ThinkingClarely

I gave birth during Covid and all I got was this amazing baby girl

Posted on October 2, 2020     Leave a Comment

First off all the trigger warnings for talk of babies and traumatic labours. Second off this is my story with no fault or blame to be placed on anyone, least myself. Lastly this will not be everyones cup of tea and that’s ok, you have been warned read if you want and don’t if you don’t 

On a routine check a few days before my due date my midwife said ‘so I can see your induction has been booked for Sunday’. I was shocked as no one had told me I was being induced, and especially not in 4 days. I explained how confused I was and she said she’d call the hospital to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. They confirmed my consultant had requested my induction and at 39 weeks pregnant, on my own in the room I said ok then. Assuming that if my consultant had asked for it, it was needed. Attending these appointments alone had become a normality in my pregnancy, but not having my partners brain available at this last stage to push and ask the hard questions was the start of a series of unfortunate events that lead to a very difficult birth. 

On Sunday James and I turned up to hospital for my booked induction at 10am, we had been told he could be there for the induction only to have him turned away at the door. Due to covid I had to go it alone. I kissed him and nervously walked in to a room where I was left alone. A midwife entered and told me I was early (i wasn’t), she said I should have been called and told that my induction was delayed (I hadn’t). So I sat in a room on my own, well me and bump and waited. I waited 2 an a half hours and then a consultant came in. He told me what would happen, I had read online that I could go home in-between my induction and active labour, I asked if I could and he said no, due to covid I would have to go to the ward. I should have gone home. 

I had a balloon inserted at lunch time and was told that it was to be removed in 12 hours. I went to the ward and settled in. Tried to get some sleep, walked around the hospital and got ready for the midnight, 1am call up. I knew once I went through to delivery Jim could be with me and I wanted him there so badly. Midnight came and went and nothing happened. I called for a midwife, ‘oh don’t worry you are next’. I called my husband excited. At 4am the woman across from me in the ward was taken through. I called the midwife ‘oh no, no one should have told you that, you won’t be taken through till shift handover at 8am’. I was so sad, I called Jim and told him to rest up and to come in at 8am. 8am came and went I called for a midwife again. ‘It’s very busy, it might be a while’. I broke down. I knew I had a 24 hour window for the balloon to be removed. I explained this meant I had a mere few hours left, I felt like I was a ticking time bomb and I was quite quickly dismissed. 

I called Jim in tears, alone in hospital and scared. He called in to complain, which did prompt some response. With 20 minutes to go before my time was up two consultants came to my bedside to explain the options. If they take the balloon out they have 2 hours to break my waters or we have to start again and they’re not sure they have space for me in delivery, or they leave the balloon in and it’s unlikely to do any harm. I was in tears, what does unlikely mean?! Is this my choice? Is this your choice? The two consultants had a debate (aka argument) in front of me fighting for each side and settled on leaving it in, I didn’t have a say, I’m not even sure they knew I was there by the end of it. I sat tired, deflated, heartbroken, the exact opposite of the zen calm state I should be in for a positive labour. I was so tired and deflated, I just sat staring at the wall wondering if this was all normal, if I was over-reacting?!

27 hours went by from my induction and I was finally called through to delivery. I called Jim straight away, he was there in minutes. I hugged him so hard. My waters were broken and now we were underway. Except we weren’t. We then had to wait another 4 hours for the synthetic drip to start, again delivery was too busy and our doctor was needed elsewhere. I totally understand emergencies need their attention, but we were left in a room for 4 hours with no information. This was valuable time when I could have been sleeping or resting but instead we just sat waiting. I had now been awake for the best part of 32 hours. 

At shift handover we got our midwives who would stay with us until our baby girl was here and despite what unfolded they were an incredible team. Once my drip was started things went downhill pretty quickly. My contractions had started before the synthetic hormone was administered, and the influx of drugs made our little ladie’s heart rate drop. To the scary point of emergency buttons being pushed and teams of medical professionals being in the room. I have never been so scared in all my life and the team of people by my side instantly was incredibly reassuring. 

The next hurdle was my heart murmur, something I had told my midwife at my very first appointment but had caused no concern up until this point. In came some more consultants who asked why I hadn’t told anyone about it, strong accusation in their voices. In between very strong contractions, and a medical team attaching monitors to the babies head inside me, I told them I had, and no one had been concerned. They clearly did not believe me. They were clearly concerned! I was then hooked up to an ECG and had god knows how many blood tests taken. A particular low was someone trying to get blood out of my hand whilst I was having strong contractions, and just poking me over and over again and unable to get anything from me. I think I said something like ‘please can you just do that another time’. By this point I was in a bad way. I had a fever and had been being quite sick. I’d contracted an infection, a bad one and I was at high risk of passing it to the baby. I was extremely tired and asked for an epidural which was administered quickly and professionally, and allowed me to get some much needed rest. 

