Oh my goodness, I'll blame it on breastfeeding-brain, but for some reason I thought I knew you from the ante-natal thread rather than TTC! Sorry! Anyway, can't believe how long it seems since I talked to you guys - how are you doing? Hope you're keeping as positive as ever?
I'll fill you in here if that's OK - I remember how I didn't really appreciate PG and baby stories when I was having a bad TTC day, so don't want to inflict mine on everyone.
So I had a completely normal healthy pregnancy, about the worst thing I suffered with was heartburn (which wasn't fun at the time though!). Was due on 4th Nov, and on 6th had a really crap day, feeling tired and nauseous. Went into hospital that evening because I thought my waters had gone - they confirmed it, but I wasn't having regular contractions, so went home again. The rest of that evening was pretty horrible with D&V and contractions starting. So I eventually went into hospital again about 3am feeling totally exhausted already, with zero food in me, and no desire to eat any of the energy snacks I'd packed!
When I arrived I was just about 4cm dilated. I'd planned to use a birthing pool in the midwife-led unit, but there weren't enough midwives free for me to do that, so I ended up on the co-led unit which was annoying. I tried sitting in a normal bath for a while, but it wasn't comfortable so just sat on a ball dragging on gas and air for all I was worth while DH tried to keep me upright (the gas made me woozy and the ball was too big for me!). By about 7:30am I was asking for more drugs, but they examined me and said I was 9cm so it wasn't really worth it.
I was starting to feel what they call "the urge to push" (which is such a strange feeling!), but the baby was back-to-back and they were getting worried that it was in distress and wasn't turning quick enough. So they used a ventouse cup to turn the baby the right way round, and she was out just a few contractions later, at 9:55am.
So the labour was nothing like I'd hoped for - I managed just on gas & air, which I'm glad of, but it ended up very medical, with me in stirrups for the ventouse and having to sit there for another hour while they stitched me back up (because she came so quickly in the end). But she was completely healthy which is the main thing! Very cute (obviously) and tons of dark hair!
The first week with her was surprisingly easy actually, she took to breastfeeding well and slept lots and was generally pretty easy going. Since then it's got a bit more difficult as she doesn't always sleep well (probably what people call colic) but hopefully it's a phase that she'll be through soon. She's such a joy when she's not crying though, that it's all completely worth it! There are a couple of pics on my profile if you want to see.