Maxine and I are delighted to announce that our baby girl was born on Monday September 29th at 6:11pm weighing in at 8lbs 7oz and measuring a whopping 53 centimeters long. She was born in Chelsea Westminster Hospital in London, England!!!!Maxine and I took a leisulrly stroll to the hospital from our flat at 8:45am on Sunday the 28th of September for the induction of labor as Lilliana was quite comfortable in the womb and had no intentions of coming into this crazy world on her own. The first step in the process was to inject prostaglandin onto the cervix, a drug which stimulates the depletion of the cervix which in turn artificially stimulates the long and hard process of labor. After the first injection one must wait six hours to see if the effects of labor have kicked in, well Maxine needed another injection after no prgress was made and her cervix remained fully intact after the initiall six hour waiting period.
Its 6:30pm and Maxine is having her second injection of prostaglandin. Maxine is monitored by a machine which tracks Lillys heart rate and tracks any contractions which may start. At this point I am getting impatient and just want the process to hurry up and start already, oh how foolish I am, I wish on no person the anguish one experiences in labor, it is by far the worst experience I have ever partaken in. Keep in mind that the end result makes up for it immeasurably. After a few hours and a couple of examinations Maxines cervix is softening and before we know it the contractions begin!!
The midwife informs me that visitors are no longer allowed and since my stubborn wife is still not in labor proper I must leave and will be contacted if anything transpires. I thought "wicked, I get to go home and get a good nights sleep and we can conveniently resume in the morning", yet again how foolish I am! Back at the flat at about 11:30pm I recieve a phone call from Maxine saying she is having serious contractions and is soon going to be injected with the one drug she was supposedly going to refuse, the midwife did a fantastic job of convincing Maxine that Pethandine is the best thing she could possibly take becasue her seriously painfull contractions are going to last for quite some time and she needs to get some quality rest for what lays ahead.
At 12:30am I arrive on the scene minutes after she is injected with Penthadine and am advised that she may seem a bit loopy, and to just hold her hand. Penthadine is an opiate based drug and doesnt kill the pain it takes ones mind off of the pain and allows one to sleep inbetween contractions. Here I am holding my lovely wifes hand as she is snoring, then before I know it a horrid thing called a contraction rolls through and Maxine is in seething pain, squeezing my fingers, yelling, cursing, waving her arms, speaking in an uncomprehensable manner, then the wave of pain peaks and fades, and ahhhh a sigh of relief!!! Maxine then continues to ask for water then promptly falls asleep like only a true narcileptic could do. Penthadine is great!! Shes literally snoring inbetween contractions and getting some MUCH needed rest. The contractions come about every two minutes and dont go away for another eighteen horrendously ecscrutiating hours.
After two hours of bliss, the Penthadine wears off, Maxine is then offered gas and air which is 50% nitrous oxide and 50% pure oxygen, this was immediately a huge hit with Maxine as its just like breathing on a scuba diving regulator and makes one feel very intoxicated and after prolonged use makes you say some very strange things. Maxine was huffing this stuff down from that point onwards, she was obviously enjoying it too much, the problem was that she was drying her mouth and throat out and drinking too much water, she tried to urinate but had no success, so a cathater was put in only three times througought her labor when in fact she needed one in the whole time, this is why labor took so long, her bladder was so full it was literally blocking Lillys head from dropping and coming out.
The most painfull part of the labor for me was from 3am to 3 pm on Monday. During this period of time Maxine insisted that she stood up during contractions, every two minutes, for twelve hours, I had to stand up pull her up off the bed and then proceed to get abused physically and verbally for the duration of the contraction, Maxine would fall alsleep for what seemed to be a minute and I passed out for as long as posssible on a mat on the floor then repeated the process until the late morning hours. At 9am I had had it, I phoned Maxines sister Sarah and told her she needed to get her butt to the hospital as I nseriously needed a break, thanks to God she arrived!!! I was able to sit down, close my eyes for thirty minutes, sip coffee and eat, what an enourmous difference that made!!! Now I was energized and ready to go. The contractions increased in severity, Maxine was advised to take more Penthadine as she was not dilated enough and it was still going to be some time.
Maxine started pushing for the baby to come out around 2pm, made great progress and was an absolute trooper and bravely refused the epideral, even after 17 plus hours of excruciating contractions. I blame this ghastly judgement on the gas and air making her irrational, this abominable judgment can be likened to that of Mccain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. Throughout the ordeal Maxine continued to crack jokes, some which made sense and others which were much more comical and made one think she was on another planet.
After vast effort the midwife put another cathater in and pints of urine came out, oooops, should have put that it sooner!!!! This was the first indication that her bladder was most definitly affecting Lillys passage, after Maxine was drained much more progress followed and she was almost fully dilated. The doctors came in for an examintaion and found that Lilly had transversed sideways and the standard procedure is to deliver the baby via forceps with an emergency c section being the back up, so Maxine was breifed on the epidural, finally admitted defeat and took the epidural, what bliss!!!!!
The doctors then came in to take Maxine to the operating room for the forcep delivery, I came along and at this point did not know whether to cry, regurgitate, passout, or laugh. I was sitting with Maxine in the operation room and the doctors asked, "when was the last cathater put in?". the midwife said, "oh thats not necessary shes just had one", I thought "bullshit she needs one!!!!", the doctors put a cathater in and I shit you not it took Maxine 10 minutes plus to empty her bladder, at this point I am really pissed off at the midwifes incompetence, but in the time she was drained Lilly turned back into the perfect position and she was promptly pushed out by Maxine and pulled out by two large tongs and placed directly onto Maxines chest, all exaustion, hunger, anxiety, pain, delerium, and insanity had paid off, Lilly had made it out, FINALLY!! and Maxine was still alive. Lilly was blue and whining a bit, she was moved to the weigh station where she started to cry, I immediatly went over and started talking to Lilly in the voice I always used to during the pregnancy, and she instantly recognized my voice and calmed right down and began to take in the world around her, that to me was just unbelievablely amazing!! Lilly was weighed, checked to make sure she was in one peice and wrapped in a towel. I showed her off to Maxine then took her outside to meet her family who was overjoyed to see her. The experience was beyond worth it and although during the process i swore i would never have another child unless it was adopted am very much lookin forward to having another in a few years, this time with an epideral from the start, not so much for Maxine, but selfishly for my own wellbeing!
Thats the story of how Lilliana Kaia Sydney Denton was born into this world.
VOTE FOR OBAMA, OR ELSE......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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