Iris Caitlin arrived at 5.45am on March 9th, weighing 8lb 4oz and is utterly gorgeous and a delight!
Now I know you all love the details, so here's our story:
Getting to 6 days overdue was no surprise given my dd was 8 days late. So I had a routine midwife's appointment and she booked me in for a post-dates clinic later this week, but said she reckoned I wouldn't need the appointment. Sure enough later that afternoon my waters broke and we got ready for action. We decided to get an early night and some rest before things kicked off, so retired at 9pm only for the contractions to start up every 10 minutes at 9.30pm. Since my dp had been off work sick for the last fortnight with a nasty virus I was a bit worried about him keeling over half way through the labour, so I banished him to the guest room to get some sleep whilst I did the early stages on my own.
Things were pretty manageable - very painful contractions, but spaced at 10 minute intervals and in between I just lay in bed and rested. With my dd this bit went on for 48 hours, so I was really prepared for the long haul, and the midwife had said to me not to phone during the "gentle, early stages" but to wait till things really kicked off. Unfortunately I didn't get any warning of things ramping up - I went through 6 hours of manageable contractions at 10 minutes intervals to suddenly unbearable contractions coming every minute at 4am. Dp was woken by my hollering, and we got on the phone to the homebirth team. In hindsight I was now already fully dilated and going through transition, as I was throwing up and screaming uncontrollably whilst dp was on the phone, but I didn't realise what was going on. I just wanted to be elsewhere! The midwife said she would come immediately and afterwards said she could tell from the noise I was making that things were very far progressed.
At this point we moved downstairs and dp started filling our birth pool, in between being yelled at by me to HELP, and curses as to whose dumb idea it had been to have a homebirth, and where were the midwives!! The contractions were incredible - and I was making enough noise to wake the entire street. At this point with my dd I'd been under a full epidural, so I didn't realise for ages what was going on - but after about half an hour I suddenly realised I could feel the baby and that I was pushing. Dp got back on the phone to tell the midwives to get a shift on and the first midwife arrived at 5am. Finally the pool was filled and I leapt in. I guess I was only in there 20 minutes - but it was well worth it - it relaxed me enough to let me push properly and get in a good position. I'd planned on using gas and air as well, and the midwife and dp were fiddling around trying to open the cannister, but I was shouting to leave it as it was too late. The second midwife arrived with minutes to spare. And in just a few pushes, Iris was born. I held her under the water and then brought her to the surface. She was so calm and quiet, I was worried, but they kept assuring me she was fine, and sure enough she was. It was quite a while before we figured out she was a girl, because I was scared to let go and have a look in case I dropped her back under the water!
There were some magical calm minutes holding my little girl in the water, then I got out to deliver the placenta. I then had a massive and scary shaking fit, which the midwives said was probably shock because things had happened so fast. It took about an hour to get over it, at which point they started to stitch me up. That's when I got my first puff of gas and air and reflected how nice that would have been during the labour. It was around 7.15am, and this was when my dd woke up, so she was shown the new baby by dp whilst I was stitched. She was offered the chance of seeing mummy or having toast, and opted for the latter! But was thrilled with the baby, and came to see us both for a goodbye kiss before exictedly setting off for her childminder, leaving me and dp to a relaxing day getting to know our new daughter.