The final countdown – The story
Around
the beginning of January Dabrowka had some contraction type pain.
This, coupled with the fact that her Mum and sisters all delivered
early lead us to believe that the time was imminent. Due date was 13th
January. We waited. Hours turned into days and then days into weeks
but still no sign of the little blighter. (Dabrowka had been drinking
raspberry leave tea for a couple of weeks – recommended to facilitate a
quick labour).
All clothing had been washed and ironed, Moses
basket, car seat and other paraphernalia brought down from the attic,
cleaned and ready to go. Mum had her hospital bags packed for herself
and baby, even I had my bag packed with camera, video camera, ipod,
shorts etc, but still nothing – the waiting was killing us.
By
Monday 19th we were really fed up. And then at midnight a contraction
woke Dabrowka. By 2 am the contractions were every 30 minutes and
Dabrowka woke Marek. About 4am Marek phoned the labour ward for some
advice and was told to come in once the contractions were every 10
minutes…
At last, this was it…! Or so we thought...
Monday
night became Tuesday day, and slowly the contractions became less
frequent, going to about one every 40 minutes by mid-morning… But just
before we got too worried, they started to increase in frequency again…
Until, by about tea time, they were every 20 minutes. They were also
getting stronger. By about midnight the contractions were every 10
minutes. Having nothing better to do (sleep just wasn’t an option) we
phoned labour ward again and were told to come in.
I’m sure D
can’t have been in a unique position, but by the time she had been
admitted, her contractions had slowed to approximately every 15
minutes. Examination showed nothing much going on down there – the
hole was measuring 2 cm. By this stage D was shattered and to be told
that after a couple of days of regular pain and she was still no
further to giving birth than she had been a couple of months ago was
not great news to receive.
If you hadn’t guessed by now, we were thoroughly fed up and D especially was shattered.
Keeping
people up to date had become a real chore, so we took the decision to
request radio silence with the compromise that we would post regular
updates on the site Twitter. (For those who don’t know Twitter, it
allows you to post updates (or tweets) by mobile phone text message in
addition to the more traditional web based route, thus making it ideal
for us to update everyone from hospital.)
To be honest, even now
I can’t remember how we felt Wednesday day. We waited until
contractions were a regular 9 minutes before phoning Labour ward again
at 4am Thursday morning. We spoke to the same midwife who saw us the
previous night, and she suggested that we wait for the contractions to
be at least every 5 minutes before coming in, to avoid being send home
again. To someone who had basically not had any sleep since early
Tuesday morning, this was not news that was welcomed.
Some
debate followed at home and we eventually agreed to wait for a couple
of hours, if nothing else to ensure that when we did go in, a shift
change would have occurred and D would be seen by a different midwife!
We
left the house again by 6:30 am on Thursday, contractions were still
increasing in frequency and I didn’t fancy fighting my way through rush
hour if needed.
D reckons that she had been without sleep for
about 50 hours now. After another examination she was told that
dilation had not increased since Wednesday morning. This news, for us,
was too much to bear. Neither of us could face going through another
night. D was worried about her scar from her last section, I was
starting to wonder how unsafe my driving would be. She had decided
that this time, she would not be coming home without the baby outside!
So when the midwife came back, D asked “what if I say I want a
section?”
Thinks started happening now… :-)
After review
by the Registrar we agreed on a plan of action consisting of a 2 hour
walk round the hospital, followed by breaking the waters, with a
section being available if required as the last resort. Twitter
probably describes what D was going through today…
…until the pushing started (where time to text updates was surprisingly absent!)
After
just after an hour of pushing there was still no head showing. Even
though D had received an epidural, she was getting increasing pain on
her scar site.
The midwife called in the medical team, who
after undertaking a further examination pronounced the baby’s head
needed to be turned to come out. We were offered an instrument
assisted delivery to try and turn the baby. But as time progressed,
with consent, preparing theatre etc (the delivery would have needed to
be undertaken in theatre because of the risks) D was getting increasing
pain on her scar site and we were both becoming more anxious.
In the end we made a snap decision to abort the instrumental delivery and go straight for section.
Baby
Wojciech arrived at 0:37 on Friday morning, and was home by Sunday
evening. Mother and baby, as you will know by now are both well.
And
so we start the long recovery post section, but this time D’s mother is
with us, and so far…. (dare I say it) Wojciech is sleeping much better
than Mieszko did…
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The Christening
Date: 15th March 2009
Venue: English Martyrs Church
Time: After 10:30 mass
In the end we have opted
to go for just after the 10:30 Mass, although it would be nice to see
you there for the mass! We would have liked to do it in the mass,
but opted for after as we will be in the middle of lent
We are planning some refreshments in the hall after the ceremony
Map of showing Location of English Martyrs
Please note - we will not be sending invitations. If you are reading this, then please consider yourself invited
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The Name...?
For those who don't know the story. Mieszko was the 1st crown
prince of Poland, his wife being Dabrowka. He is credited with
bringing Christianity to a pagan Poland. As far as we could
determine, there is no English translation.
Having lumbered our first son with such a 'handicap' we felt it would
be unfair if we did not do the same for child number two...
Wojciech (pronounced Voy-check) is the patron saint of Poland. He
was the Archbishop who 'cemented' Christianity under Mieszko's son
Boleslaw.
Wikipaedia has some basic info, and we'll try and add some links here soon...
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Contact and visiting
Current daily pattern is something like this:
| 9:00 - 11:30 |
Breakfast and playtime |
| 11:30 - 14:30 |
Sleeps (mother and children) |
| 14:30 - 20:00 |
Lunch, play time and tea |
| 20:00 - 22:00 |
Getting ready for bed |
| 22:00 |
Bed (and sometimes sleep) |
Visitors preferred after 2pm upto 10pm.
If you visit please remember Mieszko....
e-mail contact:
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