Morning all! How are you all doing? kayz - fingers crossed! Has anyone heard from Penny recently?
Thanks to everyone for your boob advice. They are still sore, but about bearable. Luckily got maternity nurse arriving on Monday for a few days, so think she'll show me what's going on! Izzy managing to sleep in 2-3 hourly bursts, so I'm getting about 5-6 hours sleep a night, which I understand is miraculous! Hurray. I don't feel too bad on it, either, which is great.
I'm just going to quickly send you all my birth story while DD is asleep upstairs.
at 2.30am went into St Thomas's as had some bleeding and at 3am, my contractions started! They monitored me til 9am then sent us home. They also thought my waters probably did start tearing on the Weds before, but they'd missed it. Thankfully, otherwise I'd have been induced on the Friday morning. At 1pm I rang the hospital again as although my contractions were still only every 3-15 mins and irregular, I was having more bleeding. They told me it was too soon to go in because they contractions were so irregular. Although let me tell you, they hurt like a bastard!
The helpful midwife suggested I go into the Day ASsessment unit, which is where i'd spent 5 hours on the Weds, queuing, so I decided not to do that!! All the way through labour, I had the worst squits and managed to give myself piles before I'd even started pushing the baby out! Ridiculous! I'd avoided them all bloody pregnancy as well.
at 3pm, I was upstairs and fell onto all fours and started yelling - I just couldn't help it! I was starting to want to push! James called a taxi and off we went to the hospital. I screamed all the way, but the cab driver was lovely! I just couldn't stop shouting, was awful.
Then got wheeled up to the labour ward and put straight into a room. I was 9cm dilated, which is extraordinary - didn't realise I was that far gone. They told em I could still have an epidural, though, so I asked for ti and the midwife went to get it sorted. When she came back, I'd had a think and actually was coping with the contractions, particularly now I could happily shout without having to try to muffle my screams!!! So she went to cancel it. I wanted the labour to be over quickly as well. As she left, I had another contraction and screamed to James "get me a FUCKING epidural NOW!". Then changed my mind again when the midwife got back!!! Ended up having a totally natural birth, which was great. 3 hours from when I arrived at the hospital. It hurt a lot, but I'd do it again tomorrow to have Izzy! At some stage about an hour before she arrived (time's a blur), my waters popped really loudly and splashed everywhere - was so satisfying! DH was a star throughout and looked after me beautifully.
When she popped out, I'd taken off my specs and thought she was a boy - oops! She had the cord wrapped round her neck twice, which was a scary moment, but it was ok. And she's ok - got 9 on the Apgar test - I'm wondering where she dropped a point!!!
Anyway, that's the long and short of it. I was bloody lucky, I must say.