cornishfairy
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Well as Leo is now one week old and asleep briefly, I thought I'd write up my birth story, or at least what I can remember of it! Be prepared, it's a long post, grab a cuppa first! 
I was booked in for an induction at 12 days overdue at 8am on Saturday 7th June. That morning I'd been having what I assumed were Braxton Hicks but I noticed that in the car on the way in they were getting slightly more uncomfortable than usual. Once we were settled in on the antenatal ward I was hooked up to the monitor and the midwife confirmed I was having some very mild contractions. She checked me over and found I was 2-3cm dilated and she did a sweep while she was there. This must have been around 11am, then she gave me the pessary and I was monitored for another hour. By this point it was getting quite painful lying on my back all the time to be monitored and as soon as it was over I went walking round the hospital grounds with hubby. This is when it got painful, I was having to stop with each contraction and it didn't feel nice so we went back in to the ward to try the tens machine. Well, 5 minutes or so on that confirmed that it wasn't going to make a jot of difference so that went back in its box and we went off to run a bath to see if that would help. By this point it was around 2pm and I got hubby to try the contraction timer app on my phone. I was in tears in the bath and although the water was a slight comfort, it didn't really do enough to stop me freaking out! The contractions were about a minute long and 1-2 minutes apart. Hubby went to get help as I was saying how desperate I was for an epidural. Someone came to fish me out the bath and wheel me back to my bay on the ward where they examined me again and said I was at 5cm. The thought of another 5cm worth of pain was too much to bear! They gave me some codeine whilst they waited to see if there was room on delivery suite. Around 3:30pm I was wheeled up there and got started on the gas and air. I was pretty useless with it as I couldn't breathe slowly and deeply enough when I had a contraction for it to be very effective. The midwife kept telling me off for rushing with it but I just had no control! It made me feel a bit queasy too which didn't help so I continued screaming for the epidural! They were monitoring the baby again first and the heartbeat was a bit random so we had to wait for a doctor to say ok before the anaesthetist could come. I was panicking at this point as every contraction made me heave and with that I was pushing and couldn't control it, despite still only being 5cm. Thankfully the epidural went ahesd around 5:30pm and in no time I started to feel human again, much to the relief of hubby and the midwofe who could now hold a conversation with me!
Things progressed well from there it seemed; I had the drugs topped up around every 90 minutes and at 8pm I was around 8cm. This was around the point the midwives changed shift and whilst they were handing over I had a bit of a vomiting outburst (one of the things I'd been dreading!). Luckily it was only water as I wasn't allowed to eat on the epi, and before then I'd strufgled struggled to eat anyway as I'd felt yuck. I felt much better after being sick and the midwife told me I'd probably have the baby before midnight.
I was checked at 10pm and then again at midnight where finally she said I was fully dilated. Due to the awkward position of the baby she said give it another hour to give baby chance to move into a better position. Not sure when they broke my waters but when they did they were stained with very thick meconium so the paediatricians were told ready to be on hand when I delivered.
Pushing commenced around 1am with hubby ("I'm staying up the head end") getting right in there encouraging me to push harder, for longer etc and telling me what he could see. Our little man finally emerged at 2:37am on Sunday 8th June. We were team yellow but had been getting a boy vibe! The paediatrician was on hand to clear the meconium from his lungs as there was a lot of gurgling going on. I'd hsd a 2nd degree tear and lost 400ml of blood so I was being stitched up and then had skin to skin.
It was all so surreal and I still can't believe he is ours!
After the birth he was observed for 12 hours due to the meconium and sadly they found some signs that all was not well so he was taken to the neonatal unit at midday and remained there until Thursday afternoon. Seeing him covered in tubes and wires was horrendous but the staff were amazing and every day Leo got better (unlike me, I was really suffering with my tear as I was told to rest as much as possible but was spending hours walking back and forth to neonatal and sitting on hard chairs - ouch!).
Leo had a lumbar puncture whilst in NNU and we found out on the Friday (the day his antibiotics finished and we were expecting to go home) that there was a small chance he'd had newborn meningitis and he'd need an extra 10 days of antibiotics. We were devastated. Luckily they moved us from the postnatal to a children's ward which is where we are now, with a private room so hubby and I can both stay the night and also they let us out between his medication doses so we don't feel like prisoners as much now.
We're really desperate to go home but at least for now we can all spend some quality time together in between drugs!
