Labour & Birth

So 4:00 Sunday morning and I’d officially been having contractions for 24 hours, I couldn’t take anymore. We only live about 15 minutes away from the hospital so we got there for about quarter past 4. I was told to wait in the waiting area, little did I know they would keep me there for 45 minutes, huffing and puffing like a mad woman. At 5:00 they finally took me in to an assessment room where I saw the same midwife I’d seen last time I went, except this time when she examined me I was at 6cm! I’d planned on having a water birth so she kept me in the assessment room while she filled a pool. Before she left she bought in the gas and air, holy s**t I love that stuff! I took a few deep puffs and I could finally relax, well as much as you can when your in labour. Before I move on I just need to ask something, are midwives telepathic or what? How do they know when your about to have a contraction before you do?

I think I stayed in that room until about 5:45, when they took me into the birthing suite. It was a really nice room, there wasn’t anything clinical about it, just the pool, a bathroom and some beanbags. While we were waiting for the pool to be finished filling up I put some music on, this really helped me to get in control and stop freaking out, at one point I was actually singing and dancing in the middle of the room. Finally the pool was ready and I got straight in, it was lovely and relaxing, for all of 10 minutes! Almost as soon as I got in the pool I dilated all the way to 10 and my waters went. I’m not gonna lie, I freak out big time! Suddenly I wasn’t relaxed anymore and the pain took over. I clung on to my midwife and begged her to help me. I don’t know what I was expecting her to do but my brain wasn’t thinking very logically at that point!

I didn’t want to be in the water anymore! It just wasn’t helping me, I couldn’t relax and I couldn’t get in to a comfortable position to even think about pushing. I got out of the pool after maybe 20 minutes, half hour. I waddled my way over to the beanbags and knelt down kind of hugging the beanbags and I remember my midwife saying, “this is the hard part, this is why they call it labour!” That was exactly the pep talk that I needed, as soon as she said that I calmed myself down and focused on pushing. 2 or 3 pushes later my daughter was in my arms! I can’t believe I managed to get her out that fast! It still makes me super emotional now just thinking about it. As soon as I set eyes on her I fell in love, she was perfect.

Nothing on this planet will ever come close to the day I got to meet my beautiful perfect baby girl.

6lb 12.5oz

My gorgeous little girl, you were born on Sunday 18th September 2016 at 6:49 and you weighed 6 pound 12 and a half ounces. You are the best thing to ever happen to me! If I could of made time pause in this moment it would still be paused now! I love you so much! Mummy and daddy will always be by your side!!! This all sounds very soppy right now but hopefully one day you will get to experience this for yourself!

Week 38

So if you’ve read my first 2 posts you’ll see that I’ve pretty much skipped the whole pregnancy part but, I’m not gonna lie to you, I had a normal, easy pregnancy after the whole week 10 scare. I’m know I’m so lucky that I can say that! But it means that I don’t have much to say about it, I didn’t even crave anything crazy, just ice pops and anything citrusy.

We found out that the baby was due Tuesday 27th September 2016 at the 12 week scan.

Remember I said I was impatient in my first post well more proof, we paid for a private scan at 16 weeks so I could find out the gender. I’m pretty sure it cost £100 for the scan (3D scan) but for me it was totally worth it because, not only did we find out we were having a daughter But it was the only time we ever got to hear the heartbeat!

3D and heartbeat 16 weeks

20 week scan

We had the normal 20 week anomaly scan which showed that everything was normal and it also confirmed that we were definitely having a little girl. I started maternity leave at week 37, I’d saved holidays especially.

And that brings us to week 38, which started as another normal week. For some reason though by that Wednesday I had convinced myself that the baby was going to make an appearance by the following Monday, which is weird because throughout my whole pregnancy I had been telling everyone that I thought I would go 2 weeks over and need to be induced. Maybe it was the wise words of other people that had got that idea into my head, especially the closer I was getting to the end of my pregnancy the more bulls**t I was hearing, “oh almost all first time mums go over!” “Oooo you’ve still not dropped, your definitely not having this baby anytime soon!” Well let me tell you, IGNORE WHAT PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY!!! Friday afternoon my fiancé got a phone call telling him he needed to go in so work Saturday night, he never does overtime but this time he wasn’t given a choice. We joked around after that call telling the baby she needed to come now so daddy didn’t have to go in, little did we know that she was listening and she didn’t want her dad to have to do overtime either because, 4:00 Saturday morning I was woken up by a pain I’d not felt before. The pains were enough to get me out of bed but not crazy painful. I spent most of the morning going between trying to sleep, sitting in my dressing room and getting showers to help ease the pain, it’s my first time at this, I didn’t no if these were braxton hicks or the real deal. Come 18:00 my fiancé started getting ready for work, I was so nervous he was going to be at work when I had the baby that we decided to go to hospital to finally find out if I was actually in labour. It’s now 20:00 and the pains are getting stronger, my back was killing me, I was hooked up to a monitor and they performed an internal……….. only 2cm! Nooooo! But the baby was facing the wrong way and that’s why I was in so much pain with my back. They won’t keep you in until your at least 4cm, so they sent us home but they were sure they’d see us back within 24 hours. He was still planning on going to work! Not that he wanted to but for the fact that he hates letting people down. I begged him to call work and explain what was happing, thank god his manager told him not to even think about going to work. We got to my mums at about 22:30 so I could use her bath to try and relax (we only have a shower at our house). We stayed there until about 1:00 Sunday morning when we decided maybe we should try to get some rest at home. There was no chance I was going to get any rest now but at least daddy did. I managed to hold out until 4:00. I do believe though that if the baby was facing the right way I wouldn’t have been in as much pain and probably would have held it together for a bit longer.

