Birth Announcement!
Peter William was born Wed 11th June at 18:15pm a healthy 8lb 6oz and 56cm long.
I had a sweep Monday am, then gel Tuesday night for which I was kept in hospital due to slightly high blood pressure. Contractions started 4:45 am. Tens machine got me through the morning plus a walk around the hospital grounds. My waters were broken at 12:30 and proceeded to flood out with contractions as I walked around the grounds again (with DH). as I was 4cm dilated the midwife recommended warm bath, paracetamol and codeine on my return but during my 40 mins in the bath the contractions went off the scale in terms of intensity - I wanted to eat the bath with the pain! I begged for more pain relief and I was allowed to get out and get some gas and air. After 30 mins of that they were set to move me to another room where i could get 1 to 1 care from a midwife and consider epidurals etc. Before they did, the midwife did another exam and exclaimed with some surprise "you're fully dilated - you're going to have the baby now!" at which point I relaxed and Peter arrived soon after.
2nd degree tear needed some stitches but otherwise no drugs or pain relief except the gas and air and tens., I was v scared in the bath because I was under the impression I still had many hours to go and I didn't think I could cope with any greater pain. It was hard on DH at that point because he could see I was in agony but the midwife was attending her other lady in labour and we were on our own with him bailing warm water over me. I think they underestimated how far advanced I was.
Funny moments - me leaning over the seat having contractions, wiggling my bum to Mika "BIg Girl you are beautiful!" on Radio 2. Bit disappointed the promised cd player didn't exist in our room so instead of my carefully chosen CDs I had Steve Wright and Chris Evans...but could have been worse.