It's been a long old week but he's been worth every second of it. He's such a sweetheart! I'll have to add a photo when we finally get home
xx
I was booked in for an induction at 12 days overdue at 8am on Saturday 7th June. That morning I'd been having what I assumed were Braxton Hicks but I noticed that in the car on the way in they were getting slightly more uncomfortable than usual. Once we were settled in on the antenatal ward I was hooked up to the monitor and the midwife confirmed I was having some very mild contractions. She checked me over and found I was 2-3cm dilated and she did a sweep while she was there. This must have been around 11am, then she gave me the pessary and I was monitored for another hour. By this point it was getting quite painful lying on my back all the time to be monitored and as soon as it was over I went walking round the hospital grounds with hubby. This is when it got painful, I was having to stop with each contraction and it didn't feel nice so we went back in to the ward to try the tens machine. Well, 5 minutes or so on that confirmed that it wasn't going to make a jot of difference so that went back in its box and we went off to run a bath to see if that would help. By this point it was around 2pm and I got hubby to try the contraction timer app on my phone. I was in tears in the bath and although the water was a slight comfort, it didn't really do enough to stop me freaking out! The contractions were about a minute long and 1-2 minutes apart. Hubby went to get help as I was saying how desperate I was for an epidural. Someone came to fish me out the bath and wheel me back to my bay on the ward where they examined me again and said I was at 5cm. The thought of another 5cm worth of pain was too much to bear! They gave me some codeine whilst they waited to see if there was room on delivery suite. Around 3:30pm I was wheeled up there and got started on the gas and air. I was pretty useless with it as I couldn't breathe slowly and deeply enough when I had a contraction for it to be very effective. The midwife kept telling me off for rushing with it but I just had no control! It made me feel a bit queasy too which didn't help so I continued screaming for the epidural! They were monitoring the baby again first and the heartbeat was a bit random so we had to wait for a doctor to say ok before the anaesthetist could come. I was panicking at this point as every contraction made me heave and with that I was pushing and couldn't control it, despite still only being 5cm. Thankfully the epidural went ahesd around 5:30pm and in no time I started to feel human again, much to the relief of hubby and the midwofe who could now hold a conversation with me!
Things progressed well from there it seemed; I had the drugs topped up around every 90 minutes and at 8pm I was around 8cm. This was around the point the midwives changed shift and whilst they were handing over I had a bit of a vomiting outburst (one of the things I'd been dreading!). Luckily it was only water as I wasn't allowed to eat on the epi, and before then I'd strufgled struggled to eat anyway as I'd felt yuck. I felt much better after being sick and the midwife told me I'd probably have the baby before midnight.
I was checked at 10pm and then again at midnight where finally she said I was fully dilated. Due to the awkward position of the baby she said give it another hour to give baby chance to move into a better position. Not sure when they broke my waters but when they did they were stained with very thick meconium so the paediatricians were told ready to be on hand when I delivered.
Pushing commenced around 1am with hubby ("I'm staying up the head end") getting right in there encouraging me to push harder, for longer etc and telling me what he could see. Our little man finally emerged at 2:37am on Sunday 8th June. We were team yellow but had been getting a boy vibe! The paediatrician was on hand to clear the meconium from his lungs as there was a lot of gurgling going on. I'd hsd a 2nd degree tear and lost 400ml of blood so I was being stitched up and then had skin to skin.
It was all so surreal and I still can't believe he is ours!
After the birth he was observed for 12 hours due to the meconium and sadly they found some signs that all was not well so he was taken to the neonatal unit at midday and remained there until Thursday afternoon. Seeing him covered in tubes and wires was horrendous but the staff were amazing and every day Leo got better (unlike me, I was really suffering with my tear as I was told to rest as much as possible but was spending hours walking back and forth to neonatal and sitting on hard chairs - ouch!).
Leo had a lumbar puncture whilst in NNU and we found out on the Friday (the day his antibiotics finished and we were expecting to go home) that there was a small chance he'd had newborn meningitis and he'd need an extra 10 days of antibiotics. We were devastated. Luckily they moved us from the postnatal to a children's ward which is where we are now, with a private room so hubby and I can both stay the night and also they let us out between his medication doses so we don't feel like prisoners as much now.
We're really desperate to go home but at least for now we can all spend some quality time together in between drugs!
It's been a long old week but he's been worth every second of it. He's such a sweetheart! I'll have to add a photo when we finally get home
xx
