I had a very easy pregnancy. The day I found out I practically phoned everyone I knew. My father cried down the phone, my mother said ‘are you sure?’.
I was scared for the first twelve weeks, slight stomach pain and I swore I was losing the baby. I had very little nausea, no cravings, no tummy button sticking out, no line down my tummy, no nesting feeling. It was great. I was very lucky.
I was scanned every month. That’s just the way it’s done. I was also blood tested every month for excess protein, rubella and toxoplasmosis. At sixteen weeks the gyno informed us she could tell what the sex was. We decided we wanted to know and we found out we were having a girl. Before we found out we had problems conceiving I had always wanted a girl. At this point I just wanted a baby. Having said that I was still pleased it was a girl.
A month after telling Dawn I was pregnant she rang me and told me she was also pregnant, she was a month ahead of me. I asked her why she hadn’t told me before and she said she didn’t want to rain on my parade. Apparently her pregnancy was an accident and her first comment to her husband when she found out was ‘what am I going to tell Ailsa?’ She then prayed I got pregnant quick. Bless her, I love her to death.
Christmas 1999 was spent in France, I was too big to go anywhere. It felt very weird just the two of us and Hattie. For the new millennium we went to Monaco. We parked at Dom’s apartment and Dom, Linda, Louie, Bart, Michelle, Steve and I all walked down to the port of Monaco. Dom had thought he’d had a brilliant idea of parking his car earlier in the day in the centre of Monaco and then we could all drive back. This plan failed miserably as I think everyone in the vicinity had the same idea and there was a huge traffic jam. Having been on my feet so long I started to get twinges in my tummy. Steve and I decided to get out and walk back to the car. Linda was only too happy to let us out as she thought I might be going into labour and she didn’t want the baby born in the car!
On 7th January 2000 we went to see the gyno who would be delivering the baby. He remarked that I looked tired so suggested I be induced. We had an appointment on Monday 10th January to go into the hospital. I remember he said that if I was started off at 7am the baby would arrive before midday. I went home and told everyone this and most women just laughed and said that labour lasts a lot longer than five hours!
I went into hospital on the evening of 10th January. I gave birth at the Lenval hospital in Nice, the same hospital Angelina Jolie gave birth to her twins in. They woke me at 7am and I was induced at 8am. Steve arrived at 8.30. I actually saw him arriving as I had been put in a delivery room overlooking the Promenade des Anglais and the airport. At the beginning of my labour I just lay watching the planes coming and going. By 10am the pain was getting worse but not unbearable. Then the nurse came and told me that they had to break my waters but before that they had to shave my fanny. Steve found this quite amusing and watched her while she did it. After she’d broken my waters with what looked like a coat hanger I started to feel really funny. I was going to faint and I couldn’t lie down as I was already lying down! Steve called the midwife who tipped the bed right back for me. It worked.
By 11am the contractions were coming thick and fast and it was painful. I’m not one for suffering pain gladly so I asked for an epidural. I had been to see the anaesthetist a month beforehand who explained how it worked. I asked him would I receive the epidural when I asked for it as I had heard of cases where patients were kept waiting. He assured me that it would be administered within five minutes of me asking for it. I asked for the epidural at 11am and he arrived at 11.30am. I was not amused. Apparently there had been an emergency. Epidural is amazing. As soon as it was administered there was no more pain. However, as soon as it was administered the doctor arrived and they told me to start pushing! I only pushed for about ten minutes when she started crowning. The doctor was so enthusiastic he told Steve to come down his end and watch. Steve found it all fascinating. You have to stop pushing at this point and the doctor told me to stop pushing, I told him I wasn’t pushing. He told me again to stop pushing. I told him again that I wasn’t pushing. Once again he told me to stop pushing, this time the mid-wife told him I wasn’t pushing. This had all occurred because I was ripping so badly. Crowning was actually very painful. Having a head stuck in the opening of your vagina is not a pleasant experience. Eventually her head came out and I was told to push the rest of her out. She arrived at 11.50am on Tuesday January 11th 2000. I had been in labour for just under four hours and I had only pushed for 20 minutes. The doctor had said she would arrive before midday and she did.
