Gabriel Colin Richardson was born at 2:24am on 8th June, weighing a hefty 9 pounds, 3 days past his due date. He's gorgeous and I am totally in love. We were team yellow. Full story below photo - I know some of us prefer just to see the pictures! 
I had a membrane sweep at 40+1 weeks, at a midwife appointment on 6th June. Baby wasn't moving anywhere near as much as usual that night and into the next morning (7th June), so I went in to the hospital for monitoring. I picked up OH on my way through town because he was worried too. Baby was fine, I was having mild but regular contractions, they sent us home, and OH decided to finish his work remotely for the day. Thank goodness he did!
About 90 minutes after we got home, at 5:30pm, my waters broke and were horrible yellow brown colour, which I knew meant meconium. I phoned triage again and was told to come directly. My contractions began to pick up intensity and frequency. It was, of course, rush hour, so it took us almost an hour to reach the hospital which is normally 35 minutes drive away. By the time I got there, I'd soaked another couple of pads and was dripping down my legs. Yuck. I went straight into a triage room while OH parked the car, and when he came in I promptly threw up everything back to lunch. I did feel a LOT better after that! I was breathing through the contractions at this point, making some noises but not feeling out of control.
We were taken almost immediately from triage to a delivery room in the main hospital labour & delivery department - the meconium meant we could not use the midwife-led centre or have a water birth, but at that point I did not care and was just so relieved to feel that everyone was telling me things would be ok. I got on the gas and air right away and that did help take the edge off. But within an hour, the pain was intense enough and frequent enough (less than a minute between contractions) that I asked for an epidural. The anaesthetist had two women to go before me, so I was given the option of a half dose of diamorphine to make it till he got to me. That worked brilliantly, although I felt very woozy with that and the gas & air. I was on continual fetal monitoring (scalp electrode to a wireless transmitter taped to my thigh) due to the meconium primarily and the pain relief secondarily.
The epidural was put in around 11pm when I was about 4cm, and as soon as the diamorphine had worn off, I felt like a million dollars. I was alert, in no pain, feeling every contraction as pressure and muscle movement. I was checked again at half midnight, and had reached 9cm in just 90 minutes - cue much praise from the midwife. I think being fully relaxed with the pain relief of the epidural is what helped me go so fast. About 1am I started having really odd daydreams and funny thoughts. I think that was transition. The contractions actually stopped altogether for half an hour, and then I began to feel the need to push. The anaesthestist had calculated my epidural doses perfectly - I could feel everything but without pain, and could even tell the midwives when I was about to start pushing so they could help me.
The monitor showed my baby was not reacting well to the pushes when I was on hands and knees or my side, so I moved onto my back, where he coped better, although that is a harder position from which to push for me. He did ok for about half an hour, and then started to show signs of serious distress with each push, so the ventouse team was scrambled. I got him to the point of crowning without the cap, and they said another half dozen pushes on my own would have done it, but we got him out in just one more to save him the distress. I had a small episiotomy (3 stitches) and one small superficial tear (1 stitch) where his hand had dragged past.
They put him straight onto my chest, screaming bloody murder, and I could see right away that he was a boy, even though OH was supposed to tell me! He still said the magic words "we have a son", and we both burst into tears. Gabriel had a 2 minute apgar score of 9, which is tip top, and his feet & hands pinked up quickly after that. We had about an hour of skin-to-skin, which resulted in him doing some excellent latching on and feeding. He was wide awake and furious at the world.
We came home last night, a little on the late side as we were waiting for him to have a wet nappy (tons of dirty ones, but no wee until late evening), which he obliged by fountaining all over my hands and his clothes while I changed a dirty nappy. He's not sleeping much at night but right now is fast asleep in a wrap on my chest after an excellent breakfast feed. He's really a champion feeder, I just need to work on my latch to keep the nipples from getting too sore. I feel amazing, still running on adrenaline and other hormones. OH is shattered and I sent him back to bed after breakfast so he can take care of me when it's my turn to crash.
I had a membrane sweep at 40+1 weeks, at a midwife appointment on 6th June. Baby wasn't moving anywhere near as much as usual that night and into the next morning (7th June), so I went in to the hospital for monitoring. I picked up OH on my way through town because he was worried too. Baby was fine, I was having mild but regular contractions, they sent us home, and OH decided to finish his work remotely for the day. Thank goodness he did!
About 90 minutes after we got home, at 5:30pm, my waters broke and were horrible yellow brown colour, which I knew meant meconium. I phoned triage again and was told to come directly. My contractions began to pick up intensity and frequency. It was, of course, rush hour, so it took us almost an hour to reach the hospital which is normally 35 minutes drive away. By the time I got there, I'd soaked another couple of pads and was dripping down my legs. Yuck. I went straight into a triage room while OH parked the car, and when he came in I promptly threw up everything back to lunch. I did feel a LOT better after that! I was breathing through the contractions at this point, making some noises but not feeling out of control.
We were taken almost immediately from triage to a delivery room in the main hospital labour & delivery department - the meconium meant we could not use the midwife-led centre or have a water birth, but at that point I did not care and was just so relieved to feel that everyone was telling me things would be ok. I got on the gas and air right away and that did help take the edge off. But within an hour, the pain was intense enough and frequent enough (less than a minute between contractions) that I asked for an epidural. The anaesthetist had two women to go before me, so I was given the option of a half dose of diamorphine to make it till he got to me. That worked brilliantly, although I felt very woozy with that and the gas & air. I was on continual fetal monitoring (scalp electrode to a wireless transmitter taped to my thigh) due to the meconium primarily and the pain relief secondarily.
The epidural was put in around 11pm when I was about 4cm, and as soon as the diamorphine had worn off, I felt like a million dollars. I was alert, in no pain, feeling every contraction as pressure and muscle movement. I was checked again at half midnight, and had reached 9cm in just 90 minutes - cue much praise from the midwife. I think being fully relaxed with the pain relief of the epidural is what helped me go so fast. About 1am I started having really odd daydreams and funny thoughts. I think that was transition. The contractions actually stopped altogether for half an hour, and then I began to feel the need to push. The anaesthestist had calculated my epidural doses perfectly - I could feel everything but without pain, and could even tell the midwives when I was about to start pushing so they could help me.
The monitor showed my baby was not reacting well to the pushes when I was on hands and knees or my side, so I moved onto my back, where he coped better, although that is a harder position from which to push for me. He did ok for about half an hour, and then started to show signs of serious distress with each push, so the ventouse team was scrambled. I got him to the point of crowning without the cap, and they said another half dozen pushes on my own would have done it, but we got him out in just one more to save him the distress. I had a small episiotomy (3 stitches) and one small superficial tear (1 stitch) where his hand had dragged past.
They put him straight onto my chest, screaming bloody murder, and I could see right away that he was a boy, even though OH was supposed to tell me! He still said the magic words "we have a son", and we both burst into tears. Gabriel had a 2 minute apgar score of 9, which is tip top, and his feet & hands pinked up quickly after that. We had about an hour of skin-to-skin, which resulted in him doing some excellent latching on and feeding. He was wide awake and furious at the world.
We came home last night, a little on the late side as we were waiting for him to have a wet nappy (tons of dirty ones, but no wee until late evening), which he obliged by fountaining all over my hands and his clothes while I changed a dirty nappy. He's not sleeping much at night but right now is fast asleep in a wrap on my chest after an excellent breakfast feed. He's really a champion feeder, I just need to work on my latch to keep the nipples from getting too sore. I feel amazing, still running on adrenaline and other hormones. OH is shattered and I sent him back to bed after breakfast so he can take care of me when it's my turn to crash.
xx
