I wrote this down just after my little man was born. I wanted to get it down so that I didn't forget it.. it's the story of the arrival of my son. I hope you enjoy it!
I'd woken up with contractions on 22nd June 2010 but then went back to sleep around 4:30am so they had obviously stopped. I had a 39 week OB appointment on 22nd June where he did an internal and told me I was already 3cm dialated. Said I wouldn't make it to the weekend (Baby was due on Monday 28th June)... so I was excited. Because of the internal exam, I had alot of bleeding/mucus plug stuff during the afternoon and lost my mucus plug (or what was left of it).. and just felt out of sorts in the evening. Had a lovely relaxing bath and went to bed early.
4:30am on 23rd June I woke up with contractions, kinda like the morning before, except that I couldn't go back to sleep. Got my iPhone out with a contraction timer application I had downloaded and started timing the contractions. 5 mins apart and about 3/10. Woke DH up and told him that I thought I was in learly abour. Told him to go back to bed... and I got up and had a long hot shower. Phone the hossy at around 6:30am and told them what was going on. They encouraged me to stay at home until things got a little more intense. DH ran a bath and I hopped in around 7am... every contraction was still 5 mins apart but getting more ouch. Every time I had a contraction I would roll over in the bath so that my belly was downwards, and DH would massage my back... this happened for 4.5hours!! DH kept on refilling the bath with hot water and brought me powerades and lollies! What a champ!
Got out of the bath at 11:30am and thought that I probably should go to the hossy now. Jumped in the car, had two contractions on the way (now they were 8 mins apart)... got to the hossy around midday.. MW put the monitors on me and could only get a contraction once every 10 mins!! Said that I might have to go home which I was not happy about because I was in a little more pain now. She did an internal check and I was 5cm dialated... waters hadn't broken, but I wasn't going home. She asked me what I wanted to do for pain relief. I said I wanted a pethidine shot. Got the shot, felt like I had drunk 4 G&Ts! Felt awesome! Really calm and relaxed. Still felt the contracts but didn't really care too much about the pain. hehehe
Got back in the bath again and rocked out to Michael Jackson and the like for another 4 hours... DH continuing to massage my back for each contraction (what a trooper!).
At around 4:30pm the pethidine had well and truely worn off.. I'd been contracting every 4-5mins for 12 hours and I was TIRED. The contractions were very ouchy at this stage and I asked for the epi. Got back on the bed to have an internal check again, was at 9cm! YAY! Waters still hadn't broken and was bulging. MW said that I could still have the epi OR I could have my waters broken and his head would help me dialate completely and then I would have to push straight away. I opted for the epi because I was SO TIRED by this stage.. I just wanted a break. had the epi and rested for around an hour. Could still feel the contractions through the epi but it was no where near as painful (they must have been ripper contractions at this stage!).
Mum also arrived by this stage.. giving my DH a much needed break. She held my hand and helped me through the contractions while I was getting the epi... My mum is a midwife as well so I felt in good hands.
Epi wore off around 6:30pm and I started sucking back on the gas. I also felt so nauseous. I kept on saying "I need to vomit" and they had a kidney dish available just in case. 10cm dialated by this stage so MW went ahead and broke my water. Whammo... I needed to push.
7pm I started pushing. Mum was holding one leg, MW at the other side, OB down the business end and DH giving me the gas, water bottle and wiping my brow. The pushing felt GREAT! So much better than those pesky contractions.
1hr 5 mins of pushing and our son arrived! No tearing with the crowning, but a nice shoulder charge on that second push that resulted in 2nd degree tearing.. OUCH! Instead of panting through the contractions after the head was out, I just pushed again.. He was placed directly on my chest for a cuddle and he automatically went for the boobie! I asked to see the placenta when it came out. What an amazing organ.
DH got a cuddle afterwards and I have AMAZING video of L and Daddy meeting for the first time. So precious.