Steve cut the cord. He was not squeamish about it all, just got on and did it. He then followed the mid-wife around while she was measured, weighed and vitals checked. Steve came back in beaming that she had just peed all over the midwife. While all that was being done, I had delivered the afterbirth and was being sewn up. When they were finished with her they put her nappy on, dressed her and then lay on me. We lay in the delivery room for two hours, she was asleep. Steve stayed for about an hour and then went home to either phone or email everyone the news.
We had already agreed that she would be called Charlotte, it was the only name we could agree on.
We were eventually taken upstairs to our room. We had a private room. This is 80% paid for by the social security and the rest is paid for by the complimentary insurance, depending on your contract with them. We had a room overlooking the Mediterranean, not bad. Charlotte was put into her cradle and the nurses helped me change. I was sore, I couldn’t even walk I was so sore. My phone in the room just rang off the hook. Eventually the nurses came in to tell me to try going to the toilet. Well I tried but it was so painful. They had already placed a mat on the bed, which was just getting soaked in blood. My list of things to bring gave sanitary towels as one of those things. I had, very naively, brought along just your average sanitary towel. The nurse nearly fell about laughing at this. I then phoned Steve and told him to go to the pharmacy and get me some heavy duty ones. They also kept trying to get me to start breast-feeding. However, Charlotte was having none of it and just wouldn’t latch on. She just kept going back to sleep.
That evening our first visitors arrived, Linda and Dom. Linda told me later that when they left, the first thing Linda said to Dom was ‘I’m sorry but that baby looks just like Steve’. The nurses came along later to ask me if I wanted to keep her with me that night or did I want them to take her to the night nursery. They actually recommended that I send her to the nursery so that I could get a good night’s sleep. I did just that. I actually felt quite refreshed Wednesday morning. I had a shower, washed my hair and then waited for them to bring her back. I actually got a bit worried as they didn’t bring her back till 9.30am . Having said that they brought her back washed and clean.
The Doctor came by to check that all was well with my stitches, which it was. Then he told me something I hadn’t realised. He said, ‘it’s your haemorrhoids which are causing you the most pain’. I had absolutely no idea I’d got piles. I was gobsmacked. Something else we had to put on the list for Steve to get from the pharmacy – pile cream. Lovely.
Later that morning Steve came by. He didn’t stay long, as he had to register the birth at the town hall in Nice. In France you are given three days to register a birth. It was also a bit boring for him hanging around the hospital. The nurses came by again to try and get me to breast-feed. Once again Charlotte was having none of it. They went away and whilst I had no audience I tried again and she latched first time. When the nurse came back, she was delighted and so was I. In the afternoon my local paediatrician came to do the usual checks. The only thing slightly wrong with Charlotte was that she had a slight mark above her right eye, which she said would disappear after about a year. She was right.
That evening the nurse came in to tell me that as I was breast feeding it would be best if I kept Charlotte overnight from now on. Steve was there and a friend. I didn’t hear anything they said as I just felt terrified. This was going to be first night with her on my own and I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility and I just felt completely terrified. Everything turned out fine. After giving her a feed at 1am she slept until 7am. I felt quite pleased with myself. However this did not last.
Thursday morning and the nurses came to show me how to bathe Charlotte, clean the umbilical cord, squirt something up her nose and clean her eyes. It was also the day that Steve’s parents arrived. I had a funny feeling they would turn up whilst I was breast-feeding and they did. Whereas I didn’t mind breast-feeding in front of my parents, breast-feeding in front of my in-laws just felt too weird. Steve’s mother cried as soon as she saw her. We agreed they would come back in the afternoon and I just knew they would turn up whilst I was breast-feeding again – they did!
