Hello chaps,
Thanks for congratulations, everyone. Felix has stopped feeding for a few moments so finally I can post up the new chapter in the Book of Boff: The Birth Saga.
So, to recap on last time in the Book of Boff, the waters had broken most dramatically at 2am, soap opera style, which was probably because Felix's head had suddenly clunked down into my pelvis completely. [Trista, I did a lot of research into what happens when your waters go, and basically you easily have 48 hours to play with as 94% of people deliver within two days without problems (in my case it was 20 hours door-to-door). You can usually go a third day without problems as well, if you keep an eye on your temperature and general well-being. You shouldn't really need antibiotics].
I was asleep most of the rest of the night apart from when I needed to mop myself up. I was having niggling contractions for most of the day. By the evening things seemed to be getting more serious and a bit more frequent, so I put on the hypnobirthing CD and got in the pool. Big mistake. This chilled me out so much that labour actually stopped completely!!! So the mw went home and we all went to bed.
The next day the mw told me to be active, so as you know we painted the downstairs loo. MW came mid-afternoon to give me a sweep, which was skilfully done and didn't hurt at all. This seemed to work because I was really close to proper labour anyway. At about 7.30pm things really started kicking off and I had contractions (painful but not too bad actually) every 5-10 minutes for about 1.5 minutes, then they got a bit closer together. At about 9.45pm I got into the pool even though the mw was trying to keep me out of it for fear of things stopping again. I had half a dozen or so contractions in the pool and then I found myself yelling my head off like a deranged tribal shaman (probably the effect of the scented Agent Provocateur candle), and pushing. About 7 pushes and 5 minutes later he was out. I did the deed on my back in the water this time, which is not my usual position, but for some strange magical birthing reason, I found it physically impossible to manoeuvre around, even with help. It was though my body knew what to do for the best. It then took 1.5 hours for the placenta to arrive, mainly because Felix fancied a monster feed straight away and I was too distracted to push. Felix's cord had a complete knot in it, interestingly enough, but he was fine. We wondered if the knot and the related position of the cord meant I needed a different posture from usual for pushing.
Felix is a happy chappie (couple of pix on profile) but constantly assaulting my poor nipples day and night, so I am a bit tired to say the least. That having been said, the lovely doula came for three hours today and cuddled him for me so I could sleep, did some washing and made the most fabulous chicken soup for lunch, so that has helped a lot.