Our baby girl Isolda Tui arrived yesterday (Dec 7th) at 953pm weighing 9lbs 14 ozs (oh my god).
I was kept in at my appointment on Monday due to high blood pressure and given Prostin on Monday night - did nothing - and Tuesday morning. whereupon the whole thing kicked off scarily fast around lunchtime - contractions every 3 mins to start with and no let up. Basically, it went so fast (5 cms to pushing in about 1 hour) that the only pain relief I had was gas and air - the TENS was useless as no build up - and they wouldn't give me anything at the end as they thought I'd push her out in half an hour, not realising her size! The pushing took ages, I couldn't have done any more and worked any harder (even the midwives said this), had to dump the G&A by then as it was getting on my nerves , and finally we got her out with an episitomy, she had to be rushed off and given oxygen etc. which was scary, but she was fine in a couple of minutes.
We came home this aftenoon thank goodness, postnatal ward v. crowded and definitely not for us - nearly lamped the woman in the nextdoor bed (very long boring story) but instead spent the whole night awake in the canteen with Isolda.
To be honest, the whole thing was pretty vile - not what I expected at all! However, if they had given me the epidural I was screaming for I'd never have pushed her out and would have had a C-section - exactly what heppened to my NCT friend who I met in postnatal. It was quite an experience though!
I used exactly nothing from my carefully packed labour bag, couldn't do any of my moving around stategies as my back was agony and all I could do throughout was lie on my left side, and all the clothes and nappies we bought were too small! But she's here and she's GORGEOUS and I really need some sleep so daddy is being very very helpful tonight so I can get some and calm down.....