Congratulations Blinder and lizlemon and all the others who have had babies since I last checked.
I like the name you chose lizlemon. I think it's a beautiful name
I've finally got time to tell my birth story Brace yourselves, it's a long one.
Waters broke at ten to five in the morning, whilst I was sleeping. I slapped DH in the face to wake him up, which I don't think he appreciated much . Called the hospital and they told me to have some breakfast and then come in. As I mentioned, my bags weren't properly packed so we ran around for a bit packing stuff and then DH made me some toast, but by this point my contractions were coming quite regularly, so I told him to call the taxi.
The taxi nearly got pulled by the police for speeding (I actually thought he wasn't going fast enough, but that was just the contractions thinking)By the time I got to the hospital they were every three minutes. Also, the hospital is new and the taxi driver didn't know how to drive to the front entrance, so I had to power waddle to the front door.
Anyway, when the MW checked I was already 5cm dilated, so was admitted to the ward. All this took about an hour and a half. I had planned on having an epidural, so they sent for the anaesthetist, but he was busy. By the time he turned up I was already 9 and a half cm dilated and the MW said that by the time they had got the needle in the baby would have arrived (this later turned out to be lies). They let me have pethidine instead (even though I had previously said I wouldn't have it) and I had G&A as well. As soon as the anaesthetist left, the dilating stopped and I was left twiddling my thumbs.
After about two hours I was finally ready to push, but I was told to hold off pushing for another hour because his head was high up and I would tire myself out. So waited for an hour, really needing to push but just huffing G&A and trying to ignore it. Then came the pushing. From what I can gather, my fanjo was sort of hindering things. Not sure how, but the head MW did utter the words "what's that in the way"
After an hour of pushing, they said they would have to do a ventouse and it all got a bit like that Monty Python sketch where there are a million people in the labour room (there was even a machine that went: ping!) I overhead one of the MWs say to the obstetrician that the baby was in distress, which no one had told me. I was angry but also very close to pushing a baby out, so couldn't vocalise my anger about not being told this. I was also annoyed that they didn't ask me about the ventouse. They just said your having one. DH later said they had asked him and explained it all to him, as I was, to be fair, high as a kite.
The cutty stitchy lady (as I called her) managed to do the episiotomy in preparation for the ventouse just a split second before he was born. So no ventouse in the end
I kind of wish I hadn't jumped at the epidural, because then I would have been on the MW led unit with nice birthing balls and baths for water births and I would have still been able to have the pethidine and the G&A. As it was, I was on my back, constantly monitored, with a stupid cannula in my hand, which I didn't even need, with my legs in stirrups for nigh on 50 minutes and a BP band on my arm going off every 15 minutes and a silly clip on my finger measuring my pulse. Not comfortable. Ho hum. It could have been worse, and my LO is here and he is healthy, and that is all that matters.
Whoo. Sorry for the length again.