Aha...after tempting you in with pics (I know you all love a baby pic 
)I'll try and keep this short and sweet but it's a bit of an epic! Scroll down to the bottom if you can't be bothered reading 
On Tuesday night at about 8pm I was having fairly mild contractions. As the night went on they became stronger so I rang the birth centre who said I was fine to stay at home for now.
By 4am the contractions had become much stronger and were only 1 2 minutes apart so the birth centre said to go in. All systems go!
Or so I thought......
Called my Mum, who lives 120 miles away and she jumped in the car and did her best speedy gonzalez through the night. All to no avail. By the time I got to the birth centre contractions had slowed down to a painful but manageable degree. They sent me home. Unfortunately they had found my blood pressure to be a bit high whilst I was there so asked me to go in the following day even if contractions had not speeded up.
Well Wednesday brought nothing but disappointment firstly my blood pressure had not gone down and I had protein in my urine so the birth centre told me I would have to deliver at the hospital after all. I was gutted.
We all trudged over to the hospital so I could be rigged up to the CTG machine for half an hour. Even though I was having 4 contractions every 10 minutes I was only just 2cm dilated!! 
Off home we went....
By Wednesday evening the contractions had slowed down so much that I was beginning to wonder whether this baby had gone into hibernation for Christmas. By midnight they were so vague I managed to sleep for a few hours, which, little did I know was going to be well worth it as the epic was to continue...
Fast forward through a painful Thursday, and by 10pm the tens machine was only just managing my pain. We sped off to the hospital once again, only this time I was screaming I'm not coming home without a baby this time!!. I barely remember the journey, but I did manage to control my pain by singing 'My Favourite Things' throughout each contraction, much to the amusement of OH and mum!
When we got to the hospital I was hoping to go to the midwife led unit, but BP was still too high and so I was transferred to the consultant unit as high risk. Once again strapped to the CTG machine I was begging to be set free telling the midwives I feel like I'm in prison! Please let me on the ball!. They did eventually, for half an hour.
After discovering I was only 3cm dilated, the midwife decided to break my waters to try and speed things up a bit. Unfortunately, the waters were stained with meconium so the obstetric team decided that they needed to induce me with a Syntocin drip. For this they recommended an epidural as it would bring on contractions thick and fast. My dreams of a calm, controlled labour were slipping away rapidly. After the epidural was administered, several hours went past uneventfully as I waited to dilate.
In the early hours of the morning I was ready to push, but a rather dippy midwife had not topped up my epidural so all of a sudden I was in full blown labour pain and having to push. In agony, I tried my best for nearly 2 hours. The baby's head was not descending down the birth canal very quickly as apparently my contractions were not strong enough (how much of a wimp did I feel for making such a fuss! ) and when the team found a second bout of meconium they decided they needed to do a ventouse delivery. For this they topped up my epidural to the max and I had to have a complete perineal episiotomy. Determined to get her out finally, they attached the ventouse and I gave two final mammoth pushes, which resulted in a second degree tear. At 9.41am I felt this huge relief of release from my body and a 7lb 9oz baby girl flopped onto my tummy. It quite literally took my breath away. There is no feeling in the world quite like it. As she lay squirming and grunting, slippery and shiny on my chest I knew I would have done the whole thing again in a heartbeat just to feel that. Here are some pictures of the event and of my beautiful little girl (sorry they are big - I can only just work photobucket!).
)I'll try and keep this short and sweet but it's a bit of an epic! Scroll down to the bottom if you can't be bothered reading On Tuesday night at about 8pm I was having fairly mild contractions. As the night went on they became stronger so I rang the birth centre who said I was fine to stay at home for now.
By 4am the contractions had become much stronger and were only 1 2 minutes apart so the birth centre said to go in. All systems go!
Or so I thought......Called my Mum, who lives 120 miles away and she jumped in the car and did her best speedy gonzalez through the night. All to no avail. By the time I got to the birth centre contractions had slowed down to a painful but manageable degree. They sent me home. Unfortunately they had found my blood pressure to be a bit high whilst I was there so asked me to go in the following day even if contractions had not speeded up.
Well Wednesday brought nothing but disappointment firstly my blood pressure had not gone down and I had protein in my urine so the birth centre told me I would have to deliver at the hospital after all. I was gutted.
We all trudged over to the hospital so I could be rigged up to the CTG machine for half an hour. Even though I was having 4 contractions every 10 minutes I was only just 2cm dilated!! Off home we went....By Wednesday evening the contractions had slowed down so much that I was beginning to wonder whether this baby had gone into hibernation for Christmas. By midnight they were so vague I managed to sleep for a few hours, which, little did I know was going to be well worth it as the epic was to continue...
Fast forward through a painful Thursday, and by 10pm the tens machine was only just managing my pain. We sped off to the hospital once again, only this time I was screaming I'm not coming home without a baby this time!!. I barely remember the journey, but I did manage to control my pain by singing 'My Favourite Things' throughout each contraction, much to the amusement of OH and mum!
When we got to the hospital I was hoping to go to the midwife led unit, but BP was still too high and so I was transferred to the consultant unit as high risk. Once again strapped to the CTG machine I was begging to be set free telling the midwives I feel like I'm in prison! Please let me on the ball!. They did eventually, for half an hour.
After discovering I was only 3cm dilated, the midwife decided to break my waters to try and speed things up a bit. Unfortunately, the waters were stained with meconium so the obstetric team decided that they needed to induce me with a Syntocin drip. For this they recommended an epidural as it would bring on contractions thick and fast. My dreams of a calm, controlled labour were slipping away rapidly. After the epidural was administered, several hours went past uneventfully as I waited to dilate.
In the early hours of the morning I was ready to push, but a rather dippy midwife had not topped up my epidural so all of a sudden I was in full blown labour pain and having to push. In agony, I tried my best for nearly 2 hours. The baby's head was not descending down the birth canal very quickly as apparently my contractions were not strong enough (how much of a wimp did I feel for making such a fuss!
) and when the team found a second bout of meconium they decided they needed to do a ventouse delivery. For this they topped up my epidural to the max and I had to have a complete perineal episiotomy. Determined to get her out finally, they attached the ventouse and I gave two final mammoth pushes, which resulted in a second degree tear. At 9.41am I felt this huge relief of release from my body and a 7lb 9oz baby girl flopped onto my tummy. It quite literally took my breath away. There is no feeling in the world quite like it. As she lay squirming and grunting, slippery and shiny on my chest I knew I would have done the whole thing again in a heartbeat just to feel that. Here are some pictures of the event and of my beautiful little girl (sorry they are big - I can only just work photobucket!).