I was woken to the news that it was time to push, still feverish, still shaking, still broken. I had said all along that I didn’t want my epidural to numb me completely I wanted to be able to move and feel some of what was going on. I think this was helpful for what came next. First time mothers are given 2 hours to push before intervention is offered. I was told that due to my heart condition I would be allotted 30 minutes or it would be the slice me open approach. I honestly thought fuck that, I am not going through everything I’ve just been through to not push this baby out of me so that’s what I did. I was allowed 47 minutes in the end to get her out, and I was so proud of myself in that moment. There is so much stigma around epidurals, as if you have one then you have somehow cheated in labour, I can wholeheartedly say I didn’t cheat or take the easy way out. I gave everything I had and if it wasn’t for that needle in my back I really don’t know what would have happened.

I would love to say things improved from there, but the next few days were the loneliest and hardest of my life. Alone on a ward to recover from a serious infection, hooked up to an IV and taking care of a newborn who was also poorly, with just a 45 minute visit from my partner. Visiting hours restricted due to covid. I hoped this restriction meant that the teams that were there to take care of us all would be able to really support the women and babies, but that was not my experience. I will not go into all the poor treatment I felt we received in hospital but to give a flavour on our second night I was in floods of tears at 3 am with a screaming newborn begging, and I mean actually begging, a midwife to help me get just 20 minutes of sleep. I was broken, alone, scared, anxious, extremely ill, and a new mum. The day I got discharged was the happiest day, recovering at home so much easier and simpler, support from my partner felt like a miracle. But none of that should be a miracle, women should be able to have all the support they need after giving birth. 

From that moment although we settled well in to home life and our recovery increased. The support for us as a new family continued to be non-existent. The lack of support for the women especially was so paramount. What other major trauma do you go through where you have no follow up?! My husband had more checks following his broken leg than I had after pushing out a near 9lb baby with a world of complications. The one check-up supposedly for you, is purely focussed around contraception. An actual joke that doesn’t consider the woman and her bleeding, broken, disfigured genitalia, but instead assumes that her priority is to please her partner once again. The idea that women need to ‘bounce back’ quickly from pregnancy really is ingrained in our medical professionals almost as much as it is portrayed on social media. 

Following the birth I felt like I had failed. I’d done the hypnobirthing, I’d followed the breathing and positive affirmations and nice music and it didn’t work for me, did I do it wrong?! There was only places to write and share your positive birth story, no one wanted to hear my negative birth story, but I wanted to talk about it. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “but she’s here now and healthy” a very true and well meaning statement, yet it’s a dismissive one, one that says your pain doesn’t matter, you are not important here. Something I personally feel a lot of as a new mum, suddenly your needs are second in every which way to your beautiful new babies.

So here it is, my very negative birth story, a catharsis for myself. And a message to anyone who needs to know that however your baby came out of you, I’m in actual awe. You are the most incredible, strong, beautiful women and if you feel cheated by covid, I do too. I’m loving my baby girl, I’m loving being a mum but I am still grieving for a normal pregnancy, a normal birth, a normal recovery – whatever that is…

I will leave you with this. I know my baby girl will grow up to be a strong woman, because she was born in to a time that demanded the most strength from her mother and all the women that have delivered during this pandemic. 

C-X

Brutal

Posted on May 10, 2019     2 Comments

This week I have done a grand total of nothing, well that’s a lie I managed a spin session on Wednesday. Life has thrown in some rather abrupt curve balls of late, most related to that proper job, the one that keeps everything ticking and turning over, keeps a roof (with a hole in it) over my head, and a bath where I can try and soak all this away. The balance I fight so hard for every day is eroding and I am once again left flailing, fire fighting, trying to catch my breath. And as my chest tightens and my eyes well, I know that I am tired, ever so tired, and ever so alone. Why do I only write when things are going to shit?!

So instead this week all I really could do, sat at my desk surrounded by paper, is consider what this means. Training has at best been sporadic and all the questions you should ask yourself before taking on a massive challenge like this, all the fears that you have before the start, it seems have been realised for me. I’ve got through to the 3.8km swim, I’ve got through the 26.2, and I’m ramping up the bike miles each week 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100! Is that enough though?! Although to the untrained eye, yes of course it is. To the trained the answer is no! No it is not enough, missing 5 workouts in a week, and no it is not enough to miss long runs and tempo rides and strength sessions and endurance swims. Another 12 hour day and a shandy in hand, when I should be somewhere else on feet, or wheels, or water.

