My first time pregnancy story
I am pregnant for the first time and I live on a small remote island. This is my story.
Blog Chapters
Pregnancy blog: front page
Chapter 1: I'm pregnant! The initial emotions
Chapter 2: Sharing our good news
Chapter 3: The unwelcomed symptoms of pregnancy
Chapter 4: Initial midwifery appointment
Chapter 5: Hello baby!
Chapter 6: A healthy growing baby
Chapter 7: The happy second trimester
Chapter 8: Gifts & preparations
Chapter 9: Our plans for home birth
Chapter 10: The start of the third trimester
Chapter 11: Birthing options - a decision finally made
Chapter 12: An unplanned trip to the hospital
Chapter 13: Newest third trimester sensations
Chapter 14: Last minute preparations & more gifts
Chapter 15: A scare! Has the baby moved today?
Chapter 16: We are ready for the home birth
Chapter 17: The woes of late stage pregnancy
Chapter 18: The excruciating waiting stage!
Chapter 19: Scanning & sweeping
> Chapter 20: Trapped in town (an indefinite hospital stay)
Chapter 21: Baby's birthday! My delivery & birth story
Chapter 22: A quick recovery
Chapter 23: Final thoughts. . .
Chapter 1: I'm pregnant! The initial emotions
Chapter 2: Sharing our good news
Chapter 3: The unwelcomed symptoms of pregnancy
Chapter 4: Initial midwifery appointment
Chapter 5: Hello baby!
Chapter 6: A healthy growing baby
Chapter 7: The happy second trimester
Chapter 8: Gifts & preparations
Chapter 9: Our plans for home birth
Chapter 10: The start of the third trimester
Chapter 11: Birthing options - a decision finally made
Chapter 12: An unplanned trip to the hospital
Chapter 13: Newest third trimester sensations
Chapter 14: Last minute preparations & more gifts
Chapter 15: A scare! Has the baby moved today?
Chapter 16: We are ready for the home birth
Chapter 17: The woes of late stage pregnancy
Chapter 18: The excruciating waiting stage!
Chapter 19: Scanning & sweeping
> Chapter 20: Trapped in town (an indefinite hospital stay)
Chapter 21: Baby's birthday! My delivery & birth story
Chapter 22: A quick recovery
Chapter 23: Final thoughts. . .
Chapter 20: Trapped in Town (an indefinite hospital stay)
Let me begin by pointing out that I am very much a creature of routine, I love my own space, my own home, my own environment. . . What other people may call “an adventure” I see as a disruption and anything that is out of normal stresses me out. That is why I love living on a small remote island where nothing ever changes, I feel safe and happy. So, with that in mind. . .
Friday
On Friday 28th September we were admitted to the maternity ward based on the doctor’s concerns regarding the low amniotic fluid surrounding the baby. We packed our bags, jumped on the evening boat and were at the hospital at 8.30pm.
I have to say that the first night in Kirkwall was exciting. It was an adventure, an unexpected turn of events, unplanned yet thrilling. It was a reminder that despite the best laid plans sometimes that’s just how life unfolds and our baby was now writing their own story.
We arrived at the unit, dumped our bags and rushed out to have a lovely Chinese dinner. It was our first restaurant meal in almost two years which felt like a nice little dinner date. James and I were toasting our “last supper” as a couple, knowing full well that next time we may need to worry about baby changing rooms and faff around with child seats. Dinner was amazing and Kirkwall was lovely, cool and quiet at 9.30pm at night so the walk back to the hospital was nice and refreshing.
Once we were back I was connected to an ECG machine to monitor the baby’s heart rate which was healthy and strong. We were in bed by 11.00pm and after an exciting day I slept really well, but James couldn’t doze off so instead he wandered the halls and corridors of the hospital taking some footage for the YouTube vlog (see a video below).
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Saturday
Saturday 29th September was officially our due date and we woke up feeling hopeful and excited - “C’mon Baby!” was the sentiment of the entire day. After having a light breakfast at 9.00am we decided to find the canteen that the nurses have been telling us about. We were wondering around the outside of the hospital and noticed the canteen from the outside, but couldn’t imagine how to locate it on the inside of the building. It became a real “geocaching” adventure for the morning, with us getting more and more lost in the hospital corridors enjoying the little wonder around. It was more like a brand new game of “geocafe” I think! Such fun! We finally found it but it was too early for lunch - the aim of the game was to locate it.