This is it, we’re going to hospital as 2 for the last time! We’re having a baby………….

10 Weeks Later

Ok so considering this is only my second ever post things are about to get a bit heavy!!!

Little back story, my partner works nights!

Fast forward to 10 weeks pregnant and it’s 11pm on the 1st of March. So I went to bed pretty early for me this night, clearly feeling the effects of pregnancy! Anyway I went to bed and all was normal, I did the usual scrolling through Instagram before trying to fall asleep. Then I sneezed and I knew something was wrong!! As I sneezed it felt like I’d wet myself! I’m 22 I’m too young for that!! But my heart sank when I dived out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom. There was blood everywhere! And it was still coming out! I freaked out for a good 15 minutes before realising that that wasn’t going to help. So I pulled myself together and made the phone call to my other half. He’s Mr Laidback about everything and he wouldn’t let you know even if something was wrong!! But even he couldn’t cover the fact that he was concerned, I could just hear it in his voice, but still he did his best to keep me calm as I went to pick him up from work on my way to the hospital. Once I’d picked him up I don’t remember either of us saying a word the whole drive.

We walked into A&E and stood at the reception, the receptionist was sat there but it was more important for her to finish her trivial conversation with the other receptionist. Finally she turned to me with a face like, ‘well you don’t look like you need to be here’, and asked what the problem was. “I, I think I’m having a”, the flood gates opened as I tried to explain. She told me to take a seat and wait for the doctor.

So finally we got called through and put in a cubical where they did the usual tests, blood pressure, pulse, blood samples, you know the drill. And then nothing…… 4 hours we sat there waiting, worrying! It sounds strange but I didn’t feel pregnant anymore, so strongly did I think we’d lost it that I deleted everything baby related from my phone, the apps, the belly pictures, everything. So 4 hours later and the doctor says “there’s nothing we can do until you’ve had a scan but there’s no one here to do it so I’ve booked you an appointment, 10:30 the 3rd of March”. We left feeling worse than when we got there I think? We got home and I went straight to bed, and I didn’t move for the whole day. I drifted between sleep and crying.

But it was finally scan day, time to find out how our future will look. It was the worst day of my life, I’ve never been so scared. I got on the bed and I remember the woman turning the screen away so I couldn’t see it, that broke my heart! Then through the tears I saw her hand move back up to the screen…….. she turned it back and before I even realised what I was about to see I knew that things were ok!

The worst day of my life suddenly became the best because, not only was my baby very much alive but I could see it!

It all became very real at that point……..

Welcome To The Beginning…….

So 8 weeks ago I joined ‘club mom’ and I quickly realised that I want, or should I say need, to document this chapter of my life, not just for myself or you the reader but for my little girl.

This is my very first pop at this so before I start I just want to let you know that this will probably be more like a diary for me. I’ll be writing quite bluntly about things, because well lets face it once you’ve had a child there’s not a lot to be shy/coy/embarrassed about. Hopefully you will join me for the ride. 

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m doing!!!!! 😕

17th January 2016

By total accident we found out we had a bun in the oven!!!!!!

 

When I say we found out by accident I mean that I was due on on that day but for some reason I decided to do a test. I only had the cheap type in the cupboard so when that came back positive I wasn’t 100% convinced, so with 20 minutes before all the shops shut I dashed to Morrisons (the closest shop to me) to get a clearblue. Being the impatient person that I am I had to do the clearblue straight away!!

When I look back at this day there are 2 things I wish I had done differently:

1. Told my partner in a more ‘romantic’ way. As opposed to screaming at him to come upstairs before I’d even had chance to pull my pants up.
2. Not ran straight to the parents house to tell them. I am terrible at holding my water!!!!!! The same night we went, test in hand, to both mine and my partners parents to tell them the news!! The worst thing about doing that for me is that it was just too soon so I think it made the pregnancy feel even longer.

But from that day everyone’s life had changed…….. and this was just the beginning!!!