I am stretched very thinly, and all the comments from before I started fill my head like angry little ghosts from the past. ‘You’re taking on too much’, ‘why are you doing this’, ‘you won’t be able to’ ‘you’re being selfish’. The guilt of everything I’ve already missed throughout this weighs heavy on me, the times I miss with friends and family, the relationships that take hit after hit.

The biggest emotion is fear, fear that maybe this is the thing that will forever be unattainable, that all the hours so far will come to nothing in the end. I’m scared that what everyone said at the start was right. I’m scared that I will fail. I’m scared most by how much I’m currently failing, those daily, weekly fails that are adding up, with a ticking clock, and the knowledge that those things together mean that I’m running out of time to pull it back.

And of course I know that nobody cares apart from me, and I only write these words to stop the tears from coming, and to try and realign my thoughts in to some sensible pattern. I’ve learnt so much, I’ve come so far, these are the words I must hold on to. As I repeat them over and over in my head.

The hard and fast truth is that everything hurts from trying or failing, brain included.

My heart is heavy. My air BNB is booked.

Just keep going.
I must keep going.

C-x

Graz Marathon

Posted on October 17, 2018     Leave a Comment

My general rule of thumb is you should never blog angry nobody wants to read that. Well I’m a rule breaker so as I sit on a plane feeling bitter and frustrated I decide to write. Probably a bad idea.

Graz is a cute little town in Austria, it has a clock tower, cobbled streets, ice cream and a cake that translates to Mozart’s Balls. It’s about 2 hours outside Vienna, which was where I had flown into with my sister, to stay with our friend Lisa (Austrian native and tour guide extraordinaire). Lisa and her sister would be running their first half marathon in Graz and I would be running the full, because I’m an idiot and it’s a marathon and I just can’t help myself.

On the trails amongst close friends my nickname is Dik Dik, it’s a tiny member of the gazelle family and runs pretty well on its little legs, I also can be found quite often running alongside an actual Gazelle, so it fits you see. The other reason is because I am an actual dick, I don’t listen, I don’t pace, I race hard always, I do all of the things I shouldn’t do most of the time, and expect it to work. It doesn’t. This will all be proved time and time again over the next 26.2.

Graz Marathon is a half marathon, a relay and a full, so at the start there is quite a buzz. It is a lapped course, just 2 laps which doesn’t sound terrible right? Wrong! The laps are essentially made up of two long straight out and back roads about 3 miles each way and then a weird squiggly bit of city centre running through cobbled streets, over tram lines, alongside shops and cafes. The long out and backs are pretty tough to do once, let alone to then have to turn around and do them again. The other terrible thing about these laps is after the first lap all the half marathoners leave you, and you realise the marathon is actually tiny, and you are now all alone to tackle the drudgery of running on a hot day and uninspiring route.

I feel bad, this is not Graz’s fault, this is very much my fault!

I started ahead of the 3:45 pacer (see Dik Dik), and I set off at what felt like an easy pace, I got a message on my watch to say I was running too hard and I was like yeah whatever. My watch was reading out some weird times anything from 13 minute miles when it felt hard to 7 minute miles when it felt easy. As my mile splits beeped up it transpired that the density of the buildings was making my watch misread everything and I in fact was running way too fast. Practically my 5k pace (massive Dik Dik). It wasn’t until Mile 4 rolled around and the 3:30 pacer passed me that I realised I actually had totally fucked it and this was going to be a tough morning. The first half came and went and to be honest I felt ok. The route as I’ve said was fairly generic of a city marathon, which I am now convinced are mostly all the same, bar a few notable exceptions. There was an industrial bit, a quiet bit, a busy bit, some nice architecture a few bridges, you get the idea.

My sister was out supporting and I saw her a lot in the first half. I shouted at her how hot it was, not really sure why, but it was nice to chat and she agreed it was seriously hot. Yep in Austria in Mid-October, and I’m covered in a thick layer of salty salty sweat after the first few miles!! What?! How?! Global Warming that’s how! Any climate change deniers out there eat your heart out, I’m pretty sure this is actual proof.

I knew the second half would be super tough A) because I’m a massive Dik Dik, and 2) because the route was really shitty. I was not prepared for how shitty it would get!

