Cal's Birth Story

April 04, 2012

Cal's Birth Story

Around about the 7 month mark

Our son Cal was born premature at 33 and a half weeks via emergency c-section. Here's his Birth Story (with more hospital pics)...

My darling Cal, it’s January 31st and you are one week and one day old. You Little Bugger! It’s minus 3 outside with a fine layer of snow dusted over Amsterdam and instead of being warm inside my belly, you are lavishing in the neonatal care unit of Sint Lukas Andreas Hospital down the road.

5 weeks before your due date, you stopped being the busy little fish I had grown used to and kept very still one day as we drove home from a weekend in Belgium. Could it be all the chatter, or the long drive I wondered. After 4 hours in the car I still hadn't felt you move. It was so unlike you and I was scared. As soon as we got home we called the midwife. She told me to take a long shower and she'd be 'round in half an hour. She came in and told me to lie on the couch. She listened for your heart with her stethoscope and in the moments it took to find the steady throb, I died a little. You were still alive and your heart rate was normal.

Then we took a trip to the hospital to have you checked out anyway and we joked about how this was a good practice run for the birth in a few months time.

Upstairs in the maternity ward, the nurses monitored your heart rate. David rubbed my feet as we listened to the loud throb of your heart rate and waited for a doctor to arrive. It was lovely to hear you in there, but I was still so concerned that you weren’t moving. At one point I had a false contraction and your heart rate dropped from 140 to 80. David sprinted out of the room to get a nurse and as the hour passed more and more doctors and pediatricians arrived. Every time I had a 'hard belly' or Braxton Hicks contraction your heart rate fell. One doctor, looking at the ultrasound noticed that your hand was quite near your umbilical cord and speculated that you may have been gripping it every time I had a contraction, cutting off your oxygen supply. But no-one knew for sure and then finally a senior gynecologist arrived and announced that we were going to have a c-section to take you out as they just didn’t know what was happening.

I was floored, but relieved. I trusted them and didn’t want to go home with an unhappy baby in my belly. I shook like a leaf as they inserted an IV and got me into one of those green backwards dressing gowns. David put my coat over me until they wheeled me into the surgery room. This part seems most dream-like as I try to remember it. I remember laughing at David’s surgery outfit, the hazard suit and shower cap which he wore French painter style at a jaunty angle. Then there was a few attempts at getting the epidural in but I was so cold and shaky that they had to give me a shot of something which I enjoyed so much I asked David if he could ask them for a bit more. The answer was no, which was a shame. It was like 4 glasses of excellent wine.

And then they zipped me open and fumbled around in there for a few minutes, which felt pretty odd. To take my mind off it David and I had a pretend conversation about still needing to get your room ready. David was very good at playing along. And then you were out! They held you up for a split second. "Here he is!" they said. “Whoa, whoa whoa!” David stood up and laughed as they held you over the curtain. I saw a glimpse of your little round head, you said "Meep!" a big splat of blood hit the sheet in front of me and then you were gone and David ran after you.

Here he is!

As they stitched me up, David followed you into another room where they helped you start breathing. David says this was the most frightening part of the night. I’m glad I wasn’t there for that. At first your breathing was erratic and too fast, but over the next 24 hours you calmed down and adjusted nicely to your new world. In the beginning you were a little frightened when we touched or moved you, but in a day or so you relaxed into a very contented state of sleeping and waking calmly to the sound of our voices. I had a few beautiful nights alone in the hospital when I would pad upstairs and hold you, your eyes open, dark and curious as I snuffled your soft cheeks and held you, your little finger wrapped around my index finger.

3 LONG weeks later we were allowed to take you home!