pinklizzy
Mummy to two little bears
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- Jul 4, 2008
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Writing this all down before I forget it but I apologise if it's a bit of a ramble!
My due date of March 28th came and went with no signs of anything happening so I had resigned myself to waiting for the sweep booked for the Monday when I would've been 40+3. After going a week early with my daughter it was all a bit of a new experience for me!
On the Saturday night I some uncomfortable tightenings while cooking dinner and getting my daughter to bed but nothing really significant. I had a bath and an early night to be woken up at about 4am with more painful contractions. I got up and bounced on my ball with a cup of tea while waching youtube videos! After doing this for an hour or so with no real change in the frequency or strength of contractions I decided to go back to bed and try to get some sleep before my daughter got up and my OH had to go to work. Before heading back to bed I went to the loo and passed a little bit of a bloody show which made me hopeful that we might be getting somewhere, while trying not to get my hopes up.
With the clocks change, LO got up at about 7.00am and I got through the normal morning routine-even managed to have a shower and shave my legs (just in case!) until my mum offered to take my daughter to her house for the day, more so that I could rest after being awake in the early hours rather than suspecting I might be in labour.
I spent the rest of the day trying to rest, pacing around and doing bits of housework. As it was such a lovely day I took the dog for a nice longish walk and about halfway round I started to think that maybe these might be the 'real' thing but after being in labour for over 30hrs with my daughter I wasn't epxecting anything to happen all that fast.
My mum kept texting me to see whether I'd rung the midwife yet but I was putting it off as I didn't want to be told I still had ages left
I managed to cook dinner in between contractions and my OH eventually got home at about 8pm.
I rang the midwife who came out at about 9pm, she examined me and I was 3-4cm and she could feel the waters bulging over baby's head. After the internal, the contractions started coming thick and fast until they were every 2-3 mins. She checked my BP, temp and pulse which were all fine but baby's heartrate was consistently 170-180bpm.
I had my heart set on delivering at the birth centre which is literally just around the corner from our house but the elevated heart rate meant I should really have been transferred by ambulance to the hospital. Knowing how much I didn't want that to happen, my lovely MW gave me an hour of routine checks to allow it to come back down. Every time she checked though it was still high
Eventually I had to go to the bathroom and while I was in there I gave baby a good talking to about how we really didn't want to have to go to hospital and could he/she just behave in there! It worked and at the final check it was back to normal 
At that point the MW said we really needed to make a move to the birth centre as I was progressing quickly and finding the contractions hard to breathe through.
So we jumped in the car and headed up-literally a 2 min journey and got there at 11pm. I got changed into the nightie I wanted to deliver in and tried to get settled into the room. I needed to walk around during contractions and my OH was amazing, massaging my lower back when I shouted at him!
By 11.35pm I was feeling a lot of pressure during the contractions so my MW wanted to check me again to know whether it was time to ring the second MW on call and I was 8cm.
I used the gas and air for the internal, mostly as I needed to lie on my back for it and that was really uncomfortable. At this point I was laid on a big squishy mat on the floor, leaning on a massive bean bag but turned over onto all fours which was more comfy.
I was using the gas and air for the more intense contractions but not all the time as it made me feel quite sick, it was a good distraction tool though, having it to bite on.
At 11.55pm I felt like I needed to push and my waters went, at that point the pressure got a lot more intense and I started to feel a bit paniced and out of control. My MW was really encouraging and let me go with what my body needed to do which was push! I had local and episiotomy with my daughter so don't remember the 'ring of fire' being so strong but his head was out with a few pushes and he was out completely with only a few more. He was born at 12.19am weighing 8lb 9oz and with an extra long umbilical cord which was wrapped around his torso.
My OH looked to see the gender as we were team yellow and we were both so shocked to have a little boy! He cut the cord and we had skin to skin with him.
I'd opted for active delivery of the placenta but it wasn't all that straightforward in the end and I had some ragged membranes which meant they had to do another internal afterwards-I used the gas and air for this, it was more painful than the delivery!!
All in all though I couldn't have wished for a more perfect birth, I got to deliver at the birth centre which was such a lovely relaxed atmosphere I felt really at home and they didn't throw my OH out straight away which is what happened when I had my daughter. He eventually went home though to get some rest and I got a cup of tea and some amazingly good toast!