So as I mentioned at the half way point all the Halfers jolly off to the finish to have a beer, and all the idiots go out for round 2. Round 2 was dead, there was no one, at one point I looked behind me down a long stretch of road and I could see not a person. I carried on pushing, but if pacing was hard in the first half with people around to pace against, it was now near impossible with no reliable data and no reliable runners. That being said I was pretty comfy up until mile 17 when it all fell apart and I wanted to die, hit all the walls, cried, threw all my toys everywhere, and also officially melted. The long stretches of out and back had very little shade, very little support, very little anything. I felt alone and tired and fed up and cheated and bitter and miserable.

By the time I saw my sister at mile 20 I was having a full on cry, she told me just one more out and back and I was done and she’d be there at the finish. She was right just 1 more out and back, but I’d already done so many out and backs, I couldn’t handle another 3 miles of long straight hot road, followed by a turning point and running the same 3 miles back. I didn’t want to! I spent the next 6 miles fighting between total toddler tantrum ‘I’m quitting’ and total wonder woman ‘fight this thing all the way to the finish you warrior goddess’. It was tough. OH and I forgot to mention the relayers! To make matters worse every so often some spritely, happy, amazing, super-fast, super fit runner would run past you making you feel like a sad, old, pathetic, shit, loser runner. So you would see no one, no one else to die alongside, and then suddenly some chump doing a relay would come whizzing past you all fresh legged, making you realise how dead on your feet you actually were!

Again Graz not your fault. My fault. 10000000% my fault.

You see I’d wanted to do something spectacular in Graz – spoiler alert – I didn’t! I wanted to be spectacular because the world had been telling me for the previous x number of weeks that I wasn’t good enough, and I wanted to prove to the world that I was good enough by running a time I hadn’t trained for, at a marathon I hadn’t trained for, in a season of racing that has broken me both physically and mentally, after a year of injury battles, and after the most stressful week of my life in recent times, see world’s biggest (and now most entitled) Dik Dik.

I started to ask myself why I was even there, why I was even running, what was the actual point of any of it. Then I thought about Lisa who was no doubt now finished with her First Half Marathon (Spoiler Alert – she did amazing and I love her). I thought about how she was about to experience that moment where you feel you definitely can’t do something and then you go and prove to yourself that you can do anything, anything at all, and you are an actual super woman. She was doing it for her reasons and I remember when I started doing it for mine! I got mega emotional for her and for me; and for times in our lives that feel like they are going to break us, and instead of breaking us we take all the energy both positive and negative and power it hard in to something huge! That just about got me to the finish.

If I learnt anything in Graz this was it. Marathons are brutal and hard and beautiful and amazing. Running is all of those things. Life is all of those things. Breaking doesn’t mean you’re broken.

I do think running and the running community has broken me a bit this year in ways I’ve shared and in ways I haven’t, so it feels fitting to step away for a while. I will still run, train, improve, chase times, chase distances, and chase puppies that I see out on the trails. I will still believe, I will still push, I will still fight, and I will probably still post lots of little square pictures. But I’m honestly jaded by it all, by what I see and what I hear and what I’ve experienced.

So yes I need to focus on doing that thing that reminds me that even when my whole world is crumbling in to tiny little unmanageable pieces of rubble I can take all that energy both positive and negative and push it in to something huge. I can start something that I might fail at, and that I can finish something and not feel like a failure.

I need to remind myself of all the reasons why I started and find the joy in dreaming big and fighting hard and proving people wrong (myself included)

Marathons I miss you already, but I’ll see you in the spring when hopefully I’m a little less bitter and a little more fitter

c-x

So what’s next?

Posted on October 2, 2018     Leave a Comment

So what’s next? a question i loathe but find myself asking all the time. As if one achievement in a life time isn’t enough. When you get into sport of any kind though, when you really really love it, then is there ever such thing as enough? I’d quite happily run everywhere everyday if I could. I’d quit my job and just run things, anything, everything! For people who go out and do a Marathon one year, train for it, complete it, and say yep that’s it, checked off the list! That’s totally fine, more than fine, it is incredible. I’m just not one of those people, I didn’t start running to one day stop, I started, and knew pretty sharpish that I never wanted to stop.

So when I got injured earlier this year my world fell apart, I felt like the fragile lost puppy I spend most of my time trying to convince the world that I’m not. My biggest gripe was that running hadn’t injured me, life had, life once again got in the way! It was an eye opener to my resilience or lack there of, to my addiction, to the immense and unconditional love I have for this sport. So when I got it back I wanted to go hard after it, I did that! I ran a marathon, and then I ran another one a week later, and in 10 days I’ll run another, and I realised I was ignoring all of the life lessons not running had been teaching me. Mainly that putting all your eggs in one basket makes no sense for a healthy brain, and that actually although running will always be my one true love, I love being active most of all! But all that got lost quick! I forgot what the pool looked like, I let my bike gather even more dust, and I just ran.

