Arrival of our Princess

After much anticipation our wee poppet arrived via emergency c-section at 11.09am on Monday 29 July weighing 3.68kgs at RIPAS Hospital, Brunei Darussalam. Isla Rose Valois did her best to make her arrival memorable for all involved and we are pretty sure it is the start of a life where she is destined to be a drama queen.

I had actually gone into ‘false’ labour 2 weeks prior to Isla’s birthday when I was 36 weeks pregnant. I was having painless yet regular contractions and baby wasn’t very active so I was admitted to the ward for observation and was given two shots of steroid to mature baby’s lungs in case she came early. I had an ultrasound and the baby’s weight was already an estimated 3.5kgs. Baby still had not engaged (she was still high in my pelvis) and facing up towards my stomach instead of the preferred position of facing my back. So it was identified then that she would need to flip over before birth and she was running out of space to do it considering her size. After staying the night in the ward amongst crying newborns I had had enough and was sent home to see what happened and referred to the ‘big baby specialist’. The next two weeks carried on with on and off contractions and I continued to go to work with a couple of sick days granted by the ‘big baby specialist’.

 

Labour started whilst we walked around the mall, showing Mum the sights of Brunei. Within a couple of hours or so my contractions were 5 minutes apart. After Noah’s speedy arrival we didn’t want to take any chances of Jas having to deliver a baby at home, so we headed to the hospital. Bad news was that I was only 2cm dilated when we arrived, disappointing for the amount of pain I was in. The problem being baby still hadn’t dropped down to add pressure to the cervix, which would have sped up progress immensely. So with baby still ‘floating’ I was going nowhere fast. I continued to go nowhere fast all night, with contractions 2-3 minutes apart all night. At 2am I finally went to ask a midwife to check how dilated I was… 3cm. Are you kidding me? Back to rolling around in agony in silence in a room shared with 7 other new mums and mums in early labour. I spent most of the next 3 hours on all fours with my face buried in a pillow. I have to say that this was most certainly the worst night of my life! At 5am I asked the midwife to check me again, this time I was 4-5cm dilated. I still couldn’t believe the lack of progress with the amount of pain I was in. 5cm meant I was moved to the delivery suite and was able to call Jason (who was fast asleep at home) to come and join me. I continued to labour away writhing in agony for 4 more hours until the doctor finally arrived. She asked the midwife why I had been left to labour for so long without an epidural and growled at her for leaving it for so long. The epidural was ordered but would never arrive.

The doctor proceeded to break my waters. Still at 5cm I knew that things would happen VERY quickly once my waters went and wow did everything happen quickly. With the waters gone, baby dropped down a little to create the pressure I had needed all along, within 5 minutes I was 8cm dilated. The room fills up with people at this point and there is utter panic. Contractions are now 1 minute apart, no sooner has one subsided and I am being slammed with another. Baby is not liking this at all, her heartbeat is less than half of what it should be during each contraction and it is getting lower as each contraction hits. Doctors are asking Jason if they can put an electrode in the baby’s head to monitor her as the readings are so concerning they think maybe the machine is faulty. Jason’s response is “I don’t know, it’s my wife’s job to make decisions”, between slams of contractions I manage to mutter “Just do it”. Baby is still quite far up in my pelvis so placing the electrode isn’t an easy task. Once it is finally in the readings are so bad the doctors think maybe the electrode is faulty and try a second electrode. This second electrode confirms this baby is not in good shape. More panic, more people seem to appear. The doctor is suspicious that the cord is wrapped tightly around the baby’s neck.  

I am oblivious to most of what is going on, I remain in ‘the zone’, trying to cope with the agony. Jason is whisked outside to sign forms, many of which are in Malay. A nurse is putting a catheder in and another is putting a line in my arm. The doctor is giving me an inhaler to slow the contractions to buy some time. I am shuffled onto a gurney, the sides of the bed go up and we are off out of the room, outside, along a corridor, up an evevator and into an operating room. It is in the elevator that I am struck with the very familiar feeling of having to push. There isn’t a more difficult urge to ignore. As I am shuffled onto the operating table I tell the anethesiologist to knock me out as I don’t think we have time for a spinal, she tells me my baby may come out flat line if we do that, “okay, just hurry up with the spinal then”, my body screaming at me to push. Thank Christ the spinal went in immediately and feeling, along with the urge to push, evaporated. No sooner had I lost feeling did I feel the tugging and pushing, followed by a very forceful cry of my new babe. Nobody said anything so I had to ask if it was the girl we were planning for. The nurse bought Isla over to show me the girly bits but very quickly my pink baby had turned purple. Without a word the nurse walked away with Isla. A paediatrician knelt down next to the bed and told me they were taking Isla up to SCBU for observation, as she was not breathing as they would like her to be.

Meanwhile, Jason is siting out in the waiting room, beside himself with worry after the series of events. He sees the doors open up from operating room to see a baby in a fully enclosed tank being wheeled towards him. Because he was the only white guy there, the paediatrician was able to figure out who dad was pretty easily. Jason followed Isla up to SCBU while I was being stitched up. I was taken to the recovery room and monitored for about 30 minutes. I asked a male nurse to go tell my husband I was fine, he came back and asked me what he looked like, “ahhh, he’s white and he has lots of tattoos” “there’s no white guy out there” was his reply. I figured he would be with bubs. By the time I was ready to be moved back to the ward Jas had returned to the waiting room and was anxiously waiting for me. He updated me that Isla was fine and would be discharged from SCBU and back to me soon. Four hours later, she arrived at my bedside in the ward. Good things take time I suppose.

 

So what went wrong? Talking with the Doctor afterwards, her suspicions were correct that Isla had the cord wrapped around her neck, which was not only holding her up in my pelvis, preventing her from dropping down to be born, but was also tightening with each contraction as my body tried to push her down she was effectively being strangled.

After our rocky start both Isla and I are doing marvellously. My wound has healed surprisingly quickly and I was up and about within 24hours of surgery and had pleased the doctors with my progress so much that they let me return home after just 2 days (quite the record here!). Isla is a very easy babe providing she has fulltime access to the boob. She sleeps well at night, generally just waking at 1.30am and 4.30am for a quick feed and is straight back to sleep. The boys are just smitten with their baby sister, They need reminding to give her her space with their constant kisses and affection getting a bit too much at times. Jas is also chuffed with his baby girl and he is doing a great job of looking after all of us. Of course I am wrapped with a baby girl, she is worth every ounce of drama.

I have 56 days for maternity leave, already it has gone much too quickly for my liking. However there are only around 8 more weeks of teaching until the end of the year once I do go back to work. We return to New Zealand on the 1 December so you will all be able to meet our adored princess.