Baby boy Cyclecamper arrived at 2348 last night weighing 4lb12. (I think)
All a bit hazy - first midwife said she'd only known 2 women manage labour on a hormone drip without an epidural and they were both Dutch. She ruptured the membrane, then found another one to rupture, which confused her! I was totally freaked out at the idea of an epidural, having had a bad back that has made me feel ill every time I've had to lie still on the monitor, and really didn't want a needle in my back to make it worse and limit my movement if I could help it. Obviously, having a premature baby meant that pethedine was a really bad idea.
The contractions were really, really intense - at one point they were 6 in 10 minutes, without a break, and they had to dial the syntocin down to be be able to give me an internal. I'd given in on the idea of having an epidural about as the anaesthetist went awol . By the time he'd turned up, it was too late and I had fully dilated so I managed to evict the baby on nothing but 2 co-codamol for my back and somewhat industrial quantities of gas and air. More gas and air for the stitch as the local anaesthetic started to wear off (I had told her this would happen! My dentist knows to give me double quantities - I was shrieking and giggling and crying and saying 'told you so - I love being right!' all at the same time!) So about 5 hours, start to baby with my husband and sister there and me mostly in a world of entonox on my own!
I'm sitting here with a baby up my nighty having some skin-to-skin .
They have given me a private room because of his prematurity, and it's at the antenatal end of the corridor with the staff I know .
Happy, happy, happy!