Hello! Home from the hospital and trying to catch up - sympathy for those suffering at nights, am wondering what will happen in our first night at home . DH is cuddling DS2 and DS1 is asleep so here is my birth story. Sorry about the length but you've said before that you like detail!
I was under strict instructions from DH not to go into labour on New Year?s Eve as we would have to fight for a taxi to get to the hospital and then battle through the drunks thronging A&E, so I was slightly perturbed to have a watery show at 12pm. Rang the ward and they said to wait and see if my waters were leaking, headed back to bed only for contractions to start soon afterwards. They were about every 5 minutes from the start, although not too painful, so I waited to see if they would calm down a bit (they didn?t) then rang the ward again and was told I was allowed to come in. Woke DH, made a cup of tea, rang for a taxi (no problems getting one after all) and headed off to the hospital. First piece of good news was that we could go into the midwife-led unit, second was that we had one of the homebirth midwife team who had been drafted in as they were short of staff. She was brilliant throughout, exactly what we needed after the flap surrounding DS1?s birth. She pronounced me 2-3 cm dilated and then actually followed my birth plan and left us to get on with things for the next few hours. In complete contrast to my first labour, the first stage was controlled and calm, the contractions steadily getting closer together and longer (I used my TENS machine from the beginning and it was a help). We were left in peace in a dim room while the midwife sat on the sofa outside and wrote up her notes (?let me know when the baby?s coming?) and she quietly came in and monitored the baby every now and again. Just before she was due to end her shift she examined me again and I was 7 cm dilated (by this time using G&A for the contractions, it is GOOD STUFF). That all took about 5 hours but seemed much shorter, especially as I was able to doze a bit in the early stages.
At this point I got scared and asked about more pain relief (should have realised I was going into transition), accepted that getting an epidural into my back at this stage would be tricky and knelt on the bed gripping onto the back. The mw told me to keep using the G&A throughout so it would work properly and I took her at her word? things got very blurry. I remember a lot of pressure, some very peculiar noises and somehow heard the midwife telling me to slow down at certain points. I think I got cross that the G&A cylinder was making funny noises (I was sucking the stuff down pretty strongly) and sobbed to DH that I didn?t know what was happening (unsurprisingly as I was orbiting somewhere near the ceiling, I am a cheap drunk). Then there were baby sounds and I laid off the gas long enough to demand to see my baby (at some length) but was persuaded to turn around first so they could get the placenta out. I ended up losing a fair amount of blood and they needed to put traction on the cord to get the placenta out, DS2 also had the cord round his neck and there were two knots in it, but all was well. The second stage was only 14 minutes, the third stage 11. Despite the G&A and the speed it hurt a LOT. DS2 was 8 lbs 9 oz, the 5th baby to be born on New Years Day at the hospital and the largest newborn on the ward. The NYD thing means there will be a hideously unflattering photo of us in the local rag for the standard 2009 babies filler article.
Anyway, we are home, he is gorgeous despite having pointy ears and a face like a squished tomato and he is suspiciously placid, he actually sleeps a fair amount and doesn?t cry much. This may change