The peanut has landed, and we haven’t slept well since.

Katy was moved from the Lady Mary Annex to the delivery unit on the morning of Monday, Nov 10. I took my favouritest bus ever, the craptaculous Citi7, and got to the hospital at 12:45, after a small shopping trip into town to order a giant Millie’s cookie, buy some food and pick up a TENS machine (which turned out to be a bust as those that were available to buy over-the-counter were unsuitable for pregnancy and you needed to order in the pregnancy ones a week in advance). I got to the hospital and setup the laptop and portable hard-drive. We have food, music for about 1 week of continuous playback and lots of tea. Katy’s going to have a shower and then we’ll go walkies.

5pm: We go walkies again. Nothing of note is happening yet but they want her to walk as much as she feels up to to help the baby get into a good position.

9pm: Katy’s starting to get cramps every 15 minutes or so. They’ve been getting a bit stronger for the last hour or so. The midwives seem happy about this. We keep running into various midwives from MFAU and from the diabetic clinic, who have been informed through the grapevine that Katy’s being induced.

11pm. I tuck Katy in bed after her last trace. Ben is still ok in there. We just finished watching a Time Team special on WWI about an underground bunker in Flanders. The midwives have setup a gym mattress on the floor for me to sleep on. It’s better than what I expected to sleep in, i.e. the rocking chair, but my back will be displeased with me tomorrow.

Tuesday, Nov 11, 8am: I slept ok, better than expected, but I’m still stiff. The woman who was screaming for most of last night had her baby early in the morning. Having tea now.

12pm: The midwives have taken the first hormone dose out and are happy with the progress of how things are going but say it’s going to be tomorrow, or even Thursday, before Ben pops out. They want the induction process to be as stress-free as possible for Ben, and more importantly, for Katy’s BP – which seems to be cooperating at the moment. They don’t want to go in all guns blazing unless they have to. So, slow and easy for now. More prostin gel later today and assess. If needs be, the more doses tomorrow (they only give 2 doses per 24 hours). If after all those doses and the actual labour hasn’t started by itself and they’re not in a position to rupture her membranes, they’ll have a long, hard chat amongst themselves to figure out what the next step is but, hopefully, things’ll continue on how they’re doing now. Slow but steady.

7pm: It’s official, I hate that damn bus. Since things were calm, earlier in the afternoon, I took the opportunity to go home, have a shower, grab a change of clothing and cook some food to bring back. That bit went according to plan. The bus to bring me back to the hospital? Didn’t show. Again. It’s appaling that I notice it more when the bus is on time. These days, it seems to be the norm when it’s late and it’s shockingly often that it doesn’t even come at all.

I went back on campus and was able to mooch a lift from somebody who was heading into town. What also didn’t go according to plan was me almost getting hit by an ambulance that pulled out about a foot in front of me when Jules dropped my off in the middle of the Addenbrookes roudabout.

Wednesday, Nov 12, 2pm: Things are still progressing slowly but surely. More hormone doses. Ben’s moving lower into her pelvis but the cervix still isn’t open enough to allow her membranes to be ruptured. Katy’s getting stronger and more frequent cramps. This is a good sign but she’s goading her uterus on with taunts of “come on, you can do better than that!” I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to quote that back to her when she’s in labour proper. Right now, we’re just bored. Katy’s watching daytime TV and I’ve just hacked the hospital networok (but that wasn’t really a challenge, to be honest). The midwives will be checking in on her bits in an hour or so. If her membranes can’t be broken tonight, they have to wait 24 hours until they can give the next dose of hormones.

5pm: Katy had a bit of an emotional moment when it felt that nothing was happening and she just wanted to go home.

7:30pm: Yay, cervix. It’s dilated enough that they could break the membranes soon and that should really kickstart things.

10pm: Contractions are regular in timing but still not strong enough to qualify as labour. Considering the amount of screaming that we’ve been hearing, we’ve got a long way to go still. I put some music on and Katy pretends to ride a horsey on her birthing ball.

K: This is some way to pass the time, eh?

R: What, in pain?

K: Yeah :) By the way, I’m sorry in advance if I’m mean to you.

R: It’s ok, I’ll just use it against you at a later time.

