This post has been a long time coming but I'm sure all of you who have experienced first-time motherhood understand just how exhausting/confusing the whole business is and will forgive the lateness of this post.
Our son Jacob was born 8.46pm 2nd November. He weighed a healthy 3685g (8lb 2oz) was 49cm long with a head circumference of 36.5cm (ouch!). It sounds all lovely and straightforward when you put down the statistics but really it was anything but.
My waters broke 4.30am Tuesday 30th November, when I got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night (Luke reckons I planned for them to break in the bathroom). I wasn't having any contractions so I rang the Birth Centre who said to check my temperature every 4 hours, go back to bed and ring them in the morning.
When I rang them I still wasn't having regular contractions just irregular ones that weren't very painful so they organised for me to come in for ctg monitoring that afternoon and then to see them to discuss our options.
We did this and the baby was fine, very happy in his less liquid hotel. At the Birth Centre they were all happy for me to go home to wait for labour to start until they felt his head and discovered he was still not engaged thereby running a risk of cord prolapse. So I was admitted to the antenatal ward. Luckily we'd brought all our labour stuff so I had the essentials. I spent 3 nights there; every night not getting very much sleep as my contractions got a lot more painful at night but they never became 'regular' enough for established labour. Finally at 4am Friday morning the registrar did an internal exam and I was 2cm dilated so at least something had been happening if very slowly. They sent me down to the Delivery Unit and I called Luke to come in.
When Luke arrived I was in the shower using the hot water as pain relief. He rang our doula to come and things got underway. They had let me go as long as I was allowed with my waters broken without inducing me so I was hooked up to the Syntocin drip and to the foetal monitors. This meant I was restricted to lying down. The pain was too difficult to deal with this way so I asked for an epidural and a fantastic anaesthetist
put it in for me. This was lovely as I was actually alert for the first time in hours but also I got some sleep. When they checked me again I was 7cm dilated!
We finally got to the pushing stage about 7pm and at 8.46pm Jacob was born. Things did get dramatic towards the end as my temperature rose and they decided Jacob had to come out immediately. The registrar came in and did a forceps delivery with a 2nd degree episitomy. Jacob must have been presenting strangely as the first thing she could feel was an ear so I probably wouldn't have been able to push him out by myself anyway. Everyone was upset as the one thing I really didn't want was an episiotomy but quite frankly by that stage all I wanted was him out!
He had to go to the paediatrician who was standing by as soon as he was delivered but once he'd been thoroughly checked he was placed on my chest. After I'd been stitched up I was able to feed him.
I spent 2 nights in hospital longing to go home so we opted for the early discharge program where the midwives visit you at home for 4 days. I've recovered really well and Jacob is beautiful, feeds really well and is only waking once in the night at the moment so I'm very blessed.
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