Friday morning I asked the Doctor if I could go home. I just wanted to get on with life at home. Get Steve involved more to the point. I was due to go home Saturday but I’d had enough. The nurses let me wash her myself, squirt and clean. They were then satisfied that I could leave in the afternoon. At lunchtime Linda arrived with Michelle and then at 4pm Steve came to take us home. Putting her into the car seat for the first time was interesting and then Steve drove at about 5 mph the rest of the way home. Steve’s parents arrived in the evening for about an hour. They went home the next day.
You don’t get health visitors in France the same way you do in England. I was given a phone number I could ring if I needed help but once out of the hospital no one comes to your house to check on you. We did have one scare on the following Sunday when we found blood in her nappy. I phoned just about everyone I could think of with children. It was Dawn who finally reassured me that this can happen when breast-feeding, some of the hormones pass over from mother to child. My next appointment with the paediatrician was on Tuesday – I had to go to her, she didn’t come to me – and she also said it was perfectly normal.
Steve went back to work on the Monday after I came out of hospital. Plus he was away all week. This didn’t bother me as he works away and I knew I would have to get used to it sooner or later. My mother came out three weeks after she was born for a week and for the last few days of her stay my father and my sister also came out. My father was evidently not very well. He would often go and lie down for a rest. My sister during her three-day stay was absolutely brilliant. She practically took over and I was quite happy for her do so.
After them, Steve’s sister came to stay for a few days from Australia. She was also very helpful, cooking meals, looking after Charlotte whilst I slept.
After four weeks of breast-feeding I decided to give it up. I had been expressing and I decided I wasn’t producing enough. When I expressed I would produce about 5ml. I also felt that she was constantly attached to my boobs, probably because she was so hungry because I wasn’t producing. Going onto the bottle was the best thing I did for her. She was so much happier. She wasn’t crying so much, she slept better. However I felt so guilty and I cried as I felt such a failure. Everyone says ‘breast is best’ and giving it up just made me feel like I’d failed her already. But then when I saw how much happier she was on the bottle I knew I’d made the right decision.
Steve was peeved with the decision as this now meant he had to do his share. Warming bottles, washing bottles and making up bottles. He especially hated getting up in the night to warm up bottles. He should have counted himself lucky he was only there at the weekend!
People say you’ve got no idea what’s coming when you have your first baby and it’s very true. I would also advise couples never to have a baby to bring them closer together as in fact it does completely the opposite! We used to have arguments as to who had had the least sleep!
When I was pregnant with Charlotte Steve joined a running club called the Hash House Harriers. They are known around the world as ‘people who like beer who have a running problem’. This was Steve’s social life in France and just because we’d had a baby didn’t mean he was giving it up. So every other Sunday he would go running with his friends. I didn’t really like him going being as he was always away during the week. I felt the least he could do was spend the weekend with his family. I remember one Sunday I told him to look after Charlotte whilst I spent some time on my own in the garden. Literally two minutes later he brought her outside to me and left her! I jumped up asking what he was doing and he said he was going upstairs to get ready to go running! Our compromise would be that he would come straight home after the run and not go to the restaurant after.
I had been planning to continue with my OU in February but I soon came to realise that this was not going to be feasible. I just was not going to have time to look after a new-born and do my studies. So I put it off for a year.
Life became a lot easier when she got to eleven weeks. This is when she started going through the night and sleeping in her own room. When she was three months old we took her to England for Easter. The plane trip was very easy, not a problem at all. In fact Charlotte has never been a problem on a plane. We’ve been to America three times, Australia once and countless flights to England and she’s never been a problem.
She was 11 months old for her first Christmas, obviously at that age she didn’t understand it and in fact on the day itself she was very ill, vomiting everything. It was our turn to spend Christmas with Steve’s parents who always spend Christmas with her sister and her family. I did not have a very good day as I spent most of it worried about Charlotte. The next day I went down with flu and when we got back to my mother’s house I spent the next three days in bed.
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