Thursday, Nov 13,, 2:15am: They did Katy’s epidural. She took it like a champ. I thought I was going to puke from the anxiety I was feeling. They still need to test it out properly. I felt like my BP was going to go through the roof.

3:15am: Katy is plugged into her epidural drip, an oxytocin drip, a glucose/insulin sliding scale, a trace machine and a dynamap BP machine. Now I know why they call it assisted delivery. We now have a midwife assigned to us for the foreseeable future.

5am: Saw mucus plug. Not nice.

K: How do people do this without an epidural?

R: They scream a lot.

5:30am: Still not proper labour yet. Contractions are still too erratic. Hopefully, the ever-increasing levels of oxytocin will start to work in a few hourds. The midwives reckon it’s going to happen today, but late today. I’ve been up for24 hours and I’d kill for a cigarette.

6am: Had an experience straight out of a horror flick. I walked all the way from the delivery unit to the food court without meeting anybody except long, institutionally-painted hospital corridors, humming fluorescent bulbs and wall-paintings of clowns. Everything had been cleaned and tidied by the night staff and everything was completely empty. Freaky.

7am: The c-word is being bandied about with increasing frequency. It seems that Ben’s getting very tired by the whole induction process. If things don’t get a move on, Katy’ll need to have an urgent c-section, which is still better than an emergency one.

9am. Just woke up. Apparently the rocking chair snuck up while I wasn’t looking. The duty midwife had to climb over me a few times to check on Katy’s drips. I never noticed. The docs say that we’ll have Ben today, just not sure when. He seems to be behaving now. They’re still increasing the oxy to try and get her into fully established labour.

12:30pm: Went outside for some fresh air. It seems to be a nice day out. I was weak and mooched a fag from one of the builders on site. Katy’s cervix is now dilated to 4cm. This is a good milestone because things can start happening very quickly now. Or so we hope.

1:15pm: I have to say that I’m really impressed with the amount of care and support we’ve been getting. Various doctors keep popping in and out to look at the trace and there’s been a midwife with us constantly since Katy got her epidural. We have been lucky in the postcode lottery. Addenbrookes is one of the best hospitals in all of the UK and is the regional neonatal hub. We’re in good hands. Currently, the plan is still watch and wait. They’re going to get a blood sample from the top of Ben’s head to confirm that he’s still ok in there. That’ll dictate a lot of what happens next.

3pm: Midwife shift change. Ben is still being a git. Katy needs to change position every 30 minutes or so, which is a right faff considering her right leg is completely dead and she slides lower in the bed every time we try to move her. The c-word has been heard in the background, as she’s not progressing quickly enough. The whole induction process has been going on since Monday. They can only give her so many drugs. Even though she’s not feeling any pain (she has the epidural to end all epidurals), her body is still going through a hell of a workout. The good news is that her sugars, BP, kidneys and epi are all doing well.

4:15pm: Ben’s heart rate on the trace is seriously concerning the docs. Katy is now fully dilated but Ben is still lying really high in her pelvis. What’s worse is that every time Katy has a contraction, Ben’s heart rate dips and takes about a minute to come back. This is not a good sign. Wheels start turning very quickly when the decision is made to wheel Katy to an operating theater “just to be safe”. Every able body in sight is drafted to move the bed and all the drip stands. The chief resident examines Katy and decides “right, he’s coming out now“. Katy needs to have an emergency c-section. That’s when all hell breaks loose. People coming out of the woodwork – it looks like pure chaos but you know that everything is controlled and everybody is doing what they should be doing. it takes 5 minutes for Ben to be cut out. He’s officially born at 4:XX. One of the midwives asks me if I want to go to the resuscitator to go see him, but that’s across the room and I don’t trust my legs just at that moment.

5:31pm: Jesus Christ. Shock. Tea. Katy is being put back together. I seek normalcy in mundane tasks, like packing everything back into the suitcase so that nothing is lost when Katy is transferred from the delivery unit to the recovery ward.

5:55pm: Dr Tom just left. Ben had the cord wrapped around his neck. That’s what was causing the distress on the trace during the contractions. The good news though is that they tested the oxygen levels of a sample of cord blood and everything is fine and there should be no lasting effect. The operation went very well with little blood loss. Katy is currently snoring on the operating table while they finish up. Second bout of shock. There is still tea and a comfy chair. All is well.