I'm sorry if it's long and boring but here's the birth story - aka: Winona and the broken arm

I have been thinking about how to write this post for a while (thinking rather than writing because my computer desk is next to Max's cot and watch out ye who disturb the sleeping baby!).

But basically Max's birth can be summed up in a sentence:

The doctor broke his humerus (upper arm) when he was born.

Yeah that's a bit shit isn't it?

 Here is the long version in pointform:

• I was 40 weeks and 6 days. I had my appointment and the doctor was keen to get him out (due to previous cesarean). They do not induce if you have had a cesarean before but the head doctor on the day was willing to break my waters and maybe give me a drip, depending how I went. It's not really usual to do so but I wanted a go at getting him out myself.
  
  
• My waters were broken early in the morning. The guy who did it was apparently "the best" at breaking waters and could even do it in the dark (challenge NOT accepted, thanks) however, I do seem to make some pretty teflon tough membranes and it took him a while to do. Like maybe 10 minutes. TEN MINUTES IS A LONG TIME WHEN SOMEONE HAS THEIR HAND UP YOUR VAGINA. He was then not sure he had done it so he stuck some tweezer type things up there to try and grab some hair of the babies head to show there was no membrane there anymore. Last time I did not really make babies with hair so I was a bit worried about this "method", but luckily there was a gush and we were on our way and I got my vagina ownership back for a little while longer.
  
  
• Nothing happened at all.
  Walking around and around the hospital did jack shit. This baby didn't want to come out.
  
  
•  They decided I could handle the drip to induce contractions and over the next few hours, stuff was happening. And when I say that I mean I actually got to feel some contractions. And yeah they were painful! It was quite weird.
  
  
• Apart from making teflon-tough membranes, I seem to also posses a cervix that doesn't like opening.  Maybe no-one knows the magic word, who knows! But that thing was NOT dilating.
  
  
• Ho hum, the doctors started getting worried about previous cesarean scar site rupturing (which is why they don't induce) so they decided that another cesarean it was. They had let me have a good go at it though, which was nice.
  
  
• The doctor who had been looking after me all day looked EXACTLY like Winona Ryder in 1993. I am not joking!
  
  
• So much to my dismay, another cesarean it was.
  Cesareans are crap and they hurt a lot, but recovery was easier this time (I needed morphine last time). I also had a spinal block, rather than epidural, and I preferred it! It worked better but it did give me the shakes/shivers afterwards, which was weird.
  
  
• Stef and Max came with me to recovery, which was nice and not one of my finer moments but as I was shivering myself silly, I had a midwife on each side of me squeezing a boob each to get some colostrum. NOW YOU HAVE MENTALLY SEEN THAT, you can never unsee it.
  
  
• Baby was handsome and was massive - 4.4kg.
  
  
• That night a midwife said "Oh look, he has a floppy arm" but nothing was followed up and I was high as a kite anyway. The next morning I mentioned this to Winona Ryder who looked quite horrified.  After a quick check of his arm she said "I think it's broken"
  
  
• Fuck.
  
  
• From this point on, we saw loads of people / doctors / specialists etc. It was full on and not nice at all. Max's poor little humerus was snapped in half and whilst baby bones are a special kind of magic (ie: able to fix itself quickly), there was conflicting information and no ownership and a procession of people coming and going.
  
  
• I wish Winona no bad vibes herself though, because it was, unfortunately, just a freaky thing. As far as we know it was broken when she pulled him out with forceps (his head was down pretty far). We are more pissed with the people who dealt with us afterwards.
  
  
• No plaster needed, just a splint. Although if the directions of the orthopedic specialist are not followed by the pediatric doctor, the break will look even WORSE a week later:

Try to look at the baby chub (cute) on the arm and not the break (crap)

• He had a splint on for 2 weeks and now he moves his arm like there's no tomorrow, so things are now ok and healing well. But things were a bit shit and stressful for a while there.

 There is supposed to be no long term damage from this (those magic baby bones again) and it's just going to be a story we can laugh about - or Max can brag about.

I am feeling a bit more human now that breastfeeding and sleeping are evened out and we have a schedule (still not getting enough sleep though). Having a newborn in summer is also pretty crap.

If you have read all this, well done!

7 weeks later, I feel like he's growing up too quickly and I can see why people have more kids.


Special fuck-off thanks go to everyone who's asked if, since I have had three boys I will be going back for a girl? (honestly, shut up!)

Having twins last time was amazing, but it felt like I was living on another - solitary - planet for about 6 months.  This time is nothing like that (probably because I have the twins to keep demanding things from me!) but it's certainly a different experience and I like it a lot.