Good morning girls...sorry about my absence, but I was busy off having a baby! :)
Turned out my contractions on Thursday were early labour. They were agony by 11pm that evening so I called the unit and we went in. Moved round to midwife led after being assessed - 3-4cm dilated. Tried to settle in one of the active rooms for a while, before going into the pool for pain relief - it was amazing!! The minute I got in it was automatic relief..... for about half an hour! At 4.30am I was examined again and was still only 4cm despite having really strong contractions, so the midwife broke my waters for me. Then the pain really started! It was like someone had flicked a switch so by this time I asked for some pethidine. Also there was meconium in the waters so I got moved to a delivery suite room to be constantly monitored. Now I'm not going to lie, it was bloody agony but I managed with just the pethidine for a while. I couldn't stand the gas and air, made me too woozy!
After another 4 hours I was examined again, and told that I was fully dilated and could start trying to push. They were a bit concerned about baby at this point, as he was still quite high up in my pelvis (despite being fully dilated) and they'd told me I have a low public arch, meaning it would be difficult for baby to get out as the space was so narrow so I was really nervous about pushing. I tried for an hour with no luck, and so they decided to examine me again - by this point it was 10am and they discovered I was actually 8cm not 10cm!!! They put me on syntocinon to speed things up so I decided to ask for an epidural which was the best thing I have ever done! Once it kicked in I actually managed to get a few minutes of snatched sleep over the course of the next 3 hours while I waited to be examined - again. By 2.30pm a dr came to see me and I was still only 8cm despite having the syntocinon on full blast, so he decided to do a caserean. It was all quite quick - within about 15 mins I was in theatre being prepped. But then at 15.26 our huge boy - dr said he was an elephant of a child!) was finally born weighing 9lb 2oz!!! He is absolutely perfect and I'm so in love, DH is so made up and proud. We've had a bit of a tricky night as he's not feeding well but it will take a while to get it established. And we still can't decide on a name!!!
So it finally happened, only 12 days late :) still in hospital at the moment and won't be home til tomorrow but we're both fine so might try and get out today....I really don't want to be here another night!
Jo I was the same about people seeing things, but honestly you're in so much pain at the time that you just don't care! I really did leave my dignity at door!! I just didn't care who saw what, especially in theatre when you don't even realise you're being manhandled because everything is so numb lol! Trust me now I've got my gorgeous boy here he is so worth everything xxxxxxxx