all, Mummy went into a room to have an ECG to test her heart. She had so many electrical devices attached to her that she felt like an inmate on death row!

After that we were taken to a room where Mummy’s temperature was taken and the midwife checked her bits. Her cervix was completely closed so it was time to start the induction.

At 9:25 Mummy was attached to a drip that started to inject Pitocin into her.

Nothing happened.

The dosage was increased.

Nothing happened.

The dosage was increased again.

Nothing happened.

This went on until about 1:30pm. Mummy had had some contractions but not enough to start labour. (Daddy in the meantime had been given a nice lunch of soup, trout, pasta and tuna salad and fruit. He ate it in front of Mummy! Mummy was allowed to have an ice lolly.)

The doctor came to examine Mummy and told her that the induction wasn’t working. He said that we could come back in a couple of days to try again or we could leave it another week to see if labour would start naturally or we could have a caesarean today. He also said that because my head wasn’t engaged he didn’t think that Mummy would go into labour naturally, he didn’t think that another induction would work and that even if it did, Mummy would have a very hard time and would probably need a forceps delivery. He said that because a forceps delivery was stressful for me that Mummy would probably end up having a caesarean delivery anyway. He left Mummy and Daddy alone so that they could talk about it and make a decision.

I think that Mummy and Daddy were a little sad because they had been hoping for a natural birth in a birthing chair but based on the doctor’s advice and what they thought was going to be best for me they opted for a caesarean birth.

At 2:20pm we were all moved to the room that we were going to be staying in during our time in hospital. Mummy was put on another drip and had a visit from the anaesthesiologist - thank you word processor for helping me spell that!

Mummy went down to surgery at 2:50pm. Daddy was not allowed to go with us because he might have caused an infection so he had to wait in our room. I know that this was the worst time for Daddy. He really wanted to be with Mummy so that he could be there when I was born but better safe than sorry.

Mummy had an epidural at 3:00 with the midwife hugging her so she wouldn’t move. Mummy lay down on the operating table and started to go numb almost at once. The lower half of Mummy was screened off, the doctors did some things and all of a sudden there was a bright light. It was 3:25 and I was born! I tell you, it was such a shock that I immediately started crying. The midwife wrapped me in a towel and then I was shown to the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen – Mummy.

I was then dressed and taken out to see Daddy. The midwife started to tell him about my weight and length but I could see he wasn’t listening to a word. He looked so overwhelmed by seeing me. I held his finger very tightly and was then taken back inside to Mummy who lay looking at me while they stitched her back up again. After that I was put on Mummy’s tummy and we were wheeled upstairs to our room where Daddy was waiting for us.

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