Hi everybody - going to do a double post here and on the prenatal board, as i think kanga and I are the only ones left to post!
No bloody internet in the hospital, and we came home yesterday, so this is the first chance I've got to announce the arrival of Rhys Patrick, born Friday, April 3 at 17:29pm. Weighed 3.8kg and measured 55cm - a nice big boy!
Here's the birth scoop (plaintive post on what a hell it's been since the birth to follow later ):
As many of you know, I'd been scheduled for an induction on Thursday, but really wasn't happy about it - was in blooming condition and baby seemed fine through monitoring, so I went in Thursday morning dead set on coming BACK OUT as soon as I could. Luckily, when my OB turned up, she did an internal and found I was 4cm dilated and the cervix was completely effaced - so she sent me off with directions to walk as much as possible. I did just that, and ate spicy curry and pineapple and drank RLT to boot.
"Regular" contractions started around 11pm Thursday, and slowly worked themselves towards every 5 mins by around 7am Friday. Off to the hospital we went.
They installed me in the delivery room, hooked me up to the monitor, and had a look. Contractions had slowed, but was dilated to 6cm. So laboured from around 8am to 2:30pm with no pain relief -- just breathing and rolling around on the medicine ball and having my lovely DP stroke my back.
When they checked me again at 2:30, I'd only dilated another 1.5cm, and they suggested breaking my waters. Sure - sounds good - why not?
OMIGOD, now I know why not! Contractions ramped up IMMEDIATELY to every 1.5 minutes, each lasting about 2 minutes. I breathed and warm bathed through another 2 hours, and then cracked. I asked for, and got, the epidural. Interesting - immediate pain relief (and they also put in a syntocin drip to speed things up more). The combo gave me uncontrollable shakes like St Vitus' dance, which freaked DP out a bit.
At about 5pm, they checked, I was at 10cm and the baby was engaged - time to turn off the epidural and push. That took some concentration - the first two times the midwife had to say, "No, you need to be pushing down below, not with your face!" After that, though, things happened so fast that the attending OB barely made it into the room to catch Rhys -- six pushes and out he popped!
No episiotomy, two tiny tears and three stitches!
Best parts of experience: had completely not realised that as I was pushing I'd be able to see him come out floods of tears from me and DP as Rhys arrived and when they put him on my chest he was super alert -- lots of eye contact with both of us, and tried to nurse straight away.
I can't believe I'm a mother. Holy cow.