Then I did something crazy. I messaged the only two people I know insanely powerful enough to do an Ironman and said can I do it? it’s a very similar scenario to how I signed up to my first marathon, after running a 10k race and emailing a friend to say “can I”? Except this time I’ve never actually done a triathlon…

Neither of them said “yes, oh my god you will smash it you incredible super human”, they gave me the brutal honest truth, which I needed to hear.

And then I signed up!

Not because I’m taking this lightly at all, it’s insane, stupid, unachievable, but I heard all the insane. I heard all of the hard work and terrifying moments I will have to break through just to make it to the start line. It sounded like it would (and probably will) break me 100 times over. The funny thing is after hearing all of it, i wanted it more than I did before I asked.

I have never done a triathlon. I use my bike as a hallway ornament currently, she’s beautiful. I can swim alright, but I’ve neglected the water for a little too long now, oh and I can do that run bit, if (and it’s a big if) it’s on it’s own. It’s a far cry from any comfort zone, and probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. There is 95% chance of failure, but that leaves a 5% chance I might just pull it off. I hope to improve those odds as we go along.

I wasn’t going to tell anyone, it seemed like a safe option. If I kept it to myself and failed then did I really fail? Well the answer is yes, I failed twice. Once because I actually failed and twice because I bought in to the worlds biggest lie, that there is something wrong with going hard after something BIG and falling down.

Anything could happen between now and July 28th. I want to talk about all of those things along the way, I want to be honest with how much of an idiot I am. I’ve used this space successfully to document all of those idiot moments thus far. I love reading back over them, seeing how much I’ve changed and adapted along the way. You don’t have to tune in. This isn’t for anyone else. This is for me. One of the few joys of the internet is the ability to ignore anything you’re not interested in.

I won’t go in to the why, but lets just say it’s been another odd year to be alive. I have had some dreams on my bucket list, and this is another one. Maybe I will be the type to just triathlon once (well hopefully more than once as I plan to do at least one in training) and then say nah not for me. Or maybe I’ll fall hard in love with it like I did the marathon. There are so many reason not to do it, but I like the one that lingers in my brain saying ‘go get it’, I need to, or at least need to try to do this and that brings me to my next part.

_______________________________________

An open letter to my friends and family
I need to be selfish one last time, (that’s a massive lie I will be selfish loads more times). I need you to know that I will miss important things, that I will cancel plans, that I will be boring; in bed, on the bike, in the water or hitting the trails. I need you to know that if you want to see me you will probably need to take up one of these 3 sports in order to do so. I need you to know that I will be spending money on mostly kit I don’t need, and some very expensive kit I definitely need, and I have no idea what the difference is! I need you to know that I will only be reading books on triathlon, which means I won’t have much else to talk about. I need you to know that all of this sounds like I’m going to be the worlds worst friend, sister, wife, daughter and I need you to know that’s true, and I can only say that It’s going to get worse because the next bit is just so totally unfair…

Not only am I going to be totally terrible from this point forth, more terrible than running 12 in 12, more terrible than being a total run bore. The worst thing is I need to ask you to do this with me! I can offer you nothing in return, literally I can’t even promise that I can give you my time or attention or that the times you are with me I’ll be a joy, because that’s probably all a lie too (see i’m learning). I will most likely shout and grumble at you when things fall apart, blame you for things that are not your fault, and require you to be 100% there for me but then also 100% not there for me depending on which mood I’m in. Oh and you will have no way of knowing which mood that is, you just have to guess and deal with the consequences. You may have gotten used to me being a total run bore, but now you must listen to me become a trifector of bore! I will need you to talk me down when I say I can’t and pick me up every single time I fall (off the bike). I need you to research what the heck I’m doing, I need you to tell me I’m the right amount of crazy, and I need you to take me on super long bike rides (Hayden!) because i’m mostly petrified of that bit. Oh and also swimming in a lake and getting eaten by a large fish snake hybrid!

I probably can’t do this at all, but I definitely can’t do this alone. 9 of the hardest months of my life are about to start, and I know many of you would be hoping that 9 months would be spent cooking up something other than a crazy sporting dream, but hey as always I do things a little differently.

I promise at the end of this, whatever the outcome, I will love you so much, and I just hope you will be able to still love me.

So what’s next?

I guess this seals the deal that project IRONWOMAN is officially underway! Well actually it gets underway on the 28th October, happy 31st birthday you crazy little lady! (I talk to myself sometimes)

I’m sorry (but also I’m a trail runner and we’re massive liars)

Go!

c-x