Evening ditherers,
Lovely to see Seagreen and AmandaCooper back on the thread.
Right, as promised, here's the full on account of Eleanor's birth. It wasn't much fun, but, even after the event, I maintain the possiblity of a long and painful birth shouldn't be enough in and of itself to put anyone off (although I have no immediate plans to do this again 
).
Following on from my last post in the early hours of Thursday morning, contractions did start to speed up and, after a couple of calls to the maternity unit, we decided to go in at 5.30am, as contractions were down to every 5-6 minutes. I went in prepared to be sent home again and, on examination was found to be one cm dilated, also contractions had tailed off to every 10 minutes again, so home we came. Was a bit gutted that 36 hours of contractions had yeilded only 1 cm, but it was better than nothing.
Once home again, I tried moving about a bit. Had a shower, thinking the water might help, but found being seperated from my tens machine too painful, so abandoned plans for a bath and got myself wired up again. By 11.00am contractions were 3-4 minutes apart, so I rang the maternity unit again and was told to come in. better news this time - 3 cm dilated and, because contractions were strong and regular, they let me stay. At the next exam, 4 hours later, I was up to 5cm and active labour had officially started - the previous 40 hours was just the warm up act!!
At this point I was given the gas and air to supplement the tens machine with. Initially it just made me feel a bit sick, so I wasn't going to bother, but as teh contractions got more painful, I persevered and, as long as you get a good lungful before the contraction peaks, it works like a dream - lovely stuff! Details get a bit hazy from here on in. I think it took me a long time to get to 6cm (we'd done a shift handover and were into the night shift, so it was well past 7.00pm), so we had some discussion about possibly breaking my waters. In preparation for this, I had an injection of diamorphine, which really worked - made me very spaced out, but took the edge off the pain for a while. Whilst we were waiting for a medic with a crochet hook, I managed to break my waters myself and we made better progress after that, although I got a strong urge to push at 7cm, and trying to not push when your body wants to is v tricky.
At about 4.30am, the gas and air was taken off me and I was told to start pushing. By this point I was a bit knackered and the urge to push that I'd had previously has disappeared. I was also hooked up to the continuous fetal monitor, cos they were getting worried about baby, so I was doing my pushing on the bed with my legs up on shelves - neither dignified, nor effective! After two hours, they decided we'd all had enough. Eleanor was coming down at a jaunty angle and was stuck, so every push, was just wedging her into my pelvis even more. I had a series of passers by in scrubs come and have a poke around and they was some discussion about a possible forceps delivery, but the surgeon in charge had a feel and decided we were going straight to c-section. So off we went to theatre and I had a spinal block, which fanally stopped the pain (which was only unbearable once I knew it was no longer productive - its amazing what you can put up with if you know that each contraction is bringing you closer to the end result) and they had Eleanor out remarkably quickly. She was born at 7.05am on Friday morning, weighing a healthy 8lbs 5oz.
DH had lots of cuddle time with her in theatre and they put her skin to skin with me in recovery and she managed to latch on and take her first feed an hour after the birth, which was amazing.
My couple of days on the maternity ward has reaffirmed my conviction that hospitals are no place for the sick! I was glad to leave early. Individual members of staff were great, but the ward was pretty busy and loud and i was so tired and sleep so unavailable, that coming home seemed the best thing to do. Haven't managed much sleep, as I find it very difficult to nap for short spells and we are demand feeding in an effort to get breast feeding established. But she is worth all the pain and sleeplessness and, once we are all over the inital stages of getting feeding established, and the scar pain subsides so I can start doing a bit more for her, I'm sure it will become enjoyable. At the moment I have moments of real joy, interspersed with some real downers, all of which is pretty normal.
Since the birth my DH has been an absolute revelation. He didn't give up smoking during my pregnancy, and hadn't really shown that much enthusiasm at all (he was keen, but detached). But he slapped a nicotine patch on when we went to the hospital and hasn't smoked since. He was absolutely smitten with Eleanor from the moment they first put her in his arms and has been seriously domestic ever since I got home. Because my mobility has been restricted, I have been unable to pick her up much, so I've just been feeding her - DH does all nappies, bathing, cooking, washing, cleaning (ok, not so much of that, but he does enough to stop us living in absolute squalour). So far, parenthood has definately brought us closer together. I'm a generally pretty independant and competant type of girl, and this past wek he's seen me be dependant and vulnerable in a way that I've never been before. And when I've needed to rely on him, he's been able to step up.
Anyway, this is a HUGE me me me post. But it's been a bit cathartic going through such details from the birth that I can remember. And it is true, however long and arduous the process of getting your baby out is, once she's here, it does feel like its all worth it. I am bruised, battered and occasionally quite close to broken, but she is perfect and wonderful and this is the best thing I have ever done. :)