Later that morning I noticed my hands have become a little swollen but the midwives said that was to be expected so late in the pregnancy. I was really happy I had removed my wedding ring at the start of the month.
I had another membrane sweep at 11.40am to encourage the baby to show up. The midwife explained that there has been a lot of progress since the last sweep done at 2.30pm-ish on Thursday. She said that the cervix was fully closed on Thursday but I was now 2cm (2 fingers) dilated and this sweep should encourage further progress. I was so happy to hear that the baby was indeed making preparations to arrive into this world - the sooner they arrived, the sooner we could go home and avoid any medicated inductions in Aberdeen!
I had light bleeding (midwife warned me that would happen) and a lot of cramping after my second sweep which made walking more difficult. The doctor came in to see us and reiterated the concerns he had explained over the phone, advising that staying at the ward was indeed in the best interest of me and the baby and we agreed that we understood his concerns and, despite it not being a part of our plan, we were happy to come in for monitoring and delivery at the ward.
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We took a break as we had some lunch at 12.00pm. The kitchen served a meatloaf with mashed potatoes. It was a hot meal and I didn’t complain, but it was hospital food which went a long way to making us both miss our own oven, our own home. . .
I had another perfectly normal ECG scan at 2.15pm and at 3.00pm we went on to kill some more time. The game we played in the afternoon was called “find the only staircase in the hospital” and I was disappointed when it only took us 2 minutes to locate the stairs. It was a two flight staircase and the challenge was to walk up and down as many times as I could. I have to say that after 2 years of living in a bungalow and being full term pregnant made the game indeed challenging but I was marching and running up and down like a trooper, really trying to encourage the baby.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Kirkwall shops. James realised that he had packed a photo camera but didn’t have a way to connect the memory card to the laptop, so we bought a memory card reader. For some reason it didn’t work with our computer, so we had to return it to the shop and then bought another one in another electronics shop. We also visited the chemist and a couple of charity shops before deciding that 5.00pm was a good time to have some dinner. We stopped at a lovely Indian restaurant and had some hot spicy curry, once again, trying to encourage the baby. The lady serving us was so lovely - she asked us when the baby was due and laughed when we said it was “today”. At the end of our meal she gave us three chocolate sweets, saying one was for James and two were for me, because I was still “eating for two”. That was really thoughtful and sweet!
We left the restaurant and headed back to the maternity ward. At this stage James was really climbing the walls as he felt so trapped. He decided to go out and check out the British Legion in Kirkwall, catch up with some of the other veterans in the area. I decided that I was too tired to venture out and decided to have an early night. Firstly though, I found him an extra blanket so he didn’t get cold in the night when he was back, but with little entertainment available and a pretty full on day I felt tired so I went to bed at 8.00pm. I was resting but didn’t fall asleep until James came back later that night. I was so pleased he had a little “Saturday night” experience away from the hospital and he told me later on that everybody at the Legion were congratulating him on his first baby’s arrival, so he had a good time. I have to say that I was ever so slightly envious.
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Sunday
Sunday arrived and the baby was officially overdue. This is also the day when the excitement of being in Kirkwall has completely worn off and all the silly games we were inventing just served to point out how confined and “stir crazy” we both felt. The frustration of waiting for the baby had been building up for a couple of weeks now and today marked the culmination of all that pent up emotion.
This was the day that it really dawned on us that we were staying at the hospital without a real end date in mind... It was an indefinite hospital stay, as it felt at that point, which was really soul crushing. We kept telling each other that it’s for the best and that it’s for the baby, but the truth was, we were two free spirits experiencing a massive cabin fever and getting more and more homesick by the minute.
We started the day with breakfast at 9.00am and another ECG scan and 10.00am which was, once again, perfect. I then had a roast dinner lunch served at 12.00, but this time the chefs at the hospital decided that James wasn’t a patient so that day they didn’t give him any food - he instead had to content with the leftovers from our visit to the Indian restaurant the night before. Hard life, eh?
As we had our lunch we had a lovely chat (more of a rant and a vent really) with one of the domestic support assistants working at the hospital - she was so lovely and understanding of our emotions and made us feel a lot better with her upbeat and smiling attitude. She explained that she’d like to become a nurse but still had to complete her exams and we told her that she’d make a brilliant nurse as her people skills were excellent! We asked for her name (so we could get her a thank you card later) and she humbly admitted that nobody had ever asked for her name before. This both saddened me and at the same time warmed my heart.
