I thought had better post my birth story while it is still relatively fresh in my memory. You might need some sustenance to get through it!
As most of you know I wasn't going to be allowed to go over my due date as had Gestational Diabetes and they were a bit concerned about babies size. Had a sweep on the Friday where she told me was 2cm and soft. No contractions though although lost my plug the day before. So we went in to labour ward at 8am on Sunday (my due date) for induction. They put the pessary in at 9am. They thought would only need one as was quite favourable although cervix still needed to come forwards. Had a chilled morning, went for a walk, read papers. About lunchtime started to get some niggly pains - just short prostin contractions. Did more walking to get things going. Rechecked at 3:30pm no real changes so she did another sweep. Rechecked at 6:45pm and cervix had come forwards now although still 2cm and contractions longer and more regular so they took me to labour suite to break waters. MrG had gone out for chips at this point.
Settled into room which was quite homely and non-medical really. Could dim the lights etc. MrG got back from his chips and contractions kicked off strongly by about 7:15pm. Got acquainted with the gas and air. Was feeling quite a bit of backache so on all fours. They were quite intense at this point so started getting panicky and shouting about epidurals. The midwife (lovely old school Irish woman) said I couldn't as they were all in theatre and think was the last I said about it! After that I got more controlled with breathing etc and using gas and air effectively.
Really odd sensations, felt like needed to push but just went with it (must have just been baby moving down) as kept pooing myself (lovely!). Re-examined at about 9pmish and was now 10cm just with anterior lip! Kept going for a while longer, was getting anxious about whether I could start to push or not (think because I had such a difficult time with DS last time I didn't want to tire myself out if a lip or a bad position). anyway for next hour or so contractions seemed to slow down. Midwives got a bit concerned and mentioned starting the drip. I started crying, saying no and they said they would leave me a bit longer. At this point I sank down to my knees leaning over the bed and started to push her out. I can remember feeling her head and basically singing through each contraction as I breathed her out. This seemed to take a long time (but was only actually 20 mins) and was because her elbow was up by her head. But slowly, slowly she edged out and eventually I felt her head pop out. I could feel her wriggling and pushing with her feet inside. Then a couple more pushes and her whole body slithered out of me which felt amazing! She was behind me so I couldn't see her to begin with and then they pulled her up and I could see she had loads of hair and was just sobbing with relief. She latched on within 10 mins of being born and stayed feeding for 2 hours! She was born at 10:58pm so labour recorded as 3h45m - bit different from the 32 hours ventouse delivery I had with MiniG!
I had a little second degree tear but they said with the size of her (9lb8oz with 37cm head!) and the fact she had her elbow by her face this was fairly inevitable but it was only an external one and not too bad. She stitched it but i think local anaesthetic needle going into the fanjo was probably the worst bit of the whole labor! then I went and got in the bath while MrG had some skin time and Iris and me both went to bed after that!
I was impressed that throughout the midwives were great and pretty much ignored the whole diabetes thing. I had intermittent monitoring as per a normal delivery, didn't check blood sugars, no drip etc. Was fantastic! All in all I had a great labour, it was only as medicalised as needed to be and they just let me get on with it all myself. I used my birthing ball, yoga mat, used cat positions and kneeling positions and was a really amazing experience. Particularly given what I was expecting after missing out on the HB. They did no coached pushing, was all up to me and my instincts. Iris's blood sugars have been perfect too.
For PESHes still waiting hopefully it shows that even if things go massively tits up and deviate hugely from your ideal birth you can still have an amazing experience.
She's such a chilled baby (so far). Sleeps in her basket (MiniG would not be put down for a minute) and has been feeding great. In fact it was MiniG who disturbed our sleep last night, Iris only woke up once. Midwife checked her today and she has a wee bit of jaundice, lost 8% birthweight which is par for the course given the fact she is such a big girl.
We're all so, so happy. MiniG is such a proud big brother and MrG is loving being a Daddy (is his first). I just have to work on the additional mountains of flesh now that still seem to be adhered to me! 1 stone down, 3 and a half to go!
Will try to catch up with everyone's posts now.