Eleven years ago tonight I was sleeping in a hospital in Melbourne, waiting for my first child to start the process of bring born. He was ten days overdue, so my obstetrician had given me some gel to induce labour at 830 pm. Ben went home to look after his parents, who were staying with us to look after our dogs. He didn't like the look of the trundle bed in my room.
I went to sleep around 930, and woke at about midnight with tummy pains. I went to the loo, twice, then realised I was having contractions. I called the nurse, who said to time the contractions. I called Ben, who said to call back when I was going to the labour room. I timed the contractions diligently, wondering when the nurse would come back. After thirty minutes, I called the nurse again. "My contractions are coming every two minutes, and lasting 90 seconds. If this is labour, I want an epidural. Now. No, don't worry about a wheelchair, I can walk to the labour ward."
I tried to call Ben while being wheeled upstairs, but he'd left the phone off the hook and had gone back to sleep. I was only 4cm dilated, and the baby was in distress. They stopped the contractions with a shot of ventolin, and I remembered to try Ben's mobile. He arrived thirty minutes later, and little David was born by emergency caesarean at 414am. It had taken that long for a theatre to become available. I saw him briefly, but didn't get to hold him. My BP had dropped very low, and I spent a couple of hours in recovery before I was returned to my room. David was wheeled in, crying his little heart out, but the nurse wouldn't let me hold him until she'd done something or other for me first. When I finally held him, he was red and exhausted from crying.
David's temperament is quite different from nathaniel's, a forceps delivery two and a half years later, who was laid on my chest and slept soundly for the first couple of hours in the air. I wonder increasingly if those very early experiences affected the level of anxiety in my boys, and in the way I have parented them. I know I couldn't bear to be parted from David when he was tiny, and he refused to sleep without me next to him until he was 8. Nathaniel has always been a better sleeper, and far less anxious about me leaving the home.
So it's ironic that I'm back in hospital on the eve of David's birthday. I was feeling well, which made me feel very happy, for most of today, and my bone pain had gone. Nathaniel helped me make David's birthday cake, and David helped me make a gooey chocolate slice. We watched penguins of Madagascar on DVD, the boys played games, I spoke to a friend, and didn't overdo things physically. I started to flag around five, when Ben came home, and I asked him to give me an endone, as my thighs were aching again. I went upstairs, meaning to go out to buy David's present, but suddenly felt unwell. My temperature was 37.7, and rose to 38.1 over the next thirty minutes. So we all came down to the hospital, and now I'm lying in a bed in the plaster room, receiving IV fluids and antibiotics.
My temperature has returned to normal, though I started shivering and shaking (rigours) after they needled my infusaport.
I'm feeling a bit better now, and I hope I'll be able to go home tomorrow for David's birthday. I don't think I'm neutropenic, I hope it's not the flu, and I hope it's the last time I have to come into hospital.
It seems that I need to be very careful not to jinx myself- before I was diagnosed, I told Ben how grateful I was that we hadn't had any major health scares. Today I wrote on Facebook that I was feeling great. Just bad luck I guess, though I understand how people throughout time have believed there must be some quixotic force who rules our fates.
Happy birthday, sweet, wonderful David. I'm so proud of you, I love you so much. I will do everything I can to make sure I'm here for you for many more years to cone.
