Best news I could have seen when logging on this morning - my due date buddy is on the move from the waiting room - GO NEENEWPS!!!
Morning everyone - I spent about an hour trying to skim read all the posts from the last week and have not read many properly, but just wanted to say Congratulations to all who have had their babies in the last week, and a big BOOOOOOO for you who are still waiting. It must have been horrible being heavily pregnant on Sunday in that heat - I was stuck in a sweltering hospital where hardly any of the windows opened, and went slightly stir crazy 
. We were allowed home on Monday though, and I have never been happier than I am schlopping around the house with my 2 babies 
. Ruby is beautiful and we are all smitten .
Ok, so here goes....
I spent all day last Tuesday waddling the streets searching out the fattiest, sugariest food I could find, and as soon as my DP got home in the evening I demanded he went back out and got me some sweet and sour chicken balls, as if I didn?t get them I thought I was going to go insane. As soon as I?d had them my body must have decided it had the all clear to go now I was fuelled and watered, because I went to bed straight afterwards (10pm) and was woken up with literally a jolt in my pelvis about 10.30; it felt like baby was trying to head-butt her way out!
I then had a mild, almost painless contraction. I knew it had started, and remember thinking how calm and alert and accepting I felt, and being amazed by this after all the issues I have had surrounding being scared of labour. Over the course of the next 15 minutes I had a couple more contractions, whilst I got up, got dressed, packed my washbag and went into my son?s room and gave him a kiss and a cuddle whilst he was sleeping.
I then went downstairs and told my partner ? we timed the next couple of contractions and I was quite surprised that they were already about 50-60 seconds long and only 5 minutes apart. I was concentrating very hard on the vocalisation and movement techniques I had learnt for coping with the pain from Juju Sundin?s book and I think this helped focus me and make them pass quite quickly. We called my parents to come over to take me to the hospital and stay with ds, and then called the birthing suite. The midwife didn?t sound convinced when I was talking to her that I should be coming in, but I told her about my very fast 1st stage last time, and then she heard me mooing like a cow through my next contraction, and my waters broke straight after, and she said that I should come in.
We had to wait for my parents still, so onto the birth ball I went in the play room ? contractions were still a minute long and about 5 minutes apart, but by the time my parents arrived about 11.30 they were coming thick and fast and I was feeling the urge to push! I think I must have been in transition at this point as I flat refused to get in the car, so everyone decided I must be really close and decided to call an ambulance. My step-dad was getting instructions over the phone about fetching towels and water, and it all started getting a bit crazy. I think my labour stalled (thank god) because my Mum started losing the plot a bit; crying and ranting and hugging me really tight from behind. I remember thinking that there was no way I could give birth here with my Mum freaking out, and I ended up screaming at her to get the f&&& off me and chill the hell out , and I went into my own little world on my ball, concentrating on the stripes on the rug and the feel of the rug to get me through the contractions.
The ambulance turned up and the paramedics ran in with one of the most blessed sights I have ever seen ? a canister of gas and air . I got on it whilst they tried to coax me onto my back so they could see what was happening. This, I?m afraid to say, was not happening, I flat refused to get on my back, and shouted at them to check me on all fours; where the hell had they trained to deliver babies ? the 1950s? I wasn?t crowning so they decided to get me into the ambulance and up to the hospital.
I then refused to be strapped onto the bed in the ambulance on my back, so they managed to strap me on curled on my side, and we had a quick 5 minute trip up to the hospital. As soon as we got there things started going very quickly again, and I was stretchered into the birthing suite, all ready and waiting for me ? pool filled, dim lighting on, relaxing music playing. It was all wasted on me though, because as soon as I got in the room I collapsed on a bean bag by the side of the pool, grabbed the gas and air, and started pushing. Three pushes and she was nearly out; I remember the midwife telling me we only had eyebrows, and I remember the immense feeling of power I then summoned from the pit of my stomach for the last push, and throwing the gas and air down, and roaring like some animal to push her out. I never thought I would say this, but I feel honoured to have experienced that 2nd stage as I did, to feel every sensation without any pain relief interfering, and I really didn?t experience the pain of her coming out, just kind of observed it. I?m sure it helped that it was only about 5 minutes long though .
It went a bit downhill then, as she was silent, and not breathing. The cord was cut very quickly and she was rushed off to be resuscitated. I remember hearing her first cry a minute later and it was the most amazing sound ever. Unfortunately, she was still struggling to breath, so she was brought in for a quick kiss and whizzed off to SCBU. We had to wait 2 hours then before we could go down, and it was the weirdest feeling in the world, being in that post-birth haze and not have my baby to cuddle.
We got cleaned up (I got to use the birthing pool at last ), showed to a private room on the maternity ward, and followed Ruby down to SCBU about 3am, where she was in an incubator on oxygen, so we still couldn?t hold her. I was exhausted, so DP persuaded me to go back to my room for a sleep about 5am, surprisingly I managed to sleep until my DP came back about 7am saying he was going home to see DS. I went and had some breakfast, and started panicking about whether my baby would know who I was, whether this meant I had no chance of breastfeeding, whether I was a bad Mum for sleeping. I rushed down to SCBU about 7.30, and the nurse looking after her told me she had been off assisted breathing and breathing on her own now for 30 minutes, and I could hold her and give her her first feed!
It was amazing, and she went straight in for a feed. I spent pretty much the whole day and night on SCBU with her feeding ? my milk wasn?t enough for her and she was constantly hungry, so her glucose levels were very low and she had to be kept on a drip. As this was the only thing keeping her on SCBU by that night I agreed to her having a couple of top-up formula feeds, which sorted her out, and she was with me on the ward on Thursday lunchtime, feeding well and very chilled out.
We had to stay in hospital for 3 more days so she could be observed and finish a course of antibiotics they gave her in case an infection had caused her to be so unwell when she arrived. They never gave me a reason why, but think it may have just been the shock of such a fast entrance into the world. I?m just glad I didn?t deliver her on the playroom floor, as she may not have got the help she needed so quickly.
If we have a 3rd though I think I may have to arrange for a homebirth!!!