Very late update from us, but here is my birth story!
Contractions started on Wednesday 1st of June at about 4pm, they were every 5-10 minutes or so at first and lasting about 30 seconds, I wasn't entirely sure if it was labour starting and at this point was contemplating going to pregnancy yoga to see if that would help to move things along!! I spent this time bouncing on the birthing ball and trying to relax in between the contractions. When they came I concentrated on breathing and felt very calm. At 9pm I phoned the midwife as I was booked to have a home birth, she said that when the contractions lasted for 1 minute and were three in ten minutes to phone her back. I called her at 11pm and she came round to check on me. I had started using a tens machine as the contractions got stronger. I felt all the pain in my back and very little in my stomach, but the tens was enough to make it manageable. When the midwife arrived and examined me she said I was 7-8cm dilated, I think she was a bit shocked. An hour or so later the gas and air arrived by taxi, I tried it but found the tens more effective, so used that instead. However the last 2-3cm's took until 8am the following morning. I stayed off my back apart from examinations and tried walking around and leaning over the gym ball/edge of bed. At 8am and at 9 1/2 cm's I agreed to let the midwife break my waters as I was so tired by this point. Then finally I could start pushing. I pushed for four hours and tried various positions and lots of walking around. I was surprised how hard it was to change position in labour and lift my feet off the floor to walk after been really active all the way to the end in pregnancy! After the four hours the midwife said she would have to call an ambulance as if I was giving birth in hospital she would have called the doctors in by now. But she assured me that I could easily give birth before the ambulance got here as she could see the head when I was pushing. However the ambulance arrived and still no baby so I was blue lighted to hospital at around 1pm. The gas and air came in handy for the journey! When I arrived at hospital I had to lie on my back as I had to have monitoring on. I pushed for about another half an hour and pushed his head out. At this point I was aware that the emergency button had been pressed and more people had come into the room. The bed was flattened and my legs pushed up, someone was pressing on my abdomen and someone was telling me when to push and when not to. It was very surreal but I didn't have time to feel scared and just followed their instructions. Two minutes later they placed my baby boy on my chest, and he was absolutely perfect and healthy. I found out that the problem was shoulder dystocia, his shoulder had been trapped in my pelvis. This is a rare complication and happens in 1 in 150 or 0.7% of vaginal births, in our case it was caused by malallignment, as he wasn't a big baby. He was born weighing 6lb11oz at 14:02 on 02/06/16, we have called him Matthew Jacob. Although this happened at the end I would say I had 90% of the birth experience I wanted. I was mobile for most of the labour, felt calm and in control of what happened, and only needed tens and gas and air for pain relief. And most importantly got a healthy baby at the end of it all. I cannot put into words the overpowering feelings of love I have for my son, I still cant believe he's mine. As I type this he is sleeping in my arms.
We've had a bit of a rocky start with breastfeeding though. When he was born he was very lethargic and I had to express and feed him via a syringe. We were in hospital for four days while I tried to establish breastfeeding and got released on the sunday. Only to get readmitted on the tuesday when Matthew had lost 18% of body weight on his 5 day check up. He was treated for jaundice and dehydration. Had to go in an incubator for a couple of days under the sunlamp and was too lethargic to take expressed milk from a cup so had to have a nasogastric feeding tube put up his nose. Then I stopped been able to express and he had to have formula through his ng tube. We left hospital on Saturday, so have been home for a few days now, he's still having formula top ups every four hours and I'm still working on the breastfeeding. We also found out he has a slight tongue tie so are awaiting a referral to the local childrens hospital for that to be assessed to see if it can be snipped or not.
Nicky I really hope things settle down with your cycles soon, and wish you the best of luck for your next try.
Mrs hope you feel more comfortable soon, you will have your gorgeous boys in your arms in no time!!
Duck Im so glad everything is going well and your little one is so excited!!