Good afternooon
Amie, I am very sorry about your grandmother. Hope she is going to be OK.
Eidsvold - great news! Well done!
Happy birthday to you, Kitty . Hope you get a chance to have a bit of a rest and have the family make a big fuss of you.
So much to catch up on ! Here goes. We do have a cleaner here, and frankly we'd be lost without one. The house degenerates into a slum by Friday, then the wonderful Sacha comes round and makes it lovely again. I decided once DH and I got together that as we both worked full time, I didn't want to spend time at the weekend cleaning and would rather spend the £££ on a cleaner than on something else. Since having DD and dropping days at work, I'd rather spend time with her than with my arms in the loo pan . The likelihood of DH willingly cleaning anthing is up there with flying pigs. It is a luxury for us though.
Birth - hm. Not really looking forward to that. I was induced and was begging for an epidural after about 10 hours (by which time I was, ooh, 0.5cm dilated!) They said I had to get to 3 cm and broke my waters at about 2cm which made everything speed up. Suffice it to say I got to 3cm at 4.30pm and got my epi at 7.30pm. Absolutely awful 3 hours, but we got through it in the end. DD got distressed though once the syntocinon was increased to strengthen the contractions so I had a trial of forceps (ouch) and an em CS. The forceps bit was quite funny. I had been numbed up to the boobs for the CS as if the forceps didn't work they had to do the CS immediately. I was told that when they said "go" I had to push as if I was doing a huge poo. Sadly, I couldn't feel a sodding thing so when I got the word, I just made a face as if I was having the poo! No wonder it didn't work. The CS came as a blessed relief.
I hope none of the first time ladies are put off by this. She was just too big for my pelvis (9lb 13 and in a strange position) so I'd never have got her out. My CS was a joy, I BF in recovery and was out of bed the same day. Went downstairs to the hospital shop the next day as the food was so shocking and I'd eaten the rations DH bought in the day before. My main problem was being knackered as I'd missed 2 nights sleep but that would have been the case if I'd had her vaginally.
Drugs - I thought G and A was marvellous (like being a bit pissed and spaced out), TENS machine was vile, epidural fabby, even though it was only a partial block til theatre as it didn't take properly. There is no pethidine as St Thomas's because of the problems with it crossing the placenta, otherwise I'd have had that as well . I have 2 friends who did hypnobirthing and said it was fab. I was very scared of the pain, but as others have said, if you keep an open mind and find out as much as possible before labour, you'll be grand.
Oh, and as for making a noise.... when I was first induced, I was walking around to get things going and could hear all these women in pain. I stupidly thought I would be calm and not need to make that much noise. When my time came, not only did I swear, scream and shout, but I also mooed and the whole thing was amplified as I had the G and A mouthpiece in my mouth and it enhanced the sound! I think it's a bit like pooing in labour - in the cold light of day, beforehand, you think you would be mortified but when you are up and running you really don't have time to think about it!
Hope you are all well.
14w 5 days (I think)