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After lunch we went out for a mooch and a wonder around town, visited all three local supermarkets and the leisure centre, to see what activities we could undertake with a toddler this winter (toddler swimming classes appear to be a lot of fun). As we came out of the leisure centre, we could see a boat docked at Kirkwall pier and were secretly wondering if the hospital would notice or miss us if we were to jump on the boat and go home. It was more of a “joke to self” kind of a thought as we knew we were in the hospital for a reason, but we were also so fed up with being in town.
At 3.00pm we were back to the hospital and, just as entered the ward, I had an overwhelming burst of emotions and couldn’t help but cry. I was fed up, frustrated, home sick and feeling generally displaced. Then, if only to relieve the frustration, I started stomping up and down the stairs again. I must have done it for at least an hour, until I felt much better. Then we decided to have a chat with the midwives and clarify our options just to see if there were any procedures we could electively choose to get the labour started.
Later that afternoon I told the midwife that I was struggling emotionally and said that we tried everything we could think of (we had curry, pineapple juice, a lot of walking, climbing the stairs) and asked again if there was anything more we could do at this hospital to get the labour going. She said another membrane sweep so soon is not recommended as it might introduce an infection but suggested I could try having a hot bath. I agreed to try that.
The bath at the maternity unit is a funny one - it is set low into the floor, is short and narrow but has one deep and one shallow end, so I could sit in it but not lay down. I sat in this bath for about 20 minutes, all squished and awkward with water barely touching my belly button. I love baths and so I couldn’t help but miss my own large corner bath back home on Eday - it did little to help relieve the stress of being away from home, but I was hoping it would at least help bring the baby to us sooner. I got out of the bath and placed the “wet floor” sign near the entrance (an old habit from working in a busy office, I guess).
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When I came back to the ward a midwife also brought me a big grey bouncy yoga ball to bounce on. I was bouncing on it ferociously to get things going when a little later a senior midwife came in to have a proper chat with James and I. She must have heard of our mental struggle and came to see if there was anything she could explain or offer us, which I thought was really thoughtful and sweet. She began by saying that we were staying at a hospital not based on a doctor’s whim or their convenience but that the concerns about the baby’s growth were a big deal. She said that the last scan has put me into the red light category! You see, my pregnancy has been so uneventful and good that I was always a green light case, but this situation now wasn’t even an amber light - we were firmly in the red and simply had to be at the hospital. She said that having low levels of amniotic fluid is stressful to the baby and can bring a lot of complications. Later we also find out that it was actually the abdominal circumference chart that showed baby wasn’t putting on the weight and wasn’t at the right girth size that they needed to be at, and this condition can deteriorate and become dangerous very quickly. I was reassured that the hospital was indeed where we needed to be - yes, not what we had planned or wanted, but necessary and beneficial.
We then had a lovely chat about living in Orkney and I mentioned that I didn’t have any Braxton Hicks contractions during my pregnancy. The midwife was amused by this, saying that I wouldn’t have such a lovely large baby bump if there had been no BH’s as these rejuvenate the placenta - but she confirmed that a lot of first time mums don’t actively feel these. I was reassured that everything was, in fact, as it should be.
I then asked for further explanation as to what our options were if we were to go to Aberdeen at week 41. The midwife explained that we are hoping not to cross that bridge and that the baby should come before this time, but should we get sent to Aberdeen, there are three methods of induction: a balloon stretch, an administering of artificial hormones or having my water broken and taking more serious drugs to get the labour going. There was also a possibility of needing a Cesarean section. James and I confirmed that we would really like to avoid any interventions and were happy to simply wait (whilst secretly hoping it wasn’t going to be a long wait!).
When I mentioned that I wasn’t sleeping well she found me a face mask and some ear plugs. This was really above and beyond her duty as they don’t usually stock these items at the ward but she had some that she had from another ward. I was so grateful as it really saved the day (well, the night, really) for me! She then connected me to an ECG machine at 10.20pm and I went to bed straight after the test came back clear later that night (11.00pm-ish). The face mask helped me fall asleep straight away and I slept so well. . .
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I was saying how the face mask that the midwife gave me helped me fall asleep straight away and I slept so well!
Until 3.00am in the morning. . .
Until 3.00am in the morning. . .
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