Hi everyone, sorry for being absent but we've been spending all our time between the hospital and home with the dcs, it's around a 15 min drive usually but took us 45 mins in the snow the other evening! I'm so knackered as I'm expressing every 3 hours day and night but loving every minute. Cannot wait until Ella is home with us though.
She's doing really well, she was initially on so many wires, cpap, tube fed glucose for the first couple of days (she's now on milk via a tube), cannula, oxygen, heat regulator etc but is now off a lot of those. She pulled her cannula out last night and as her infection levels came back fine they've stopped her anti biotics and didn't put a new one in. She has a long line in at the moment too as she was having some extra fluids, sugars and some fats put into her and they said it could irritate her if they did it through a normal cannula.
She's lovely though and I still cannot believe she is actually here! The induction with her was stopped after the first lot of gel, I think they gave me 1mg on the Thursday evening and then nothing happened so I ended up going home Friday afternoon as they said scbu didn't have a bed for her. Well, Friday evening I started having contractions. At the time I was in some huge denial and put the pains down to just braxton hicks/false labour so I tried to sleep and just relax. All night the pains carried on every 5/6 mins which woke me up and by the morning they were getting worse. They weren't unbearable though and I kept telling myself that I couldn't have her Friday night as they didn't have space for her but I was due back in Sat morning as they thought they'd have space then so I was trying to hold out!
I woke dh at about 3am to say I was hurting but it seemed ok and then again at around 7am, he thought I was in labour and tried getting me to go in but I was having none of it. I really thought that nothing was happening and didn't want to go in to hospital for them to say I wasn't dilated at all and then having to stay in. Eventually I got up and had a bath, dried my hair and did my make up lol, I laugh at that now as I was actually in proper labour and having pains every 5 mins. So we left home and they were coming every 3 mins or so and I was really struggling to get through each one, I couldn't talk, move and barely breathed through them and just held onto dh's hand or the car door.
Got to hospital about 10.30 and they put me on a monitor. I wasn't in constant pain but she saw me have a contraction and I said it was really hurting and asked about pain relief. She said she could check me and I was starting to get shaky (sign for me that it's around transition usually). She checked my cervix and said scbu won't be pleased as I was 7cms with bulging waters!
I got some gas and air and she rushed off to make some phone calls to scbu and told me not to push or do anything! Dh was very shocked and could barely believe it as the midwife told him she was coming soon :o Everything happened quickly after that and I started feeling an urge to push. I had a few more contractions and I really felt like pushing. Midwife was back and saw me then called for them to get a paediatrician now. My waters broke everywhere as I pushed, there was a load of fluid which went all over the place, including some on dh. A couple more pushes after that and she could see her head, I had to start panting and then her head was born shortly followed by the rest of her. All throughout all I could think was that I hoped she was ok, I wasn't overly bothered by the pain I was concentrating on hearing her heartbeat and kept asking if she was ok.
I remember it feeling like forever between contractions as I was pushing her out. She was op (back to back) and didn't turn at all, came out face upwards. No tears or cuts for me and I got to hold her right away for a little while before she had to be checked over and then taken to scbu.
I was, and still am, so relieved and happy that she arrived safe and well. I've recovered really well and was having a shower about an hour after the birth and walked to scbu to see her just after that. I came home the same evening and have felt absolutely fine since, touch wood. The only pain has been the afterpains which have gone now but were quite bad at first so I took calpol.
I'm going to try and catch up and post as I go, I won't have time now as we're off back to the hospital soon and I need to express again first and sort the dcs out etc. I've been so tired but I've been thinking about you all and will try and catch up as soon as I have some spare time and energy!
xx