Anjali Kaur Kinsella Kalsi was born 9 days early yesterday despite my conviction she'd be late!
just to explain the name Anjali is pronounced AN-ja-lee, Kaur is the middle name all sikh girls get, Kinsella is my maiden name and Kalsi is our surname (obviously!)
well, as most of you all know i had been away from home and due to return home saturday...
on friday i had had a show and suddenly i wasnt so sure she'd be late. we came home early afternoon saturday and i wasnt feeling as happy as i expected to be home, all our stuff was boxed up , the heating had stopped working for some reason! (lucky we had brought back all the heaters from being in the caravan) and i wanted to unpack some stuff straight away even tho i was having these random aches in my shin bones and generally my legs were feeling a bit achey. Kami had said leave it all for later but its lucky i didnt!!!
so by evening i couldnt really get a comfortable position to chill out and i thought it was just from having an active day and the travelling. I went to bed but about midnight i started getting like period pains . I was kind of pleased because it was a sign of more things happening but then i couldnt get to sleep. After i while i figured the pains seemed to be coming and going like contractions so i timed a few and they were every 8 minutes. It was all in the lower belly area though and nothing from the back so i ignored them and tried to sleep
still couldnt sleep tho and the pain seemed to be getting worse but any pain seems worse the tireder you get so i still didnt think anything much of it. I was still inclined to think it was false labour.
in the morning we had a friend due to visit . Kami asked if we should cancel her and i said no, because i thought if i was distracted i might not feel the pains.
the friend stayed a bit longer than id thought and i sat there subtley timing the contactions on that contraction master website and they were still 6-8 mins apart and everytime i had a contraction i was just holding my breath so nobody could see it was hurting.(it hurt to move or breath anyway)
after the friend went i said i'd call the midwife and see what she thought, i still thoughtit was false labour but i didnt fancy another night of it . She said to pop down the antenatal clinic cos she was there doing some work.
getting up to drive there and going over speed bumps made it all a lot more painful. the midwife checked me and her hand came out covered in bloody gunk (tmi lol) and she said 'you're almost 3 cm dilated, this babys coming tonight'
because she's given me the internal the contractions got a lot worse straight away, but i was still like, 'tonight? are you sure?' the midwife said 'yes, youve had 4 contractions since youve been here and thats only 10 minutes' lol
she said the reason the contractions had been at 8 minutes apart for 12 hours was because id been holding my breath and resisting. she tried to make me breathe through a contraction and i didnt like it at all
she said go home run a bath and call her when it gets unbearable
by the time i got home it was pretty unbearable anyway but i hung on another couple hours, the bath helped but then i started getting hot and cold and came out the bath and then the pain was getting so bad it was making me feel sick so kami called the midwife and she came over at 3.30.
having the gas made me breathe deeper because i had to breathe hard to get an effect from it. It wasnt as pain-numbing as id expected but it took the edge off and made me feel a bit woozy.
the contractions seemed to go on for hours and even though i got the hang of relaxing my breathing, i couldnt relax the tension in my bum no matter how hard i tried! i started to get frustrated and thought i'd never manage to relax my bum enough to let her out.
I tried lots of positions but nothing was comfortable, on my side was horrible, i ended up on my back on the sofa which i know is supposed to be the most painful but it was the best way for me and i stayed put like that.
The midwife checked and let me know when i was 5cm dilated. my waters still hadnt broken and kami was just asking the midwife when that would happen. She got up to change the gas cylinder and at that moment they EXPLODED with a massive pop and water shot all over where she had just been sitting !HAHA it was quite dramatic!!
i was 8cm dilated at 6pm, and the mw called for the 2nd mw. by that point i was feeling like surely i should be at the pushing-her-out stage and i was gutted my bump still seemed to be in the usual place! because of the gas i'd lost my concept of time and i was drifting off between contractions, like when you fall asleep drunk and your mind goes off telling stories.
soon after that the contractions got a different feeling, the cloest i can describe it is, like when you're throwing up right from the bottom of your empty stomach...except it wasnt throwing up, it was pushing out from the other end. it felt like all the pressure was in my bum , not in my ladybits at all. The midwife was saying 'push it down through your bum' so i decided i would just try really hard to poo because thats the only way i could be sure i was pushing right (yes i TRIED to poo lol) i hadnt eaten all day which i was really regretting by now cos i was feeling weak...but on the plus side it meant there wasnt much poo lol
then i was in second phase and the midwife said she could see the head and there was plenty of hair. i was so relieved something was coming out now! i pushed and the midwife checked something and said a bit of my cervix was in the way so she moved that. i wanted to tell her to just pull the baby out while she was up there!!!
then i felt the head crowing and i was really excited, it didnt feel too bad and best of all i could feel that my pushes were actually doing something. the contractions werent lasting quite long enough for me to do the lot in one go which was annoying!
when the head came out i think i actually made a noise for the first time lol , i was totally in my head up til that point. but i gave it a GRRRAAAAHH! and out popped the head, and yes it hurt but it really didnt hurt like i thought it would, and it was nothing compared to the contractions. The body slid out easy after that and Anjali was born!!! At 7.30pm, which the midwife said she would count as 5 hours from established labour. The second stage she said had lasted just 19 minutes!
i delivered the placenta without the injection, it only seemed to be about 10 mins later, and kami cut the cord.
we went to bed a couple hours later and Anjali slept most of the night and i finally got some sleep!
im so glad i got my homebirth, i would have hated to go through that in a strange place, i dont think i could have done it.
