Dh very kindly posted ds's arrival on my other thread, but for the benefit of those who missed it, here are the gory details!
Ds was born on Monday 1st August, after a stop-start labour which began the previous Tuesday. I was worried that labour would be very fast, so every time the contractions began, we jumped in the car and went up to the hospital, which is 30 mins away when the ferry is running and over an hour away when it isn't. Consequently by the time I finally went into labour it was my fourth trip to the hospital!
So... Sunday night, following a bout of manic nesting during the day, and low back pain in the early evening, my contractions started at about 8.30pm. We managed to get the last ferry across the loch and arrived at hospital just after 9 ... at which point my contractions stopped (again). I sent dh home (the long way round the loch) as it looked like nothing was going to happen. However an hour later my contractions started again, so I texted dh to turn round and come back! He drank a pint of strong black coffee full of sugar before he set off!!!
Dh arrived just after I got into the pool. The water was gorgeous, if a little hot - it decreased the pain by at least 50% at that point. As the contractions got stronger and closer together, I knelt down and gripped dh's forearms and pressed my head against the side of the pool. I had thought this would be difficult, as I have very painful knees, but the water provided me with so much buoyancy that it wasn't a problem.
Having had epidurals with both dd1 and dd2 the pain was a new experience for me, and I was surprised to feel it much more in my lower back than in my pelvis. I know it sounds cliched, but I found that saying to myself "calm and relaxed" through a contraction, and imagining the pain being attached to a thread which was been slowly drawn out of me, was really helpful.
At one point I remember saying "oh I just want to get out and leave the pain in the pool" - and realised that I was probably in transition! At which point I then thought oh yipee, not long now! (I wouldn't have know about transition if it wasn't for lovely mumset ). My waters then broke - well actually exploded would be a better description - and I was fully into the second stage.
The second midwife was called in at this point - and it was a good job she only lived down the road as my second stage lasted a total of 10 minutes! My midwife said she could see the head, so I put my hand down to feel - I could feel about the size of a £2 coin. At which point I thought, oh this is going to need at least half a dozen pushes to get out - in fact his head was out in just two. At which point the nosey little monster decided to look round - feeling a head hanging out of me and turning has got to rate as the weirdest experience I have ever had!
Anyway, one more push and out he popped, at 2.15am exactly. I was so surprised that he was a boy ? completely gobsmacked in fact. A month later and it still hasn?t sunk in. He was a lovely pink colour, and fairly quiet after a quick demonstration of his lung power. Although he arrived only the day after his due date, he had very long fingernails and his skin was very flaky, so we suspect that the dates were miscalculated somewhere along the line and he was in fact overdue.
The cord was clamped, then I got out of the pool to deliver the placenta. And that?s where the fun started ? bl**dy thing wouldn?t budge! I fed ds, stood up, knelt? nothing. Because I had given birth in a midwife unit, with no consultant on call, they were not able to pull on the cord in case the placenta split. Three hours later (yes, count them, three), it still hadn?t budged and I was too tired to stand/kneel any longer, so I had to be transferred to the city hospital, two hours drive away! Amazingly, ds slept from the time he was fed (at 2.30am), until we arrived back at the cottage hospital, some 7 hours later ? which was a blessing.
Once we arrived at the city hospital I was transferred to a bed, at which point the adrenaline kicked in and I couldn?t stop shaking. It subsided after about five minutes thankfully. The midwife in charge came and catheterised me (removing about 1.5 litres ? OMG!), then pulled on the cord and the placenta came out in two pushes. It was about double the size of previous ones! But was fortunately all in one piece. After tea and toast I was transferred back to the cottage hospital, where I stayed for another 24 hours before going home.
If you got this far ? congratulations! Thanks for reading