My daughter came in to visit later on that morning and we eventually went home at 4pm that day, it was a lovely experience to be able to walk home in the sunshine with our new baby
My due date of March 28th came and went with no signs of anything happening so I had resigned myself to waiting for the sweep booked for the Monday when I would've been 40+3. After going a week early with my daughter it was all a bit of a new experience for me!
On the Saturday night I some uncomfortable tightenings while cooking dinner and getting my daughter to bed but nothing really significant. I had a bath and an early night to be woken up at about 4am with more painful contractions. I got up and bounced on my ball with a cup of tea while waching youtube videos! After doing this for an hour or so with no real change in the frequency or strength of contractions I decided to go back to bed and try to get some sleep before my daughter got up and my OH had to go to work. Before heading back to bed I went to the loo and passed a little bit of a bloody show which made me hopeful that we might be getting somewhere, while trying not to get my hopes up.
With the clocks change, LO got up at about 7.00am and I got through the normal morning routine-even managed to have a shower and shave my legs (just in case!) until my mum offered to take my daughter to her house for the day, more so that I could rest after being awake in the early hours rather than suspecting I might be in labour.
I spent the rest of the day trying to rest, pacing around and doing bits of housework. As it was such a lovely day I took the dog for a nice longish walk and about halfway round I started to think that maybe these might be the 'real' thing but after being in labour for over 30hrs with my daughter I wasn't epxecting anything to happen all that fast.
My mum kept texting me to see whether I'd rung the midwife yet but I was putting it off as I didn't want to be told I still had ages left
I managed to cook dinner in between contractions and my OH eventually got home at about 8pm.
I rang the midwife who came out at about 9pm, she examined me and I was 3-4cm and she could feel the waters bulging over baby's head. After the internal, the contractions started coming thick and fast until they were every 2-3 mins. She checked my BP, temp and pulse which were all fine but baby's heartrate was consistently 170-180bpm.
I had my heart set on delivering at the birth centre which is literally just around the corner from our house but the elevated heart rate meant I should really have been transferred by ambulance to the hospital. Knowing how much I didn't want that to happen, my lovely MW gave me an hour of routine checks to allow it to come back down. Every time she checked though it was still high
Eventually I had to go to the bathroom and while I was in there I gave baby a good talking to about how we really didn't want to have to go to hospital and could he/she just behave in there! It worked and at the final check it was back to normal At that point the MW said we really needed to make a move to the birth centre as I was progressing quickly and finding the contractions hard to breathe through.
So we jumped in the car and headed up-literally a 2 min journey and got there at 11pm. I got changed into the nightie I wanted to deliver in and tried to get settled into the room. I needed to walk around during contractions and my OH was amazing, massaging my lower back when I shouted at him!
By 11.35pm I was feeling a lot of pressure during the contractions so my MW wanted to check me again to know whether it was time to ring the second MW on call and I was 8cm.
I used the gas and air for the internal, mostly as I needed to lie on my back for it and that was really uncomfortable. At this point I was laid on a big squishy mat on the floor, leaning on a massive bean bag but turned over onto all fours which was more comfy.
I was using the gas and air for the more intense contractions but not all the time as it made me feel quite sick, it was a good distraction tool though, having it to bite on.
At 11.55pm I felt like I needed to push and my waters went, at that point the pressure got a lot more intense and I started to feel a bit paniced and out of control. My MW was really encouraging and let me go with what my body needed to do which was push! I had local and episiotomy with my daughter so don't remember the 'ring of fire' being so strong but his head was out with a few pushes and he was out completely with only a few more. He was born at 12.19am weighing 8lb 9oz and with an extra long umbilical cord which was wrapped around his torso.
My OH looked to see the gender as we were team yellow and we were both so shocked to have a little boy! He cut the cord and we had skin to skin with him.
I'd opted for active delivery of the placenta but it wasn't all that straightforward in the end and I had some ragged membranes which meant they had to do another internal afterwards-I used the gas and air for this, it was more painful than the delivery!!
All in all though I couldn't have wished for a more perfect birth, I got to deliver at the birth centre which was such a lovely relaxed atmosphere I felt really at home and they didn't throw my OH out straight away which is what happened when I had my daughter. He eventually went home though to get some rest and I got a cup of tea and some amazingly good toast!
My daughter came in to visit later on that morning and we eventually went home at 4pm that day, it was a lovely experience to be able to walk home in the sunshine with our new baby
