Hi guys. This is a very long message for which I apologise (and also I apologise if you've seen it in the Miscarriage or Conception sections as well - just want to respond to everyone who's left such lovely messages). I wanted to write down what happened as fully as I can remember it. We're home now, got back late last night in the end so it all happened fairly quickly.
We arrived at hospital a bit before 9am and were settled into a private room. They'd made up a second bed in there for DH, put out a big tea tray and flowers soft lighting etc, it was really thoughtfully done.
The midwife gave me the 4 pessaries at 11am, I'd never had an internal or a smear test or anything before so that was a novel and not so nice experience. Whilst we waited for the pills to take effect DH and I did some killer sudokus.
After about 1 hr 15mins the "period pain" got worse, DH pumped up my birth ball and I took some paracetamol. I spent about 1 hr bobbing around on it whilst the cramping got stronger and then by 13:20 I gave up and went and curled up on my side on DH's bed.
Contractions were not at all like I expected, I thought they would have an on/off sort of quality, but I had a background aching pain all the time which would then build up and become really intense and I couldn't talk or think through it and then it would soften a bit but be painful for about 30 secs and then fade away. DH thought I was probably contracting every 1.5-2 mins.
Over the next 20 mins the contractions quickly became incredibly painful and I was shaking all the way through them. I asked for pain relief and was given an injection in my hip of morphine and an antiemetic (had thrown up twice in the morning and felt sick all day).
As the morphine kicked in I managed to get up on my knees, and lean forward on the pillows and got DH to rub my back. I started to feel more like I could manage it all, and I was getting the hang of breathing through the contractions and relaxing as much as possible between them.
At 14:05 ish I had a weird sensation that felt like my insides were falling out - turned out to be my waters/lots of blood which went everywhere fairly dramatically as I lept from DH's bed to my one and onto the magically absorbant mats.
MW came straight away and offered to examine me or said we could just wait and see for a bit, so I asked to wait. Contractions stopped completely now, and I knelt on the bed over a mat waiting.
At 14:20 I felt something inside me coming down, and gave one little push and Bobbie was born. The cord was clamped and cut, and I had the injection to help the placenta come out. MW asked me to give a few little pushes but I couldn't because I needed a wee too much blush, so she got me a bed pan and I did a MASSIVE wee and delivered the placenta which was apparently quite big.
We agreed to let the baby be taken away to be washed and wrapped in a blanket in a little basket, and then the MW brought the baby back.
We spent a long time sitting looking at our baby who was absolutely tiny. 2 oz, and 13.5cm long. We still don't know if we've had a boy or a girl, it wasn't possible to tell so we will need to wait for test results to find out. We named our baby Bobbie.
The morphine I'd had had really kicked in by this point and I'm sad that I spent about 2 hours being really drowsy and almost drifting off whilst DH sat next to me and held Bobbie in the basket and cried.
I had lots of bloods taken in order for them to do some testing (also placenta was taken for testing and a skin sample and ear swab from Bobbie).
When I woke up a bit more we picked up Bobbie out of the basket and cuddled and took lots of photos. I had a shower and we arranged for the hospital chaplain to visit and do a blessing. Finally, when he prayed for us all I started to cry. It's terrible feeling so numb for so long when something so awful has happened and I'd been so calm all day, it was a release to be able to cry eventually. I remember he read the little card in the SANDS memory box to us as he prayed over Bobbie and said "Always loved, never forgotten, and that will certainly be true for you little one."
After he left DH and I just spent a long time with our baby, bonding and letting go IYKWIM? I went to the toilet at one point, and when I came back, DH was standing holding this tiny blanketed bundle and had been singing to Bobbie and telling nursery rhymes. It's so hard to think of all the things you won't be able to do with and for your child. The plans and dreams that just can never be.
It was terrible kissing Bobbie goodbye, leaving hospital and coming home to an empty house where the future stretches emptily infront of us. Our plans and hopes for the future were all full of having this baby in the spring and now it's like there is no future and the dream is over.
We've been very fortunate that labour and delivery were so quick and uncomplicated and that we were treated so well and kindly. It wasn't frightening at any point, and I think that is a lot due to all the lovely ladies in the Miscarriage/Pregnancy loss section who helped prepare us by sharing their stories.