The birth of Théo, hour by hour
Saturday September 11, it is 6 a.m. I wake up, go to the bathroom and go back to bed. At 7am, I have the impression of having my pajamas soaked, I go back to the toilet and there I cannot control myself… I start to lose water!
I go to see Sébastien, the dad, and explain to him that we can go. He goes to get the bags upstairs and tells his parents who were present that we are leaving for the maternity ward. We get dressed, I take a towel so as not to flood the car, I do my hair and presto, we’re off! Colette, my mother-in-law, told me before leaving that she had felt it in the evening, that I looked tired. We are leaving for Bernay’s maternity hospital … We will soon get to know each other …
7h45:
Arrival at the maternity ward, where we are greeted by Céline, the midwife who auscultates me and monitors. Conclusion: it is the pocket that is broken. I have late pregnancy contractions that I can’t feel, and the cervix is 1 cm open. Suddenly, they keep me, do not cause anything until tomorrow morning, and I will have an antibiotic if I don’t give birth before 19 p.m.
8h45:
I am in my room, where I have the right to a breakfast (bread, butter, jam and coffee with milk). We also eat the pains au chocolat that we had at home, and Sébastien is also entitled to a coffee. He stays with me, we take the opportunity to make a phone call to my parents to tell them that I am in the maternity ward. He returns home to have lunch with his parents and bring back some forgotten things.
11h15:
Celine comes back to the bedroom to put the monitoring. It’s starting to contract well. I eat yogurt and compote, I am not allowed more because childbirth is approaching. I’m going to take a hot shower, it makes me feel good.
13h00:
Sébastien is back. It’s seriously starting to hurt me, I no longer know how to position myself and I can no longer breathe properly. I want to vomit.
16 p.m., they take me to the work room, the cervix opens slowly, I am kindly told that for the epidural, it’s too late! How’s that too late, I’m here from my 3 cm! Well, no big deal, not even afraid!
17h, the gynecologist (who must see his day end and get impatient, let’s be slanderous) arrives and examines me. He decides to break the pocket of water to speed up the process.
So he does, still no pain, everything is fine.
A contraction arrives, my man announces it to me by monitoring the monitoring, thank you darling, luckily you are there, I would have missed it otherwise!
Except that the song has changed! I’m not laughing at all, the contractions accelerate, and this time, it hurts!
I am offered morphine, which will induce my baby to leave in an incubator for 2 hours after delivery. After a heroic refusal, I change my mind and demand it. Morphine + oxygen mask, I am zen, a little too much, I have only one desire: to go to sleep, manage without me!
Well apparently that is not possible.
19h, the gynecologist comes back and asks me if I feel the urge to push. Not at all !
20h, same question, same answer!
21 p.m., the baby’s heart slows down, people panic around me, a quick injection, and everything seems to be back to normal.
Except that the amniotic fluid is tinged (with blood), that the baby is still perched on the top of the uterus and does not seem at all in a hurry to go down, I am dilated to 8 cm, and it has not moved for a good moment.
The gynecologist walks 100 steps between the labor room and the corridor, I hear jumbled up “cesarean”, “general anesthesia”, “spinal anesthesia”, “epidural”
And during that time, the contractions come back every minute, I’m in pain, I’m sick of it, I want this to end, and someone to finally make a decision!
Finally they take me to the OR, the dad finds himself abandoned in the hallway. I have the right to a spinal anesthesia, which gives me back a smile, I no longer feel the contractions, it’s happiness!
22h17, my little angel finally comes out, pushed by the midwife and grabbed by the gynecologist.
Barely enough time to see her when she is taken to the bath with her daddy as the first touched witness.
A little tour in the recovery room and I return to my room, without my son as expected, because of morphine.
A moving reunion
I have 5 minutes with my baby to say goodbye to him, and he leaves, far away. Without knowing if I will see him again.
Terrible waiting, unbearable ordeal. He will only be operated on Thursday morning for an omphalo-mesenteric fistula, a kind of junction between the intestine and the navel, supposed to close before birth, but who forgot to do his job at my little treasure. One in 85000 if memory serves. I was told a laparotomy (large opening across the abdomen), finally the surgeon went through the umbilical route.
23 p.m., daddy comes home to rest.
Midnight, the nurse comes into my room, followed by the pediatrician, and announces to me bluntly »Your baby has a problem«. The ground collapses, I hear in a fog the pediatrician tell me that my child is losing meconium (the child’s 1st stool) through the navel, that it is extremely rare, that she does not know if his life-threatening prognosis is at stake or not, and that the SAMU will arrive to take him to the neonatal unit at the hospital (I gave birth in the clinic), then that he will leave tomorrow for another hospital equipped with a team of pediatric surgery, more than 100 km away.
Because of the cesarean, I am not allowed to accompany him.
The world is falling apart, I cry endlessly. Why us ? Why him ? Why ?
I have 5 minutes with my baby to say goodbye to him, and he leaves, far away. Without knowing if I will see him again.
Terrible waiting, unbearable ordeal. He will only be operated on Thursday morning for an omphalo-mesenteric fistula, a kind of junction between the intestine and the navel, supposed to close before birth, but who forgot to do his job at my little treasure. One in 85000 if memory serves. I was told a laparotomy (large opening across the abdomen), finally the surgeon went through the umbilical route.
On Friday I am authorized to find my child, I go lying down in an ambulance, a long and painful journey, but finally i will see my baby again.
The following Tuesday, we all went home, having treated a magnificent jaundice before that!
A journey that has since left its mark, not physical, my big boy does not keep any consequences of this “adventure” and the scar is invisible to who does not know, but psychological for me. I have all the trouble in the world to be separated from him, I live in anguish, like all mothers that something happens to him, I am a mother hen, perhaps too much, but above all full of love that my angel gives me back a hundredfold.
Aurélie (31 years old), mother of Noah (6 and a half years old) and Camille (17 months old)