edit forgot to say i didnt tear either. just a couple of labial grazes
pics!
just to explain the name Anjali is pronounced AN-ja-lee, Kaur is the middle name all sikh girls get, Kinsella is my maiden name and Kalsi is our surname (obviously!)
well, as most of you all know i had been away from home and due to return home saturday...
on friday i had had a show and suddenly i wasnt so sure she'd be late. we came home early afternoon saturday and i wasnt feeling as happy as i expected to be home, all our stuff was boxed up , the heating had stopped working for some reason! (lucky we had brought back all the heaters from being in the caravan) and i wanted to unpack some stuff straight away even tho i was having these random aches in my shin bones and generally my legs were feeling a bit achey. Kami had said leave it all for later but its lucky i didnt!!!
so by evening i couldnt really get a comfortable position to chill out and i thought it was just from having an active day and the travelling. I went to bed but about midnight i started getting like period pains . I was kind of pleased because it was a sign of more things happening but then i couldnt get to sleep. After i while i figured the pains seemed to be coming and going like contractions so i timed a few and they were every 8 minutes. It was all in the lower belly area though and nothing from the back so i ignored them and tried to sleep
still couldnt sleep tho and the pain seemed to be getting worse but any pain seems worse the tireder you get so i still didnt think anything much of it. I was still inclined to think it was false labour.
in the morning we had a friend due to visit . Kami asked if we should cancel her and i said no, because i thought if i was distracted i might not feel the pains.
the friend stayed a bit longer than id thought and i sat there subtley timing the contactions on that contraction master website and they were still 6-8 mins apart and everytime i had a contraction i was just holding my breath so nobody could see it was hurting.(it hurt to move or breath anyway)
after the friend went i said i'd call the midwife and see what she thought, i still thoughtit was false labour but i didnt fancy another night of it . She said to pop down the antenatal clinic cos she was there doing some work.
getting up to drive there and going over speed bumps made it all a lot more painful. the midwife checked me and her hand came out covered in bloody gunk (tmi lol) and she said 'you're almost 3 cm dilated, this babys coming tonight'
because she's given me the internal the contractions got a lot worse straight away, but i was still like, 'tonight? are you sure?' the midwife said 'yes, youve had 4 contractions since youve been here and thats only 10 minutes' lol
she said the reason the contractions had been at 8 minutes apart for 12 hours was because id been holding my breath and resisting. she tried to make me breathe through a contraction and i didnt like it at all
she said go home run a bath and call her when it gets unbearable
by the time i got home it was pretty unbearable anyway but i hung on another couple hours, the bath helped but then i started getting hot and cold and came out the bath and then the pain was getting so bad it was making me feel sick so kami called the midwife and she came over at 3.30.
having the gas made me breathe deeper because i had to breathe hard to get an effect from it. It wasnt as pain-numbing as id expected but it took the edge off and made me feel a bit woozy.
the contractions seemed to go on for hours and even though i got the hang of relaxing my breathing, i couldnt relax the tension in my bum no matter how hard i tried! i started to get frustrated and thought i'd never manage to relax my bum enough to let her out.
I tried lots of positions but nothing was comfortable, on my side was horrible, i ended up on my back on the sofa which i know is supposed to be the most painful but it was the best way for me and i stayed put like that.
The midwife checked and let me know when i was 5cm dilated. my waters still hadnt broken and kami was just asking the midwife when that would happen. She got up to change the gas cylinder and at that moment they EXPLODED with a massive pop and water shot all over where she had just been sitting !HAHA it was quite dramatic!!
i was 8cm dilated at 6pm, and the mw called for the 2nd mw. by that point i was feeling like surely i should be at the pushing-her-out stage and i was gutted my bump still seemed to be in the usual place! because of the gas i'd lost my concept of time and i was drifting off between contractions, like when you fall asleep drunk and your mind goes off telling stories.
soon after that the contractions got a different feeling, the cloest i can describe it is, like when you're throwing up right from the bottom of your empty stomach...except it wasnt throwing up, it was pushing out from the other end. it felt like all the pressure was in my bum , not in my ladybits at all. The midwife was saying 'push it down through your bum' so i decided i would just try really hard to poo because thats the only way i could be sure i was pushing right (yes i TRIED to poo lol) i hadnt eaten all day which i was really regretting by now cos i was feeling weak...but on the plus side it meant there wasnt much poo lol
then i was in second phase and the midwife said she could see the head and there was plenty of hair. i was so relieved something was coming out now! i pushed and the midwife checked something and said a bit of my cervix was in the way so she moved that. i wanted to tell her to just pull the baby out while she was up there!!!
then i felt the head crowing and i was really excited, it didnt feel too bad and best of all i could feel that my pushes were actually doing something. the contractions werent lasting quite long enough for me to do the lot in one go which was annoying!
when the head came out i think i actually made a noise for the first time lol , i was totally in my head up til that point. but i gave it a GRRRAAAAHH! and out popped the head, and yes it hurt but it really didnt hurt like i thought it would, and it was nothing compared to the contractions. The body slid out easy after that and Anjali was born!!! At 7.30pm, which the midwife said she would count as 5 hours from established labour. The second stage she said had lasted just 19 minutes!
i delivered the placenta without the injection, it only seemed to be about 10 mins later, and kami cut the cord.
we went to bed a couple hours later and Anjali slept most of the night and i finally got some sleep!
im so glad i got my homebirth, i would have hated to go through that in a strange place, i dont think i could have done it.
edit forgot to say i didnt tear either. just a couple of labial grazes
pics!