I got up after an hour or so and (very shakily) had a shower. A nurse had to be in there helping me because I was so light headed. Felt good to be in the shower. I couldn't walk because my legs were so shaky, so I was wheeled in to the maternity ward with DH wheeling our little guy along. So surreal!
DH stayed until 11:00pm, he was dog tired.. and there I was.. just left in a room with me and my son. I was so tired, but I was afraid to go to sleep. Because I had GD the nurses had to take him for a heel prick test to test his blood sugars around 12:30pm. I fell asleep when they took him, but the next time I woke up I had this scary old man looking over me! It was L's paediatrician and he was telling me that L had really low BSLs to had to be formula fed through a tube going from his nose into his belly. When I went to see my little man I nearly cried cos he looked poorly (even though the nurses kept assuring me that he was OK). I would still continue to BF every 3 hours or so, but in addition he would have around 20-30mL formula in his belly to help keep his BSLs up. He had his naso-gastric tube removed after 2 days but my milk hadn't come in.
So on the evening of the 2nd night he basically latched on to me and wouldn't stop sucking. But I didn't realise that he was hungry (being used to having a full tummy) so I didn't know why he was so fussy and wanting to nurse all the time. By around 3am, I was so exhausted, my nipples felt like razor blades had sliced them open, I called the nurses and asked if they had a pacifier or something because I couldn't take him nursing any more.
I was in tears and the nurses couldn't give me a paci cos it was hospital policy. I managed to side nurse and "sleep" for a couple of hours in the wee hours of the early morning. My mum came in to visit the next day and I told her about my horrible night. She said that he was probably hungry from having a full tummy the past couple of days and my milk hadn't come in. Why didn't I think of that?? Well, by this stage, from the CONSTANT suckling, my milk had come in with vengence... OMG! He had a nice full tummy from then on.
Still waddling about in the hospital we did a few "parenting classes" We tried to bath L for the first time but he screamed his little head off so that wasn't very successful. My va-jay-jay was very swollen after birth. I wore the maxiest of maxi pads they had available and was changing them every 2-3 hours. I was also peeing a hell of alot. The best thing at the hospital was the ice bricks shaped like mini iceblocks that you could put down your undies to provide some cooling relief down there. It was HEAVEN. I even took some home and froze them to use for the first few days at home.
The nurse would check L and me every morning. Me, they would check my uterus to make sure it was going down, the stitches to make sure all was good down there. I felt like I looked like I had a baboons bottom down there it felt so swollen! The paediatrician visited L every day, his poor little heels looked so terrible with all the prick marks but he didn't cry when he had them done! I found also that when I BF for the first few days that I would get these aweful contractions like labour pain and I would have to breath through them.. nobody told me about THOSE!
On the evening before we left hospital we were able to leave L with the nurses and go out for a meal. They put on a lovely candlelit dinner for two at the downstairs hosptail cafeteria... I was dead tired, but we went down anyway and just enjoyed some time the two of us, talking about our experiences over the past few days. There were a few other couples there... all of who looked tired and all the new mamas were waddling just as I was. We all looked like we had nappies on cos we were all wearing such bulky pads in our knickers! haha
On the morning we left, L had his circumcision. We opted not to watch, so he was given some panadol and taken away for an hour or so and then brought back to me. Then, we were given our marching orders and I couldn't wait to bring our new baby home! We went to mum and dad's first on the way home so we could show him off to some more family and neighbours. We had dinner there and got home around 8pm.
Stats:
Birth Date: 23rd June 2010,
BirthTime: 8:05pm
Time in Labour: 15.5hours
Weight: 8pd 4oz or 3.72kg
Length: 20.5 inches
Head Circ: 35.5cm
APGAR: 10/10 at 1 and 5 mins
It was an AMAZING WONDERFUL JOYOUS birth experience... my husband was FANTASTIC, having my mum there helping me was TERRIFIC. I would do it all over again in a heart beat...
Thanks for reading!
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