Dominic born Monday 5th Feb at 13:50 weighing 8lb 7oz. He's absolutely gorgeous and Smudgemum and Smudgedad are over the moon!
Apologies in advance for long post. It felt like a long day!!
Contractions woke me up at 02.30 on Sunday morning. Left DH in bed and tried all the distraction stuff til 6am when they were coming every 4 mins and lasting a min. Phoned hospital and they said come in if I want or if ok managing at home, stay home. Contractions eased off a bit so stayed home and watched crappy tv balancing over gym ball with DH rubbing back - bless him! Hadn't had a show and waters still intact.
At 5pm they were back to every 4 min and lasting a min so went into hospital. MW said 3cm dilated but had to push head out of way to feel cervix (owwwwww) so reckoned we wouldn't be long. We went up to ward and she reckoned we'd be back a couple of hours later. Examined again at 8pm but no change so said we could go home or I could stay in (but DH couldn't stay). Contractions were coming and going but they said I could have a sleeping tablet so I stayed. Asked to have some pethidine at 1am and just keep walking round the maternity unit. At 6am on Monday was reexamined and had made it to 6cm dilated. I was moved to delivery room and phoned DH to come in. I had some more pethdine at that point too. After that things happened pretty quickly. Had a show, contractions getting closer together etc and chomping on gas and air. MW was absolutely fantastic and let me do what I wanted. I spent most of labour on my knees leaning over the bed. Decided that I wanted to stand up even more as moved towards fully dilated (waters still intact although MW beginning to think they might have broken at some point). MW encouraged me to lean against a shelf thing and was just about to go on a break. Another MW came in to room and said to our MW that she thought she could see the head and unless I was going to deliver standing up, I needed to get on the bed. My MW decided not to go on break just yet! She got me onto bed and had a look and decided it wasn't the head, it was my waters. She broke them but then things started to slow down. She asked if I wanted to stand up again and I did so we went back to the shelf. Pushed LO out in 15 mins and she caught him!! DH then had to help out as she had the baby, I was taller than the umbilical cord so had to crouch whilst they sorted out cord etc. She said after that it's a good job we were standing up or his shoulders might have got stuck. Only problem was that because he was quite big and came in such a rush, I got a third degree tear. Ended up having a spinal and into theatre for repair. In there quite a while - DH got lots of cuddles! but all ok and mending well I think. (Well done if you made it to the end. It somehow feels good to get it all down and make sense of it in my head) All hospital staff lovely and our MW was absolutely fantastic.