I know this is a little late, but I have started writing this post numerous times then Marcus has kicked off wanting feeding so have had to abandon it.
Marcus Thomas James was born on his due date 07.07.07 at 5.23am weighing in at 9lb 4oz. Well they did warn me this baby was going to be big!
I started off with bad back labour pains at lunchtime on the 6th when I was in hospital with one of my 'water infections' and by lunchtime I was like a woman possessed. I was only 4cm dilated but there was no room for me on the labour ward so they kept me on the ante natal ward until space was freed up. With having such horrible back pain, I wanted an epidural, or at least pethidine to help things a bit but I had to be admitted to the labour ward before they could give me anything stronger than co-codamol
Eventually around 2pm they had space so I had to walk to the labour ward myself. God knows what anyone coming into the hospital must have thought to see this very heavily pregnant woman waddling along and stopping every few yards as another contraction threatened to break my back. They tried to pacify me on the labour ward with gas and air sat in a chair at first, but not surprisingly that did nothing at all apart from send me away with the fairies for a minute or so. I then had pethidine and they made me get onto the bed and strapped me up to the monitors. The pethidine didn't work either and I had to demand that they give me an epidural or I was going home!!!
The anaesthetist arrived and had the fun job of trying to get the needle into my back amidst me having strong painful contraction pains in my back every 2 minutes or so. It took my mum and a midwife to hold me down whilst he put the needle in and administered the pain relief. Seconds later it was like heaven on earth. I couldn't feel a ruddy thing and I told the anaesthetist that I loved him! Poor guy didn't know where to look!
I then spent the next few hours happily drifiting in and out of consciousness. Another internal showed I was further dilated and my waters broke and gushed into the midwife's latex glove. Nice... The doctor was concerned about my baby moving around so much as they kept losing the heartbeat on the trace (though they could hear it no problem) and decided to put a monitor onto the baby's head so I then had a wire trailing out of my foof connected to the monitor - most undignified but in labour you really don't give a hoot about such things do you?
Did a good impression of The Exorcist at one point and started throwing up green bile (something to do with the gas and air) and nearly threw my ring up
Anyway, 11 hours after admission to the labour ward they checked and I was fully dilated and could start to push. So what did I do? Start pushing? No, I fell asleep! So second stage took over 2 hours... Hmmmm
I started getting twinges of pain back as the epidural was wearing off and had to beg, plead and downright insist that they top it up again - even though they weren't planning to as they felt it would slow second stage down even more. I said there is no way I can do this without pain relief so you either top it up or I want a section - either way you're giving me an epidural top-up!
Once that had been topped up and effective, I decided enough was enough and started pushing for all I was worth. Head was crowning and I kept going. Head came out. I pushed and pushed again but baby got stuck by his shoulders. Midwife tried to help ease him out but he was stuck fast, so she pressed a button somewhere and seconds later you would have thought the A-Team had been summoned as 4 people ran into the room and started picking me up off the bed, holding legs up and supporting me so I could push properly whilst the midwife did some bizarre manoeuvre to get the baby out. Suddenly it felt like something gave way inside me and whoosh, out slid the baby followed by a tidal wave of amniotic fluid. The cord was cut and they carried this purple mottled coloured baby over to the resusitation cot and he had a whiff of oxygen and started to cry. And he then didn't stop for an hour!
I got to feed him at some point but that first hour is all very hazy to me, but I do have a photo of me feeding him to prove that I did even if I can't remember it.
Here's a few pics:
Here he is after he had been cleaned up after being born. He wasn't impressed at having been woken up and screamed and moaned about it for about an hour:
A few hours later, up on my bed in the hospital, looking pretty chilled out:
And in his bouncy chair, having a good look round at his surroundings:
Marcus Thomas James was born on his due date 07.07.07 at 5.23am weighing in at 9lb 4oz. Well they did warn me this baby was going to be big!
I started off with bad back labour pains at lunchtime on the 6th when I was in hospital with one of my 'water infections' and by lunchtime I was like a woman possessed. I was only 4cm dilated but there was no room for me on the labour ward so they kept me on the ante natal ward until space was freed up. With having such horrible back pain, I wanted an epidural, or at least pethidine to help things a bit but I had to be admitted to the labour ward before they could give me anything stronger than co-codamol
Eventually around 2pm they had space so I had to walk to the labour ward myself. God knows what anyone coming into the hospital must have thought to see this very heavily pregnant woman waddling along and stopping every few yards as another contraction threatened to break my back. They tried to pacify me on the labour ward with gas and air sat in a chair at first, but not surprisingly that did nothing at all apart from send me away with the fairies for a minute or so. I then had pethidine and they made me get onto the bed and strapped me up to the monitors. The pethidine didn't work either and I had to demand that they give me an epidural or I was going home!!!
The anaesthetist arrived and had the fun job of trying to get the needle into my back amidst me having strong painful contraction pains in my back every 2 minutes or so. It took my mum and a midwife to hold me down whilst he put the needle in and administered the pain relief. Seconds later it was like heaven on earth. I couldn't feel a ruddy thing and I told the anaesthetist that I loved him! Poor guy didn't know where to look!
I then spent the next few hours happily drifiting in and out of consciousness. Another internal showed I was further dilated and my waters broke and gushed into the midwife's latex glove. Nice... The doctor was concerned about my baby moving around so much as they kept losing the heartbeat on the trace (though they could hear it no problem) and decided to put a monitor onto the baby's head so I then had a wire trailing out of my foof connected to the monitor - most undignified but in labour you really don't give a hoot about such things do you?
Did a good impression of The Exorcist at one point and started throwing up green bile (something to do with the gas and air) and nearly threw my ring up
Anyway, 11 hours after admission to the labour ward they checked and I was fully dilated and could start to push. So what did I do? Start pushing? No, I fell asleep! So second stage took over 2 hours... Hmmmm
I started getting twinges of pain back as the epidural was wearing off and had to beg, plead and downright insist that they top it up again - even though they weren't planning to as they felt it would slow second stage down even more. I said there is no way I can do this without pain relief so you either top it up or I want a section - either way you're giving me an epidural top-up!
Once that had been topped up and effective, I decided enough was enough and started pushing for all I was worth. Head was crowning and I kept going. Head came out. I pushed and pushed again but baby got stuck by his shoulders. Midwife tried to help ease him out but he was stuck fast, so she pressed a button somewhere and seconds later you would have thought the A-Team had been summoned as 4 people ran into the room and started picking me up off the bed, holding legs up and supporting me so I could push properly whilst the midwife did some bizarre manoeuvre to get the baby out. Suddenly it felt like something gave way inside me and whoosh, out slid the baby followed by a tidal wave of amniotic fluid. The cord was cut and they carried this purple mottled coloured baby over to the resusitation cot and he had a whiff of oxygen and started to cry. And he then didn't stop for an hour!
I got to feed him at some point but that first hour is all very hazy to me, but I do have a photo of me feeding him to prove that I did even if I can't remember it.
Here's a few pics:
Here he is after he had been cleaned up after being born. He wasn't impressed at having been woken up and screamed and moaned about it for about an hour:
A few hours later, up on my bed in the hospital, looking pretty chilled out:
And in his bouncy chair, having a good look round at his surroundings:
